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Old 10th Jan 2015, 11:37 pm   #21
_Clint_
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Default Re: Ex TV Engineers

I think the reason we remember favourably, is that back when we were fixing TV's, things DID tend to go wrong, and people were happy to get it fixed.

Now things tend not to go wrong and people are peeved that they do.
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Old 10th Jan 2015, 11:51 pm   #22
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Default Re: Ex TV Engineers

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Now things tend not to go wrong and people are peeved that they do.
That's true, the upset if email, facebook or whatever goes down for a couple of hours is enormous.
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Old 11th Jan 2015, 12:28 am   #23
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I only ever did three weeks on a TV van with a Co-op crew [aged 16] but based on this and all the stories in the many and varied magazines over the years, I came to the conclusion that TV engineers seem to have been an extremely skilled, adaptable and indispensable group but somehow always open to exploitation by the employer [if they had one] and/or the customer.

After all, who else could fix anything-especially in the VCR era? There was a terrific demand for sets to be repaired so, theoretically, it should have all gone better. The comments from Gerry Wells about feeling respected [p24 the Sparks Will Fly Thread] don't seem to be at all universal. I mention there that engineers in Germany get a respect, historically, relatively absent here!
Dave W

NB The "sparks" don't relate to those in Clint's post.
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Old 11th Jan 2015, 12:34 am   #24
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Originally Posted by ITAM805 View Post
Although not a TV serviceman, I worked in the trade at a service department in the early 70's. From the workshop in Greenwich we serviced customers of a couple of shop chains in SE London, Kingsons and Keating & Miskin, although my wageslip had British Relay on it!
Slightly OT; but one day could someone explain the 'tie-up' between British Relay and Kingsons. A company in my youth, Mercers, were bought out by British Relay which then meant, in effect, BR could sell rather than just rent sets. The credit books (resembling pension books) had Kingsons on them. Always wondered why and who they (Kingsons) were
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Old 11th Jan 2015, 11:14 am   #25
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TV sets went wrong fairly often, so they was plenty of work. Busy periods would occur during Wimbledon tennis fortnight especially if the weather was hot and LOPT's would fail. Another complaint during Wimbledon on badly set up colour sets "we can't see the ball".
World cup football was also a busy time.

Out on the field. Plentiful cups of tea, sometimes a tip. Finding somewhere to plug soldering iron in. Moving ornaments from tops of TV's. Crouching in small corners behind sets. Avoiding dog licks. Explaining it was not the "picture valve" gone. Wishing houses had numbers on in a street with only names. Trying to explain there is nothing wrong with the set it is their aerial at fault. Happy faces when delivering new colour TV's at Christmas time. Council flats with problematic communal aerials. Cleaning the CRT face in houses where the people smoked, made the picture much brighter! Cleaning tuners (405 days).

In the workshop, changing CRT's, getting a tricky fault and the pleasure when you have solved it. Cleaning dust from sets which made you wonder how they got so dirty. Visits from SEME and other reps.

In the shop trying to handle customers who were "time wasters" and you knew were not going to spend any money just trying you for information.
On the telephone, handling irate customers who expected you to call on them straight away!

Not to mention lifting heavy colour TV's, keeping up to date with changing technology.
How did we do it all?. Young and fit back then.
John
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Old 11th Jan 2015, 12:04 pm   #26
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Default Re: Ex TV Engineers

John...Sums it all up perfectly!
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Old 11th Jan 2015, 1:05 pm   #27
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Must admit I did not have too much trouble with interference after we went all 625 lines. However as channels were taken up co-channel interference became more of a problem, and in my area it was via our continental neighbours. I fitted a rotating aerial and caught glimpses of Dutch and Belgian transmissions. Early in 1968 a massive anticyclone drifted down the North Sea and settled over northern Germany. The following morning saw local test cards on almost every channel fron 21 to 68. I still have the off screen pictures and hope to put them in the gallery if I can download them onto this chromebook. An s9 image appeared on our local BBC2 channel 44 from Eiderstedt in Germany. I sent a picture to the Enginners at Sudbury with the words ... "This is what lurks on your channel before breakfast".

