What ever happened to TV technicians?

[VK3DRB]

I agree in that control theory is perhaps the most useful things to understand in an engineering degree, that some technicians might not know of. However, it would be a big benefit if engineers had a fraction of practical experience of a TV technician. Some techs I know went on to do an engineering degree as adults after years of experience as a technician... they made top notch engineers. France has the right idea, where one has to qualify as a technician before embarking on an electronics engineering degree.

This information about France is very interesting for me, because the same approach is used at the technical university where I teach.
Do you have a link to some specific information about that ?
It can be in French, I understand it.

I was told this by a French engineer whom I worked with that he was required to qualify as a technician prior to becoming an engineer and that is the norm in France. Someone further down in this discussion elaborated on their system. Maybe something got lost in the translation with my colleague.

[vk6zgo]

Some of the smartest electronics people I knew were experienced TV technicians.

Smart in a limited practical area sufficient for their job.

They didn't need broad theory to do their job.

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.

Repairing computers.

The thing is, they did have a solid background of theory, although not to an EE level.

When he was a kid, Dick Feynmann worked in a radio/TV repair shop. He became known as the person that repaired them by analysing the problem from theory, then applying the fix. The other technicians simply changed valves until the radio started working again.

Ohh, you mean the guy that took 5 times as long!

Most problems with things like domestic valve radios can be relatively easily diagnosed by application of a lot of experience & a tad of theory.
All fault finding regimes stress "looking for the obvious" first, but that doesn't mean Techs don't have to use theory.

I have never worked in a TV repair shop, but for many years, I was basically, a TV transmitter "fixer upper", who as my "other identity", had to fix TV picture monitors, the odd TV set, & some other weird stuff that came across the bench.

It is hard to put EEs on a pedestal, when you see some of the design stuff ups made by those from quite prestigious companies.
This was often compounded by the propensity of some such companies to supply very poor service information.

[janoc]

I was told this by a French engineer whom I worked with that he was required to qualify as a technician prior to becoming an engineer and that is the norm in France. Someone further down in this discussion elaborated on their system. Maybe something got lost in the translation with my colleague.

I very much suspect that to be the case, probably the stuff around what the French call the "license" and "brevet" as that doesn't quite have an equivalent elsewhere. Of course, they could have been required to take some particular course of study because of the specific requirements of the school they planned to attend, that's always possible. But it certainly isn't a general rule.

Also, in France they have different types of "baccalauréat" (the big exam at the end of high school - "lycee") with different "tracks" focusing in different subjects. And that is where if you want to study e.g. engineering you need to graduate with the right type of "bac" to be admitted. This is different from other countries.  Perhaps that's what was meant.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baccalaur%C3%A9at

[porter]

When I was a boy, my Dad wanted me to fix the TV. As I recall, a couple of knobs released the back panel. I pulled the tubes out and brought them to the grocery store to be tested. Tubes were kept right in the tester cabinet. I don't remember if I fixed the thing. 

The things kids were allowed to do back in the day. 

[HighVoltage]

For the German speaking people here...

... there is a funny older guy on Youtube that shows many repairs on older TVs and Radios under the name of  "Meister Jambo". He goes through the schematics and explains the old systems and explains pretty well, how it was in the old days as a TV repair technician.

Here he explains, how it was to be working in that field.

[tggzzz]

Some of the smartest electronics people I knew were experienced TV technicians.

Smart in a limited practical area sufficient for their job.

They didn't need broad theory to do their job.

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.

Repairing computers.

The thing is, they did have a solid background of theory, although not to an EE level.

When he was a kid, Dick Feynmann worked in a radio/TV repair shop. He became known as the person that repaired them by analysing the problem from theory, then applying the fix. The other technicians simply changed valves until the radio started working again.

Ohh, you mean the guy that took 5 times as long!

Most problems with things like domestic valve radios can be relatively easily diagnosed by application of a lot of experience & a tad of theory.
All fault finding regimes stress "looking for the obvious" first, but that doesn't mean Techs don't have to use theory.

I have never worked in a TV repair shop, but for many years, I was basically, a TV transmitter "fixer upper", who as my "other identity", had to fix TV picture monitors, the odd TV set, & some other weird stuff that came across the bench.

It is hard to put EEs on a pedestal, when you see some of the design stuff ups made by those from quite prestigious companies.
This was often compounded by the propensity of some such companies to supply very poor service information.

Corporate culture overrides most things. "Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain" - Friedrich Schiller, The Maid of Orleans

Nobody should be pigeonholed and put on a pedestal.
Nobody should be pigeonholed and regarded as better than (or even equal to) another.
Pigeonholing is lazy, and leads to an us vs them mentality.

