September 23, 2008 by kb8sfc.

Here is a classic video I’ve been wanting to see again, I think it speaks for itself…

Thanks to Shawn KB8UDE for the clip.

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September 17, 2008 by kb8sfc.

If Mr. Hosfelt were no longer with us I’d say he would be spinning in his grave. But as far as I know he is alive, well, and retired. Hosfelt Electronics is a shadow of it’s former self. Is this another case of children of a founder running the business in to the ground?

Today was not my first trip there in the last year but the results seem to get worse each time. I was ignored by the woman behind the glass for at least 15 minutes, which is a real change from the way they used to practically jump you as soon as you walked in the door. I finally decided to fill out the order form myself using the only catalog I could find which was without an index or a cover. After I filled out the order form, I finally got the attention of the woman behind the glass and was greeted with “oh are you ready now?” After I gave he my order form she advised me they “discontinued” their mini din connectors (which was the reason I stopped in today in the first place) and they haven’t had PL-259’s “in quite some time”. Half of the items I wanted were “discontinued” or out.

The store was full of mostly junk, maybe they should consider a name change to Hosfelt Junk Electronics. Maybe even “discontinue” using the word electronics in their name completely. They haven’t put out a catalog in years. It’s been all down hill, figuratively and literately since they moved downtown. It took nearly two years from when they closed the “show room” on Sunset Blvd until they open this pitiful excuse on 3rd street. Now I know paper catalogs may be old hat to some of you out there and E commence sites are the thing, even I prefer them. But the Hosfelt website is terrible it’s not even close to any other electronics dealer on the web. If you didn’t know better just by looking at their website you would think they were out of business. Most items on the site are listed “out of stock” or “temp out”. So I guess If you can’t make it to their showroom you can have a similar experience on their website.

The only redeeming quality to this visit was that a cat had a litter of kittens in the alley behind the building and they were letting them live in the store. The mother cat is extremely friendly and sat in my lap twice and since I’m a cat person this didn’t bother me. Now some of you may know that Universal Radio near Columbus, Ohio has cats in their store, well Hosfelt is defiantly not Universal radio, not even close.

I’ve been a customer and fan of Hosfelt Electronics for about the last 15 years, it saddens and sickens me to see what has become of it.

More pictures from my visit are now on flikr

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September 16, 2008 by kb8sfc.

After a billing snafu and 3 weeks in 404 land, along with many calls to 1&1, my blog is back, I’ll leave out the details for now until this gets fully resolved. Below you may find some “lost entires” from while my blog was in 404 land.

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September 7, 2008 by kb8sfc.

I attended the 1st annual Butler Swapfest today and I have to give it a good review. The Butler Hamfest was greatly missed last year and I was more than willing to attend this year.
It wasn’t without it’s problems but for the first year of an event in a new venue it went rather well. The area for tailgating was entirely too small and a lot of us were forced to tailgate in the parking area but at least the tailgating was free.

Of course it wasn’t without the usual cheapskates the worst was of course “Disco Stu” (as far as I know not his real name). He offered me $35 less than asking price on an antenna I was selling and when I tried to meet him $10 above his offer he just barked his bid at me again. Needless to say after going back and forth like that 2 times I told him “NO!”. Good thing he left the next thing out of my mouth would be to get away from me and quit wasting my time. This isn’t my first encounter with “Disco Stu” . He dresses like someone out of the late mid 70’s , some times with gold chains , shirt unbuttoned and chest hair showing. He wants to pay 1970’s prices and I can’t tell if he is wearing a hair piece or a bad comb over. I’ve never sold anything to this guy and probally never will. I doubt next time I’ll even bother to waste my time with him other than to tell him to move along and I know he is a HUGE cheapskate and not worth the time.

Shawn showed up around noon as I was getting ready to leave, it had started to rain and by 12:30 Des and I left and headed to Ci Ci’s Pizza Buffet in Butler.

I snapped a few pics on my way to drop off the tickets and posted them to flikr

I had fun and will be back next year.

73 DE KB8SFC

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