Welcome to The Shack

First of all I am not an official representative of any retail corporation and have not been compensated in any way.

One of my favorite hang outs in my youth was Radio Shack. I remember when I was ten my dad introduced me to my favorite store showing me a stack of magnets the retailer kept by the register. I was intrigued by not only how the magnets attracted each other but if you flipped one of these ceramic disks over they repelled one another by equal force. Then I discovered how many more interesting gadgets the store sold. It was paradise for a technology geek like me. I could usually leave the store having spent not much money because most of my purchases were small parts for my own projects.

Just like Federal Express became Fed Ex and Kentucky Fried Chicken KFC my favorite store is now The Shack. In this modern age I suppose the “Radio” in their name sounds archaic. Maybe it is a throwback to an earlier time, but I hope us old guys are not forgotten because I believe we hobbyists are still alive and well. I understand they’ll still be know legally as Radio Shack.

This got me thinking, should the Radio Rewind weblog become The Rewind? How about an unpronounceable symbol just as Prince renamed himself a few rears back? Nah! I’ve already renamed it one time but I do see the wisdom in dropping part of a name to sound more hip (cool, or whatever the new word is) in today’s youth driven marketing.

Great Expectations

As a youngster I took a job in AM radio. It was old fashioned even then, 26 years ago, for a 17 year old to listen to AM, although FM had just, at the close of the 1970’s, become king of the airwaves overtaking AM in popularity. Just like the CD all but destroyed the LP. The superior technology wins. Throughout my entire 12 year run in AM I felt it was a medium for the elderly. I wasn’t the target demographic of any of the stations I worked for. I listened as part of my job.

My first few unfledged turns at the microphone I could rely on school mates and family to listen while slowly building a wider legitimate audience as I learned to fly; I believe that by the time I began life at my second radio home, now a bit more seasoned, literally no one was listening excluding me. Known then as Jim O’Neal I had no captive audience on which to build. In retrospect, the hobby aspects of the new job was all I had. Don’t get me wrong, I was extremely lucky to be working in a career I loved. But when you’re on a 1,000 watt daytimer with critical hours of 500 watts your station is pretty much mathematically eliminated. I will discuss WSPZ-AM, my radio home from 1987 through 1990, in a future installment of my companion blog Peanut Whistle. See it at http://peanutwhistle.blogspot.com

Stay tuned.