The art of coarse engineering

[slidertogrid]

Ah.... laccy band bodges! surely the best I do remember on field service going to a huge hybrid Telefunken (an old set then) it was owed by a very stroppy difficult customer and during my investigation of the fault , (No Blue) I pulled off the tube base and one of the pins of the tube came out with it I soldered a nice point on the pin and put the base back on ,I could only get Blue if I held the tube base PCB so three elastic bands from the static convergence coils to the corners of the tube PCB and result! Hasty retreat made!But I kid you not the bodge lasted years, untill one day, clapped out ,we part exchanged it!
other laccy band bodges included the decoder on the Finlux "Peacock" (anyone remember them!) and I seem to remember a laccy band and matcbox bodge for the early Bush transistor colour chassis as on the front cover of "Television " mag it was to move the boards apart to prevent interaction,
bush modified later sets by turning the Timbase panel upside down I forget the chassis number was it the A823?

[Brian R Pateman]

Originally Posted by slidertogrid

other laccy band bodges included the decoder on the Finlux "Peacock" (anyone remember them!) and I seem to remember a laccy band and matcbox bodge for the early Bush transistor colour chassis as on the front cover of "Television " mag it was to move the boards apart to prevent interaction,
bush modified later sets by turning the Timbase panel upside down I forget the chassis number was it the A823?

Oh yes! I remember the Finlux - more dry joints than a bad G11.

And who remembers the mod for the LOPT on the very early Bush colour sets?

They were prone to catching fire so Bush issued a mod kit consisting of a wire mesh cage to fit aroung the offending item. Didn' stop it catching fire but stopped it from burning holes in the customer's carpet!

Those were the days.

regards,

[Tim]

I have just remembered an example of CE related to me some years ago by one of my college lecturers who spent some time as Tech on board ships.

One particular vessel he was serving on had a problem with the navigation system. The "auto pilot" would slowly drift to the port about 3 degrees per day.
A service engineer was dispatched, and declared
"Oh , one of THOSE!. He then removed the printed circuit boards, shuffled them like a TV newsreader and whacked them edge on on a firm surface, before replacing the boards.
" That thing souldn't give you any more trouble"
And it didn't!!

I believe the vessel in question was an oil tanker............

[evingar]

Originally Posted by Tim

I believe the vessel in question was an oil tanker............

Wasn't the Torey Canyon by chance

[boiss]

On the subject of daughters, all the guys in Marconi radar in the late sixties had daughters, and there were around 20 that worked there. The Secondary radars were often tested indoors, 8MW pk power on L band 30KW average power. Sometimes birds fell from the roof. It was also fairly normal to play with light bulbs and neons with the low power (10KW pk) airborne X band radars. 10 years after leaving there We had a son!
Boiss.

[Skywave]

Originally Posted by jim_beacon

All girls by any chance? We noticed that the men who worked for long periods on our Radar stations almost always had daughters. Don't know if that was just chance, or high power RF - the number of people involved wasn't really high enough.

Jim.

There's a co-incidence!
Only last month I was party to a group of engineers who have spent a lot of their life (so it was claimed, but quite believable) working with, in and around VHF Txs up to 20kW+ And the same observations were made. Nine engineers, 14 children and only one boy among them.
Is there something significant here

Al / G8DLH

[Skywave]

Originally Posted by Tim

A service engineer was dispatched, and declared
"Oh , one of THOSE!. He then removed the printed circuit boards, shuffled them like a TV newsreader and whacked them edge on on a firm surface, before replacing the boards. " That thing souldn't give you any more trouble"
. . . .

. . . . which reminds me - I expect some of you have heard this before - but some may not have -

Fred's TV was intermittently mis-behaving. Fred called out his local TV engineer, who when he arrived, took one slow, careful look at the set, muttered something about "Oh, it's a *****" (make of set). Went to the side of the set and, aiming carefully, gave it a meaningful THWACK! Fault cleared instantaneously - much to the delight of Fred. However, when Fred got the bill, he was puzzled. "Eight pounds and seven pence - so what's the seven pence for" asked Fred. "For thumping the set" came the reply. "And the eight pounds?" "For knowing where to thump it!"

Al / G8DLH

[peter_scott]

Originally Posted by G8DLH

14 children and only one boy among them.
Is there something significant here

Al / G8DLH

Maybe OT but perhaps a good queue for another survey.

[Mike Phelan]

There is the famous one, probably just an urban myth.

Customer: Picture is not right (we have all had one of these!)
Engineer: What is wrong with it?
C: It is just not right.
E: OK, I see (he adjusts vertical hold to make it roll slowly). Tell me which one you want.
C: That one looks better!
E: Right (locks vertical hold)
C: Much better.

Anyone in the trade always seems to know someone who knows someone that did this!

[slidertogrid]

Originally Posted by Mike Phelan

Customer: Picture is not right (we have all had one of these!)

Brilliant! wish Id thought of that one I used to de focus (then re focus) the picture and then tweak the red background up and down 9/10 times the cust would agree the picture was much better!
These custs we refered to as "FTW"s Ill let you work it out!

[Skywave]

Originally Posted by Mike Phelan

There is the famous one, probably just an urban myth.
Customer: Picture is not right (we have all had one of these!)
Engineer: What is wrong with it? . . . .

Err, what about the reverse?
Engineer: "That pics. not right, you know" (said as diplomatically as possible).
Customer: "Eh? Nowt wrong with it mate!"

I can't be the only one who, when visting some people's homes, look at their telly, and think "how on Earth can they watch THAT?" You know - the colour balance / grey scale is DREADFUL! Sometimes, if the conversation drifts round to the general subject of "you're the whizz kid with electronics" ( more like! ), I might casually make some appropriate, carefully phrased comment, hoping that they'll let me adjust the user controls: contrast, colour, etc. Often, though, the response is something like "Oh, no thanks, that's just fine as it is" / "We like it that way!" / Post - adjustment: "Nah, don't like it! Can you put it back as it was?"

