General > General Technical Chat
What ever happened to TV technicians?
vk6zgo:
--- Quote from: tggzzz on May 07, 2022, 06:44:24 am ---
--- Quote from: VK3DRB on May 07, 2022, 04:50:49 am ---Some of the smartest electronics people I knew were experienced TV technicians.
--- End quote ---
Smart in a limited practical area sufficient for their job.
They didn't need broad theory to do their job.
--- Quote ---What are the TV technicians doing now? Retired? Dead? Or gone onto other pursuits in electronics, or even completely other industries? Maybe some are in this forum. It will be interesting to know what you are now doing today, and maybe your thoughts on the demise of electronics repair and its impacts.
--- End quote ---
Repairing computers.
--- End quote ---
The thing is, they did have a solid background of theory, although not to an EE level.
Over time, "dumbing down" of technical education became the accepted path for institutes of Trade training.
The education organisation would "Ask the industry" what sort of training they needed, & the answer would come back from some management drone, that they wanted people to be able to do a few specific things.
The wider theoretical knowledge of Electronics, which allowed Techs to adapt to changing techology over the years was no longer provided, but instead was replaced with a "Monkey See, Monkey Do" philosophy.
The "Technicians" turned out by this method can do things exactly as they were taught, but are "all at sea" if confronted with something different.
In an example of this type of training, over some years I would regularly call Telstra (in Oz) out for a faulty land line phone.
The problem, that the leadin from the roadside "pit" was intermittent, was determined back in early 2012, by the first attending Tech who, for some unaccountable reason, could not pull a new cable through, needing to arrange for a "team" to do it.
The "team" was scheduled to arrive while I was away, so when I returned & things worked, I assumed they were pretty neat & left no sign of their visit.
From that time, however, the line would go noisy at intervals of several months, "Techs" would attend, fiddle about, it would "come good" till next time.
When each Tech came, I would wait till they went through their set of "monkey tricks", then suggest they check the leadin.
They would do that, play around, disturb something & temporarily "fix" it, (although the noise level was still higher than it should have been).
This went on for seven years, till NBN FTTC became available, & I decided I had better get the leadin problem sorted out "once & for all".
The phone noise had become horrific, so I had an excuse for a callout, in any case.
The Tech came, & as he looked a bit brighter than most, I told him about the leadin,& the history of the fault.
He had a look, verified it was the fault, & promptly pulled a new cable through.
The first guy, seven years back, could have done that!
Back when Telecom Aust were running things, one of their properly trained Techs would have replaced the leadin on the first visit.
Hell, I could have done it myself, but I'm not allowed to!
NiHaoMike:
There's simply not much to break down in a modern TV and certainly nothing that would require professional adjusting. It's not like the old days when RF circuits would drift out of alignment and projection sets needed regular bulb replacements.
VK3DRB:
--- Quote from: HighVoltage on May 07, 2022, 10:31:15 am ---
--- Quote from: PKTKS on May 07, 2022, 10:22:30 am ---
I have about 10.000 of schemas not only from TVs but also HIFI audio and VCRs which I did a lot as well..
--- End quote ---
Impressive!
In Germany, a good quality TV set had the schematics inside the set in a pouch with a troubleshooting guide. Some good schematics even had scope pictures next to the test points.
Everyone had the right to repair a TV, if you had the skills.
--- End quote ---
Everyone should have a right to repair. Apple's shareholders think otherwise. If the right to repair (where possible) was made a legal requirement, I suspect there would be a lot more technicians out there doing repair work. Apple purposely makes their products unrepairable. Apple even got caught providing firmware updates that purposely slowed your phone down so you go out and buy a new Apple phone. Apple is a company run by wankers.
German schematics were good, but that barely mattered because "Cherman Excellence" TV sets like Blaupunkt were junk. In fact there was a book specifically published on symptoms versus component on Blaupunkt TV's. Good quality cabinets but lousy (and unsafe) electronics. In contrast, the Japanese manufacturers ran rings over the Euros on TV sets. With a few exceptions, TVs like NEC were superior in quality, reliability and safety.
All the unreliable TVs (and junk like the Akai VS3 video recorder) resulted in plenty of work and income for TV technicians in the day.
HighVoltage:
From my memory, Grundig TV sets were the best in Germany. Or it was just me, because I liked working on them and they were easy to repair. When the Japanese TV sets came to Germany in masses, I was out of that game.
But later I liked repairing Sony and NEC monitors, I considered them well made and good to repair.
bd139:
--- Quote from: VK3DRB on May 07, 2022, 02:10:42 pm ---
--- Quote from: HighVoltage on May 07, 2022, 10:31:15 am ---
--- Quote from: PKTKS on May 07, 2022, 10:22:30 am ---
I have about 10.000 of schemas not only from TVs but also HIFI audio and VCRs which I did a lot as well..
--- End quote ---
Impressive!
In Germany, a good quality TV set had the schematics inside the set in a pouch with a troubleshooting guide. Some good schematics even had scope pictures next to the test points.
Everyone had the right to repair a TV, if you had the skills.
--- End quote ---
Everyone should have a right to repair. Apple's shareholders think otherwise. If the right to repair (where possible) was made a legal requirement, I suspect there would be a lot more technicians out there doing repair work. Apple purposely makes their products unrepairable. Apple even got caught providing firmware updates that purposely slowed your phone down so you go out and buy a new Apple phone. Apple is a company run by wankers.
--- End quote ---
Um no. They have an official parts store and rent proper equipment to you to repair stuff with and provide service manuals:
https://www.selfservicerepair.com/
This is fairly new on the scene but they are scaling it out to most of their devices at the moment.
Here’s the service manual for what I’m writing this on: https://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/2000/MA2074/en_US/iphone-13-pro-07300324A-repair.pdf
They also give you cash back for broken parts returned so they don’t end up on the grey market and people get ripped off.
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