[Vectamart]

Michael Maurice's post reminded me of an scenario that I experienced a few times. Those of you who are experienced with the Philips/Pye CTX and KT4 ranges of sets will remember that they had a tendency to develop dry joints on the LOPT.

The typical situation was the customer would call you out with the complaint that the set "keeps cutting out".

Of course, the back would come off, the offending joints would be re-soldered and the back replaced - all done and dusted in less than 5 minutes.

Typically the customer would say, " Oh, that didn't take long. Do I owe you anything for that?"

Of course, the bill would probably in those days be about £15 and when presented with this, they would bleat, "but you haven't been in the house 5 minutes. how can you justify such a charge?"

I would reply, "Here's the breakdown of the bill, madam. Resoldering the dry joints us 5p. Knowing which ones to solder is £14.95!

We used to carry out a lot of repairs on a cash and carry basis. This was far easier all round because obviously you had the use of full workshop facilities and if the customer brought in a CTX with the inevitable dry joints on the LOPT, we would say to them "Ah yes madam - we can see what the problem is but it won'y be ready for about an hour or so."

Of course, not knowing that the job only took 5 minutes, they paid up quite willingly without quibling. Ignorance is bliss!