To be able to search channels early in the morning was much easier in those days as programs did not run 24/7 as most do now. It was often gone 9AM before Sudbury put up a test card. The anticyclone held for a while and I was able to see some of the early colour tests. Colourful music shows appeared and have ongoing implications to this day.
One project was to convert a 405 line set to 625 and fit a 5.5 MHZ IF strip for the sound. This set was on permanent DX duty.
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Old 11th Jan 2015, 4:02 pm   #28
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I didn't start until 1954 so you must be very old. I worked for a year in London for a firm called City Sale and Exchange, a subsidiary of Wallace Heaton the photographic firm. As well as radio and TV we did Hi Fi, Quad, Leak and the other well known brands of the time.

In '55 I started work in our local TV shop in Petts Wood, long since gone, and then started up on my own when we got married in '64, we had a TV shop in Sevenoaks for a while before we moved down here.

Those early days were the most interesting and enjoyable because everything was so simple and easy to understand - with the possible exception of Philips.

Our ITV from Croydon on Ch 9 was nearly wiped out by the new Crystal Palace transmitter but someone produced some cheap tuned filters for 45mhz which would either attenuate the picture or sound but not both together.

Take me back there.

Peter
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Old 11th Jan 2015, 5:23 pm   #29
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I was a ex tv engineer. Most of the time it was installing new tv sets in Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire regions.
I did enjoy this job as I was given a job sheet for the day; it could be up to 20 jobs. Only one thing I hated is not knowing when to collect a tv back off rental... is it cancelled rental or the customer didnt pay the rent?

I had a few scary events in that time.. As I am a deaf person the deaf customers were very happy to meet me and I can show them the problem or show how tv/ video worked.

When I was made redundant in 1998 I still carried on repairs for myself as my hobby is collecting tvs and videos of the 70's and 80's, it was fun while it lasted.

Last edited by Mike Phelan; 12th Jan 2015 at 10:09 am. Reason: Ii
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Old 11th Jan 2015, 6:53 pm   #30
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I remember the Crystal Palace TX opening up. Was working in Slough at the time, and most problems came from too strong a signal, so attenuattors had to be fitted in many cases. The ITV converter boxes that used ch1 as IF did suffer from interference at times. I seem to remember a sunspot cycle which knocked ch1 around and also caused a teleprinter to get in the 38MHZ IF. Then it was a case of fitting a filter. I built a receiver for ham bands and we could hear the ZLs coming in just on the shop's radio aerial.
Interesting days!
73, Mike
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Old 11th Jan 2015, 9:29 pm   #31
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One of the best stories I heard about home tv servicing was this.
If the customer was still not happy after setting up the tv the engineer would say 'I've got a special picture adjuster in the van for special customers only'
Clutching this magical device ( an Avo ) he would ask the customer to sit down in his favourite chair and with the frame hold set to slowly roll he would ask the customer to choose the picture he liked best.

Worked a treat, happy customer and happy engineer!
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Old 12th Jan 2015, 10:11 am   #32
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Default Re: Ex TV Engineers

Heard that one a few times!
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Old 12th Jan 2015, 10:13 am   #33
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A customer called in with a frame fault one day. "It's gone all 'midgety'", she said. "Whatever are you going to do about that?"
I looked at the shrunken image and said with a wry smile. "Difficult one there, the thing is I've got to put my foot on the bottom while I pull out the top".
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Old 12th Jan 2015, 10:26 am   #34
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Default Re: Ex TV Engineers

Some great reading here.
I entered the TV game as an apprentice with Koffler's of Gorton in 1969. The single-standard era was just starting but there were plenty of viewers still using 405 only sets. Lots of older engineers were leaving as they felt the new-fangled colour sets were too complex and unfixable.
After a year there, I left to join a more local firm in my home town and stayed there mainly as a bench engineer (but with the odd stint n the van) til 1990, when the trade was changing fast. Got my Radio Amateurs' licence in 1984. By this time I had become senior engineer and (reluctant) service manager, and I found myself getting increasingly cheesed off by the attitude of some customers, who 'knew their rights'. The 'nice families' were disappearing fast.
We were agents for Bush and BRC and later Sharp and Panasonic. Finally Sony. Pet hate: fixing pub TV's. Loved: nice Polish families who gave me a warm welcome and some respect, not to mention the tea and snacks.
I left to join an electronics design company which promptly went bust, so I went into semi-retirement and turned my hand to writing articles for the hobby radio mags PW, SWM etc. All good fun and I (probably) wouldn't change a thing.
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Old 12th Jan 2015, 10:46 am   #35
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Some interesting reflections there Andy. I think TV engineers learned to be versatile. I was self employed when the 70's oil crisis hit, and with a reduced service area filled in by writing for mags and papers , dabbling in scrap metal, and was a DJ at a local pub. Colour was a challenge, but interesting, dual standard sets were a pain.
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Old 13th Jan 2015, 10:37 am   #36
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Back in the 70s I had lots of things happen, which when you look back you remember as being funny, (not at the time).

