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PostPosted: Sat Jun 18, 2016 12:28 am 
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Joined: Wed Jun 15, 2016 3:46 pm
Posts: 5
I've been a lurker of this forum for a long time.
Please forgive my grammar and the way I write. I've been told by medical experts I have severe neurological issues. Most likely as a result of working with fiberglass resins at work, later working with advanced aircraft composites, and the associated production solvents. I was employed at a major aircraft manufacturing plant in Everett for 22 years. I'm 62 now and been medically laid off, retired with full benefits. For the time being my medical issues are managed with medications.

Last week I bumped into Mr Cotton at the Safeway in North city. He's the retired owner of what was once ABC communications. One of my favorite businesses. At the time I was also obsessed with Radio shack, Lafayette, Radar electric surplus, Vetco and a few other now defunct electronics and parts stores.

I grew up in North king county. In my youth I was an overly obsessed electronics geek. Later in my teens I'd ride my little sears stingray banana seat bike from Lake forest park all the way up 178th street hill to ABC communications on 15th ave NE. This was at the old store on the west side of 15th. I'd buy electronic HEP brand parts, components and other related parts to build small electronic projects. My interest later progressed to monitoring police communications. I purchased several scanners, antennas, cables, etc, from ABC communications. One of several scanners I purchased was a Regency Act10r.
http://rigreference.com/en/rig/3705-Regency_ACT_10R. My first actual police radio receiver was a realistic patrolman AM/FM with VHF tune-able. I would listen to the KCP 154.965 repeater I'll guess for many hundreds of hours. This was with occasional bleed-over from nearby 155.010 which I later figured out was my neighbor LFP PD KFN508. http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/catalogs/1972-a/

Mr Cotton was the business owner of ABC., his wife usually worked as cashier. As they both got to know me, Both would greet me by my first name whenever I entered their store. Dave and Bob also worked there during the time and were very friendly.

While at Safeway last week, Mr Cotton and I talked awhile of old times. He's of advanced age and hard of hearing.
I just want to relay for those who know or may have known Mr Cotton, With much respect, He's still above the dirt.

I'd just like to say, Mr Cotton with his business, and the employees working there made a significant and positive impact in my electronics education during my youth and young adult life.


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PostPosted: Sat Jun 18, 2016 10:49 am 
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Joined: Sun Oct 03, 2010 9:00 am
Posts: 75
Glad to hear Jim is doing OK.
I knew him from the TV repair shop, also on the east side of the street in North City before he moved to the west side, then later the east side again in the old grocery store building.
At the TV shop he also sold some ham related stuff before the CB boom. Early 70's.
When I was first married we lived in North City, and used to run into Jim and his wife pretty regularly in and around North City and Shoreline.
Especially Sears...
I saw George, K7HBN at Seaside a couple weeks ago.
He worked for Jim for a long time.
Spent a lot of paychecks at ABC.


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PostPosted: Wed Jun 29, 2016 12:30 pm 
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Joined: Mon Jan 03, 2005 1:17 am
Posts: 2591
Location: Not Gulfport
I honestly don't have an opinion of ABC one way or another. I got into the radio hobby the late 80s and early 90s. In late 1990, when I turned 16, I skipped half a day of school to drive up to ABC to check them out -- as I had heard from local HAMs about ABC.

I loved the HAM shop in Ballard (can't recall the store name off-hand... they were a big Kenwood retailer. I bought my first Kenwood from them...) so I figured I would head up to North Seattle to check out ABC. (BTW, I was coming from Bellevue so this was kind of a drive for a relatively new driver - but when you're hooked on a new hobby it's pretty rare when you let anything stand in your way!)

I got up to ABC and the place was dead! I thought I was in the wrong shop... I don't recall how many people were there but I think it was less than two or three in total -- and yes, I believe they were all up there in age. At the time, I had some less-than-stellar experiences with older HAMs. It's hilarious thinking about this now... but they would bitch about LCD displays and CTCSS -- or the lack of it in their 1965 VHF rig. They definitely didn't like neophytes like me... wanting to see the latest Alinco, ICOM or Kenwood gear. Boy did they hate me... LOL! For them, it was a "club" experience and nothing more... the radio for them was just their mouthpiece -- nothing more.

Since I was reading CQ and PopComm at the time, I was expecting to see newer gear. I think they had one old 2m transceiver that was probably as old as I was... and a couple of HF rigs that were far older than I. I think they had a couple of used R/S scanners (the old fixed, two-digit LCD type, which scanned 10 bands) but that was pretty much it. (I was into scanning but since it was just listening versus transmitting the technology was all the same to me...)

A few years later, I worked up at Computer City in Shoreline (now a Big 5 Sporting Goods) and stopped by there in mid-1995 and the ABC had been recently closed for business.