We all have differing competences and incompetences.
Vive la difference, and "trust, but verify"

[tggzzz]

Also, in France they have different types of "baccalauréat" (the big exam at the end of high school - "lycee") with different "tracks" focusing in different subjects. And that is where if you want to study e.g. engineering you need to graduate with the right type of "bac" to be admitted. This is different from other countries.  Perhaps that's what was meant.

Im the UK you will have had to have 3 appropriate A-levels, e.g. maths (pure and/or applied), physics and other STEM subjects. That means that individuals will have specialised for the last two years.

It is likely countries that were part of the British Empire have something similar.

[David_AVD]

I've never been into TV repair, but have gotten back into consumer audio equipment repairs in the last few years.

There are fewer techs around and more people wanting their old (1970s' to 2000s') gear fixed now.

[SmallCog]

They run racist newsletters (Louis Thereoux and the Nazis reference)

In all seriousness though at work we have an ex TV tech, he’s in his 60s and has been with us for about a decade.

He was one of the last to leave his previous employer and one of the younger guys there

I suspect many have retired, possibly after a slight shift in the latter part of their careers.

[Circlotron]

The thing is, they did have a solid background of theory, although not to an EE level.

I tip my hat to any old school TV repairman that understands the finer points of a vacuum tube horizontal output stage.

[madires]

My neighbour is a radio/TV technician and had his own shop. In the later years he did a lot of sat TV dish installations since we don't have cable TV. He was fortunate to be old enough to retire early before the industry downfall. An old friend is also a radio/TV technician and he moved on into IT.

[NiHaoMike]

I've never been into TV repair, but have gotten back into consumer audio equipment repairs in the last few years.

There are fewer techs around and more people wanting their old (1970s' to 2000s') gear fixed now.

A lot of that is likely the return of LPs and modern audio equipment being designed for digital input with analog input as an afterthought.

[PKTKS]

The thing is, they did have a solid background of theory, although not to an EE level.

I tip my hat to any old school TV repairman that understands the finer points of a vacuum tube horizontal output stage.

Not really that hard...    the hard part is the voltage probing .. values are really dangerous..

Apart the really methodic methods..
It is a simple plain SMPS...

If you can deal with a modern SMPS..

FLYBACKs   are just a specialized smps..

Paul

[cdev]

I've never been into TV repair, but have gotten back into consumer audio equipment repairs in the last few years.

There are fewer techs around and more people wanting their old (1970s' to 2000s') gear fixed now.

A lot of that is likely the return of LPs and modern audio equipment being designed for digital input with analog input as an afterthought.

Old audio equipment is often better than new audio equipment so is often worth fixing.

[SiliconWizard]

I was told this by a French engineer whom I worked with that he was required to qualify as a technician prior to becoming an engineer and that is the norm in France.

And it's not.

[SiliconWizard]

I guess TV repairers went away when the market went flat.

While repairing modern TV sets requires less "tweaking", there still are lots of things you can do. The main reason for not doing it, as some have said, is cost, not feasability.

I've repaired my Samsung TV a couple years ago - a leaky cap in the power supply board that would prevent it from starting altogether. Something extremely common. You must like it when designers put electrolytic caps right next to heatsinks. And I mean, not a few mm away, but literally stuck to the heatsink.
A couple bucks and some work were worth it compared to binning the TV set and shelling out a few hundreds bucks instead. It's still working find to this day.

Sure some repairs can be a lot trickier, say if it's a bad solder joint on a BGA chip, which also happens. But can still be done (as long as you can spot the fault), or you could also change the whole faulty board. Mind you, old TV repairers also did this sometimes when they couldn't find the fault.

[janoc]

Also, in France they have different types of "baccalauréat" (the big exam at the end of high school - "lycee") with different "tracks" focusing in different subjects. And that is where if you want to study e.g. engineering you need to graduate with the right type of "bac" to be admitted. This is different from other countries.  Perhaps that's what was meant.

Im the UK you will have had to have 3 appropriate A-levels, e.g. maths (pure and/or applied), physics and other STEM subjects. That means that individuals will have specialised for the last two years.

It is likely countries that were part of the British Empire have something similar.

Possibly, not familiar with the British/UK system. However, e.g. in Slovakia all you legally need to study at a university (any university, regardless of subject) is the final exam from the high school. And then passing the admission exams of the chosen university unless you qualify for a direct admission or the uni doesn't do admission exams.