There was this Philips G8 with degaussing problems, which was quickly dispersed with a quick check of degaussing circuit which was OK, and use of the degaussing wand.
Next day I was back same fault, set taken away soak test no problem, set returned.
Next day same fault, this time when I returned to degauss once again, a little boy on the couch said 'I can do that, mister', producing rather a large magnet; suffice to say the magnet was confiscated, fault never returned.

Another time I was asked to work late and deliver a 22" Marconi 3000 chassis to LLoyds Bank flat in Bampton, Devon, at 8 o'clock at night.
After banging on the door for five minutes I was accompanied by a panda car, only to be rescued by the customer hearing the commotion, the address should have been Natwes.

My employer at the time would give you an address like third house on the right past the green door. This happened to a colleague, he was given an address to fit an aerial, he called at this cottage was told there would be no one home, so he tore down the old aerial. As he was fitting the new one a person came out and said he had not asked for an aerial (wrong address).
All finished up OK as the customer said he had never had such a good picture and gave him a £ tip.
From that time on his addresses were easier to follow.

John

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Old 13th Jan 2015, 12:07 pm   #37
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Default Re: Ex TV Engineers

Correct, Frank. I repaired sat boxes, hi fi, VCRs etc.

Yes, I enjoyed my work and took pride in it.
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Old 13th Jan 2015, 6:24 pm   #38
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I think dogs deserve a mention on a TV engineer's round. Although the postman is often first in line for their attentions the TV repairman probably comes second. Must admit have not been bitten but have met one or two pooches that like their meat on the move. Many of course are friendly, and can dispense a good licking if the engineer is on the floor to adjust something awkward. There was the odd dog that gave a friendly welcome on the way in, but then refused to let you out. That sort never seemed to carry a health warning.
In the days of large consoles a mirror was essential to see the screen whilst fiddling in the back. Puts me in mind of a cartoon which shows a repairman using two mirrors, watched by a small boy. The caption read: "I use that one to keep an eye on my tools!"
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Old 13th Jan 2015, 6:45 pm   #39
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In the days of large consoles a mirror was essential to see the screen whilst fiddling in the back.
Funny you should mention that - I became so used to reading stuff backwards, it took me some years before I could differentiate a mirror image from the real thing. Slight problem when printing photographs. I suppose it is a bit like the experiment where people were made to wear inverting glasses for a week!

Les.
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Old 13th Jan 2015, 7:03 pm   #40
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When I was an "apprentice" an engineer and me had to do a call out to Styal Women's Prison, I thought I might have been eaten alive if they got out, turned out that the senior engineer had an interest in one of the staff.

Around that period I had to climb up on Strangeways Prison roof to help one of the aerial riggers, I think that was when I conquered my initial fear of heights.

Later on I worked for a well known TV rental outfit in Manchester, there were four of us field engineers based in the back of one of the shop branches, typical was 15 call outs per engineer but sometimes more, the service manager wasn't very street cred and didn't organize each engineers run on the call sheets very well, he would hand us the call sheets, we took off in the vehicles and headed for the local bacon butty cafe, there we would get out the A to Z and do some call out re shuffling between us, finished most days early and we all met up at the baths at Sharston (Wythenshaw) for a swim.

One of the other lot I worked for used to include some debt and slot meter (remember them?) collections amongst the service call outs, if there was a senior citizen looking a bit poor I would empty the meter and give them all the money back and mark "out card left" on the call sheet.

Loads of memories and stories, some not fit for here.

Lawrence.
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