PS. I finally had a great experience with some older HAMs -- at Amateur Radio Supply in South Seattle. The few that I dealt with were the best. They were as giddy as I was playing with the newest toys. Virgil was great. Sold me my first portable (Alinco DJ-580T) which I paid for myself. ($387 in June 1993!) A couple of the sales guys at the Ballard HAM shop were younger and so we seemed to click better. I bought my Kenwood mobile from them. It was later stolen out of my car at said business up in Shoreline! :(


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PostPosted: Wed Jun 29, 2016 12:31 pm 
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Joined: Mon Jan 03, 2005 1:17 am
Posts: 2591
Location: Not Gulfport
SlowRider wrote:
At the time I was also obsessed with Radio shack, Lafayette, Radar electric surplus, Vetco and a few other now defunct electronics and parts stores.


In case you weren't aware, Vetco is still around... ;)

http://www.vetco.net


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PostPosted: Thu Jun 30, 2016 1:37 pm 
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Joined: Sat May 26, 2012 9:02 am
Posts: 88
nickcarr wrote:
I got up to ABC and the place was dead! I thought I was in the wrong shop... I don't recall how many people were there but I think it was less than two or three in total -- and yes, I believe they were all up there in age. At the time, I had some less-than-stellar experiences with older HAMs. It's hilarious thinking about this now... but they would bitch about LCD displays and CTCSS -- or the lack of it in their 1965 VHF rig. They definitely didn't like neophytes like me... wanting to see the latest Alinco, ICOM or Kenwood gear. Boy did they hate me... LOL! For them, it was a "club" experience and nothing more... the radio for them was just their mouthpiece -- nothing more.
:(


The ham shop in Ballard was C-Comm. George K7HBN worked there as well as a few other hams. Their repair shop was good and their prices were competitive with the big outlets. They did a lot of mobile radio work and either C-Comm or the employees of C-Comm started a mobile radio service and repair about a mile N of the C-Com location in Ballard. I took a TS-520 in there to get tuned up and saw George and had a nice conversation.

ARS in Georgetown was the last "real" ham store in Seattle. It went on for a few years after Mr. Aspenwall, W7PV, sold it and retired. They had used gear on consignment and, pre-Bay, it was the place to get used gear all of the time.

My experiences with ABC during that time frame are about the same. Nothing going on and not much interest in the business. They had a short lived business in Bellevue whose employees seemed interested but the store didn't last long.


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PostPosted: Sun Jul 03, 2016 9:39 pm 
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Mr. Bad Example
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Joined: Sat Feb 21, 2004 10:11 am
Posts: 8021
Location: At home for good?
I liked ARS down in Georgetown. Wide open store, decent enough selection, Starbucks a few doors down, and always an answer to a question. I once took (Jon) KF7YN there and he bought so much stuff we couldn't fit it all in my car...Vs the time he and I went to that Spy-PI place on Eastlake, and the guy tried to sell us a "super high gain discone antenna" for sniffing out bugs.

ABC, on the other hand....Well, I went there twice. The first time I was nearly completely ignored. Saw glass cases full of dusty 20-channel scanners, circa 1980 books on how to learn Morse code and Maxon FRS radios priced at $170.

The second time I went in, I asked about buying a 5/8 VHF mobile antenna:

Q- "What do you need it for? Commercial or ham?"
A- "For a scanner. Not a ham and I don't have any 'commercial radios' to hook it to".
Q- "What? A scanner? You're not a ham? Sheesh, you want someone to program it for you too? I won't sell you an antenna."

Never seemed to make it back after that.

_________________
President-in-Exile, Seattle Area Radio Communications And Scanner Traffic Intercept Crew (SARCASTIC)
Don't feel bad if you can't use your STD100/200; there are still people using Digital Frequency Search!
Bunnery definition for the under-fives


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PostPosted: Mon Jul 04, 2016 1:28 pm 
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Joined: Mon Jan 03, 2000 9:20 am
Posts: 1983
I remember Jim. For that matter I remember ABC/ARS/C-Comm quite well. My first purchases at ABC were a Johnson Viking Challenger circa 1980 followed a year or so later by a HT32A/SX101mk3 Hallicrafters.

"Those were the good old days"

As luck would have it there is a retail radio store nearby (HRO) and a real electronics store (All Electronics). Unfortunately it seems every good store I remember from times past is long gone. As convenient as the internet is its just not as cool as having the equipment in front of you and dealing with the store personnel in person. I bought a few radios from George K7HBN during his time at ABC and at C-Comm.


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PostPosted: Mon Jul 04, 2016 6:00 pm 
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Joined: Mon Jan 03, 2005 1:17 am
Posts: 2591
Location: Not Gulfport
If anyone went down to ARS when they were on Corson Ave back in 1994 and found the displayed ICOM R9000 set to 418.95 Mhz [DEA] that was probably me! xD


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