Please Help Get SolderSmoke into RadioShack Stores

Several listeners sent me the link to a new campaign by the RadioShack stores. They apparently want to get back into supplying parts for the electronics DIY community. Great! I always liked the oft-maligned stores. I missed them when overseas, and was always saddened to see them drifting away from the world of our kind of radio shack. But it appears that the 'shack might be coming back! RadioShack has asked customers to leave comments on their blog page listing the three items that they would like to see added to the RadioShack inventory.

I would really appreciate it if you guys would go to that page and tell them that you think it would be a good idea for them to sell the book "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" in their stores. You can point them to the link http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm

Some things you might mention in your comments on the RadioShack blog:

-- One of the reasons I wrote the book was because I wanted to try to help perpetuate the old, friendly, cooperative ham radio spirit: The culture of the Elmer and all that. The shared junk box. The willingness to help someone with a project or a technical problem. This book might help foster the kind of sense of community that would help everyone (including RadioShack!)

-- The book was in part inspired by the RadioShack publications of the great Forrest Mims. Like Mim's books, SolderSmoke has lots of hand-drawn diagrams.

-- The book actually contains (already!) a very favorable comment about the important role played in DIY by the RadioShack stores.

-- While it is mostly about ham radio, it was written to appeal to the broader electronics DIY community, and contains wide variety of projects including astronomy, kite aerial photography and rocketry.

-- The author -- Bill Meara -- would be willing to work something out with them (!)

So, gentlemen: Please get typing! Don't tell them I sent you ;-) Let's make this seem like a spontaneous outpouring of popular support.

Here is the blog location for RadioShack: http://blog.radioshack.com/post/2011/05/19/RadioShack-And-The-DIY-Community-You-Talked-Were-Listening.aspx

or http://blog.radioshack.com/post.aspx?id=f7239c83-8fd3-47e4-9fb9-395f57b56bb7

If you are so inclined you could also tweet them your input @Radio Shack

And you could put your comments on their Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/RadioShack

Thanks a lot!