Useless Piece of Crap
I use this little radio I bought from Radio Shack about 10 years ago to listen to news and sports, usually while I’m doing the dishes or cleaning the house. It’s been falling apart for about the last five years; the spring that holds the battery in is all unsprung and so if the thing tips, you lose transmission; also, for some reason, it doesn’t really play in stereo, which isn’t that big a deal since I usually only listen through one earbud, anyway.
In any case, I’ve been wanting to replace it with something more reliable, so a couple days ago, I sprung for a new model at—since Radio Shack no longer makes something similar—Bartell’s drugs, where they had a decent selection of small transistor radios, all priced at $9.99, all made by a company from China called Coby, whose graphics and design are obvious;y meant to confuse customers into thinking they are purchasing a Japanese Sony.
The first one I got, though, had a tuning dial so tiny that the space between stations was so small you could never manage to lock in any one program; while I was trying to listen to the World Series, some oldies show called “The Music of Your Life” kept bleeding through.
So today, I took the piece of crap back to the drugstore and exchanged it for one whose dial was bigger.
I took it outside and tried to tune in today’s Washington Huskies game; same problem, even though the station I was going for powerful and local. So I took that piece of junk back, too, and exchanged it for one with a digital tuner; clearly I’ve become one of these grouchy old people who obsess over a ten dollar item.
Thing is, this new radio works no better, but I was too embarrassed to return it to the store a third time.
On Monday, though, I’ll go to a different branch and get my money back.
In any case, I’ve been wanting to replace it with something more reliable, so a couple days ago, I sprung for a new model at—since Radio Shack no longer makes something similar—Bartell’s drugs, where they had a decent selection of small transistor radios, all priced at $9.99, all made by a company from China called Coby, whose graphics and design are obvious;y meant to confuse customers into thinking they are purchasing a Japanese Sony.
The first one I got, though, had a tuning dial so tiny that the space between stations was so small you could never manage to lock in any one program; while I was trying to listen to the World Series, some oldies show called “The Music of Your Life” kept bleeding through.
So today, I took the piece of crap back to the drugstore and exchanged it for one whose dial was bigger.
I took it outside and tried to tune in today’s Washington Huskies game; same problem, even though the station I was going for powerful and local. So I took that piece of junk back, too, and exchanged it for one with a digital tuner; clearly I’ve become one of these grouchy old people who obsess over a ten dollar item.
Thing is, this new radio works no better, but I was too embarrassed to return it to the store a third time.
On Monday, though, I’ll go to a different branch and get my money back.
posted by Professor Dave at 6:12 PM
2 Comments:
I think this is also why some older radios had DX/local switches.
The best money I've ever spent on electronics was on a GE SuperRadio about 10 years ago.
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