This is said. first Radio shack changed all out of recognition and still couldn't "make it". Now the few remaining Mom-and-Pop (or at least Pop
) type shops that are left seem to be disappearing, too.
It's probably not practical, but I wonder if AK collectively could pool resources to buy out this guy's stock, and perhaps the stocks of other, similar stores, then provide/draw parts from those stocks to supply AKers who need them, as needed. People who chipped in would get equivalent credit for purchases, and any profit from sale of extra items (eg, auction of those old radios mentioned in the article) could either be distributed among the AK investors or donated to AK. The magazines could either be sold or gradually have their more interesting parts scanned and posted here. Key to this whole idea would be cheap storage space: anyone near there have a huge empty basement to store the stuff in? This whole idea might be too ambitious and impractical, but it would be one way to ensure greater availability of increasingly-scarce parts in coming years. The more of these places that close, the harder it will be to source the bits and pieces needed to keep our gear going. Just a thought.
THEN AGAIN, if, as the article suggests, the near-immediate availablity of everything via internet is that good, then maybe there is no point in this. Hard for me to assess: we still have such shops in Hong Kong (although fewer than there used to be), so I source everything locally and don't buy via the net.