Hi All, > But Maplin Electronics is a UK based electronics store, generally > very competitive and a rival to Tandy (Radio Shack) here-- except > that Maplin have a wider range of products and are cheaper and > unless Tandy pull their fingers out they'll be out of business. > Tandy was owned by Radio Shack (USA). When they opened in UK, they had to use the Tandy name (their parents leather company name) 'cos Radio Shack was owned by a relatively small ham radio place in London. Tandy have now been bought by Carphone Warehouse, who are converting the shops to mobile phone shops. You may get some good deals form the local Tandy shop b4 they close, and reopen as Car Phone WareHouse. RS is Radio Spares. If you buy from them, beware of their own branded products. They source generic ICs from various suppliers, and the ones with RS on may be from Philips one week, and say Hitachi the next, and hence be to different specifications but RS won't say that. Generally over priced and over sized. If generally you want to buy cheap, then CPC is usually cheapest on most things, but often seem to be out of stock - like Maplins. CPC is at http://www.cpc.co.uk based in Preston -even sell garden shovels. I can not recommend any of the above named suppliers, and I've used 'em all, but your expectations may be different. Best wishes, Ray ----------------------------------------------------------------- To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