So in theory you could go study electrical engineering even though you have never seen a multimeter in your life because you have graduated from a grammar school and not a vocational school.

In fact, most people who go to universities there do so from the generalist grammar schools, students coming from the vocational ones are an exception because they usually lack background in mathematics, physics and other subjects that are taught only to a much lesser degree there. The more practical, industry-focused stuff they teach at the vocational schools is rarely useful at the uni - but people without a solid math/physics background tend to flunk out in the first year already.

[NiHaoMike]

Old audio equipment is often better than new audio equipment so is often worth fixing.

I assume you're referring to build quality since modern transistors and opamps perform vastly better than old ones. They're still improving albeit well into diminishing returns.

I also read claims that old music (especially from the days of tube amps) was mastered with technical limitations of that era consumer equipment in mind and sound "wrong" on modern equipment, similar to retro games looking really poor on a modern gaming monitor.

[David_AVD]

I've never been into TV repair, but have gotten back into consumer audio equipment repairs in the last few years.

There are fewer techs around and more people wanting their old (1970s' to 2000s') gear fixed now.

A lot of that is likely the return of LPs and modern audio equipment being designed for digital input with analog input as an afterthought.

You can get phono preamps that do the job and they cover a wide range in performance and price.

[David_AVD]

Old audio equipment is often better than new audio equipment so is often worth fixing.

Better is a very subjective thing in the audio world. Some of the choices come down to nostalgia and perceived an actual differences in the sound.

Sometimes the way that the tone controls work (frequency, slope, etc) and how the speakers interact with that can make quite a difference.

Everyone's hearing, preferences and past experiences are also different so it's not always a specs comparison.

[Zoli]

...
I assume you're referring to build quality since modern transistors and opamps perform vastly better than old ones. They're still improving albeit well into diminishing returns.
...

I challenge you to build the Alexander amplifier(https://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/application-notes/58052492001115525484056221917334an211.pdf) with current transistors, and show the original performance(output power, distorsions, bandwith).
Case rested.

[vk6zgo]

Old audio equipment is often better than new audio equipment so is often worth fixing.

I assume you're referring to build quality since modern transistors and opamps perform vastly better than old ones. They're still improving albeit well into diminishing returns.

I also read claims that old music (especially from the days of tube amps) was mastered with technical limitations of that era consumer equipment in mind and sound "wrong" on modern equipment, similar to retro games looking really poor on a modern gaming monitor.

Audio reproduction long surpassed the capacity of human hearing, so a lot of modern specs seem to be for their own sake, rather than any audible improvement.
That said, many FM/AM tuners from the later 1970s to today, are very poor, particularly on AM, where the reproduced bandwidth is barely better than communications quality, wasting the relatively wide audio response of AM stations in those countries which still transmit baseband audio out to 9 or 10 kHz on AM.

[NiHaoMike]

I challenge you to build the Alexander amplifier(https://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/application-notes/58052492001115525484056221917334an211.pdf) with current transistors, and show the original performance(output power, distorsions, bandwith).
Case rested.

I'm pretty sure there exist specialty amplifiers for scientific equipment with even more impressive specs than that, especially with respect to bandwidth.

There also has been a trend of audio ADCs and DACs going up to 384kHz sample rate and beyond. While that's not going to make audible differences for the original application, it did come with the side benefit of making a reasonably low cost source of high speed, high resolution ADCs and DACs for stuff like narrowband SDR and ultrasound experimentation.

[Zoli]

I challenge you to build the Alexander amplifier(https://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/application-notes/58052492001115525484056221917334an211.pdf) with current transistors, and show the original performance(output power, distorsions, bandwith).
Case rested.

I'm pretty sure there exist specialty amplifiers for scientific equipment with even more impressive specs than that, especially with respect to bandwidth.

There also has been a trend of audio ADCs and DACs going up to 384kHz sample rate and beyond. While that's not going to make audible differences for the original application, it did come with the side benefit of making a reasonably low cost source of high speed, high resolution ADCs and DACs for stuff like narrowband SDR and ultrasound experimentation.

If you are so sure, why don't you link it?
Thank you.

[VK3DRB]

The thing is, they did have a solid background of theory, although not to an EE level.

I tip my hat to any old school TV repairman that understands the finer points of a vacuum tube horizontal output stage.

Of the top of my head.... 6AL3, 6CM5!

I had a huge collection of TV valves and gave them to Arthur Courtney (the original founder of Resurrection Radio) when he was one of the managers at IBM. Sort of spewing I did that, but Arthur was a top bloke.