Now I know that as a consequence of having spent a lot of my Life adjusting / repairing TVs and PC monitors, by now I have "calibrated eyesight", but are some people almost colour blind?

I don't know about the rest of you, but having to sit in front of a TV when it is so obviously out of adjustment this way drives me CRAZY!!

Al / G8DLH

[Mike Phelan]

Originally Posted by G8DLH

Err, what about the reverse?
Engineer: "That pics. not right, you know" (said as diplomatically as possible).
Customer: "Eh? Nowt wrong with it mate!"

I can't be the only one who, when visting some people's homes, look at their telly, and think "how on Earth can they watch THAT?" You know - the colour balance / grey scale is DREADFUL! Sometimes, if the conversation drifts round to the general subject of "you're the whizz kid with electronics" ( more like! ), I might casually make some appropriate, carefully phrased comment, hoping that they'll let me adjust the user controls: contrast, colour, etc. Often, though, the response is something like "Oh, no thanks, that's just fine as it is" / "We like it that way!" / Post - adjustment: "Nah, don't like it! Can you put it back as it was?"

Now I know that as a consequence of having spent a lot of my Life adjusting / repairing TVs and PC monitors, by now I have "calibrated eyesight", but are some people almost colour blind?

I don't know about the rest of you, but having to sit in front of a TV when it is so obviously out of adjustment this way drives me CRAZY!!

Al / G8DLH

I used to find that, as well, Al. Usually a completely sh d tube that the customer said was a great picture, or the colour and contrast were wound up nearly to max - I adjusted these "normally" and found on next visit that they had been turned up again.

I also had a customer with a G8 and A56-120 CRT that insisted (and the entire family did as well) that the "staggering" of the rows of pixels around the edge of the shadowmask was never like that before - we had to take an identical set out before it would shut them up.

[GMB]

Me too. I once visited a TV with a 1 inch high picture - but THAT wasn't the problem as far as the user was concerned!

My concern now is that it is people like that who think that digital TV is a good idea. Only yesterday I was being shown a very cheap digi-box by a neighbour - I asked if the picture broke up when you turned on the lights etc. because I had heard that sometimes happened. "Oh no" he said, "it never does that". Then someone turned on a light and the picture disappeared into digital mess. "Like that!" I exclaimed - he hadn't noticed it before.

[Skywave]

Originally Posted by GMB

Me too. I once visited a TV with a 1 inch high picture - but THAT wasn't the problem as far as the user was concerned!

. . . . And the user didn't regard a one-inch high pic as a 'problem' " . . .

WHAT! You have just gotta be kidding!
No, seriously - I just COULDN'T let that go by without some comment!
I've seen some unbeleivable TV "set-ups" in my time, but that really takes the cheese biscuit!

The range of what the (read: some) human minds will "accept" sometimes completely amazes me . . . .

Al / G8DLH

[arjoll]

Originally Posted by G8DLH

I might casually make some appropriate, carefully phrased comment, hoping that they'll let me adjust the user controls: contrast, colour, etc.

Sorry if I'm drifting OT, but I'm guessing then that you TV techies are quite different to us IT people? For me there's nothing worse than the whole "Oh, you're in computers? Well I've got a problem with...."

[Sideband]

Originally Posted by Mike Phelan

Anyone in the trade always seems to know someone who knows someone that did this!

Me included Mike...but I actually witnessed it during my early days when an awkward customer came to collect a repaired set .

I called up to the engineer who then came and 'adjusted' the frame hold and just said 'tell me when to stop'.....and the customer did, paid the bill and went away with a smile on his face ! We laughed about it for days after and I've never forgotton it.


Rich.

[Tazman1966]

Hello Al.

The thing that most makes me cringe are 4:3 pictures stretched to fill a 16:9 screen. I have now come across so many people that just cannot tell that it's completely wrong Even worse, when you set up the digibox or whatever to display the correct aspect ratio for the set they say that people seem to be too thin! Having lived with a techno freak for so many years you'd think that my wife could tell the difference between the aspect ratios but NO!!

Tas

[Dave Moll]

Originally Posted by Tazman1966

The thing that most makes me cringe are 4:3 pictures stretched to fill a 16:9 screen.

When my stepmother recently acquired a widescreen telly, this was presumably how it was set up when she received it

The first time I watched it was while she was in hospital and I was staying in her flat while visiting her. Needless to say, I changed it to letterbox (or whatever the vertical equivalent is) format to watch it - remembering, of course, to put it back how I found it when I left, otherwise she would have thought something was wrong with the set I don't bother trying to argue, it's not worth the effort.

[Skywave]

Originally Posted by arjoll

. . . I'm guessing then that you TV techies are quite different to us IT people? For me there's nothing worse than the whole "Oh, you're in computers? Well I've got a problem with...."

Err, but having spent 20 years in IT H/W support (bench, field, customer training) - until 3 years ago when I went back to RF - I get plenty of that TOO! I also get "you know about furniture . . . can you do something with this . . . " and "My car's misbehaving . . ." etc., etc.
The trouble is that we are our own worse enemy: we don't keep our interests secret!
A Technician's Lot is not a happy one!

Al / G8DLH

[ppppenguin]

Originally Posted by G8DLH

A Technician's Lot is not a happy one!

All together now, with apologies to W S Gilbert:

When engineering duty's to be done, to be done, a technician's lot is not a happy one, happy one.

Maybe some budding lyricist in the forum will do a few verses of the coarse engineering song.

Haven't listened to it but this link includes a karaoke file for the song

http://math.boisestate.edu/GaS/pirat...pirates24.html