Author Topic: What ever happened to TV technicians?  (Read 10154 times)

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Offline madires

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Re: What ever happened to TV technicians?
« Reply #75 on: May 11, 2022, 01:07:01 pm »
I don’t think my argument was dumb. Go and look at the logic board in an M1 MacBook Air. It’s a couple of ASICs, FLASH, RAM and power management and SFA else. The component level repair isn’t viable even if skilled.
That's a pretty broad statement.  Replacing a shorted SMD cap is not an unrealistic possibility ... and that's not viable?

Not a MacBook, but not a rare fault:


And Apple's repair program is just for soothing politicians to prevent right-to-repair laws. If one has followed how much effort Apple put into hindering independent repair shops and trade of spare or salvaged parts the last few years it's pretty clear what's happing here.
 

Online tggzzz

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Re: What ever happened to TV technicians?
« Reply #76 on: May 11, 2022, 03:52:52 pm »
Fortunately I found someone that could fix the faulty bit for a sensible sum.
Was there a validation process performed before you took delivery after the repair?

Yes, it passed the annual MoT test :)

The fault was the second silencer had a leak, so the emissions test indicated an unacceptable lambda. Solution: attach a new second silencer to the old pipe.

Once upon a time that would have been simple, but this time I had to find a garage that made custom exhausts etc. Nice guys :)
There are lies, damned lies, statistics - and ADC/DAC specs.
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Offline eti

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Re: What ever happened to TV technicians?
« Reply #77 on: May 12, 2022, 12:07:47 am »
Some of the smartest electronics people I knew were experienced TV technicians. In Australia, they are almost non-existent now as repair labour is too expensive in this throw-away society. TV repair shops are gone, as one can't scratch out a living doing TV repair.

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.

I was a TV & VCR repair apprentice from 1991 to around 1993, and although I enjoyed it, I couldn't ever have envisioned myself making it a career. Sadly, the REAL engineers, the component-level people such as my first boss (a very kind man who taught me nearly all I know of electronics) are all but gone. I loved my apprenticeship, and having an eidetic and photographic memory, I still remember everything to the detail, as it was. Beautiful times. :)

My boss was SO kind and trusting, he even left me in charge of the business at 17 years old, when he went on holiday! I clearly recall wiring up a long string of octal relays (which I'd scavenged from old "mid tech" fruit machines) in a sequence, on the workshop bench, whilst he was away (the bench wasn't being used) and I connected each of the N/O contacts so that the current relay would energise the coil of the next in sequence, once the first relay in the line was energised via a switch... good days! Beautiful! He had HUGE archives of the UK TV engineers magazine - I forget the name of it now. I still have a friend from back then, who is still a TV engineer, and who will help me maybe once or twice a year, should I have queries I cannot answer, from friends. GOD bless the analogue TV days and the folks who repaired them - it was my first EVER job at 16, and I have extremely fond and sentimental memories of those lovely days.
« Last Edit: May 12, 2022, 12:12:47 am by eti »
 
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Online Ground_Loop

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Re: What ever happened to TV technicians?
« Reply #78 on: May 12, 2022, 01:41:31 am »
I would suggest that if one is really interested in making a living doing board level repairs, then the high end audio world still seems viable.  People are still willing to drop a $grand to get their $20k amplifier repaired, modified, or 'tuned'.  Then there is always the filler work fabricating those mono crystalline, unidirectional, unicorn cables.  I mention this because I did it in a former lifetime.  You just need to set up shop in a high end audio city.
There's no point getting old if you don't have stories.
 
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Offline vk6zgo

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Re: What ever happened to TV technicians?
« Reply #79 on: May 12, 2022, 03:18:19 am »
Some of the smartest electronics people I knew were experienced TV technicians. In Australia, they are almost non-existent now as repair labour is too expensive in this throw-away society. TV repair shops are gone, as one can't scratch out a living doing TV repair.

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.

I was a TV & VCR repair apprentice from 1991 to around 1993, and although I enjoyed it, I couldn't ever have envisioned myself making it a career. Sadly, the REAL engineers, the component-level people such as my first boss (a very kind man who taught me nearly all I know of electronics) are all but gone. I loved my apprenticeship, and having an eidetic and photographic memory, I still remember everything to the detail, as it was. Beautiful times. :)

My boss was SO kind and trusting, he even left me in charge of the business at 17 years old, when he went on holiday! I clearly recall wiring up a long string of octal relays (which I'd scavenged from old "mid tech" fruit machines) in a sequence, on the workshop bench, whilst he was away (the bench wasn't being used) and I connected each of the N/O contacts so that the current relay would energise the coil of the next in sequence, once the first relay in the line was energised via a switch... good days! Beautiful! He had HUGE archives of the UK TV engineers magazine - I forget the name of it now. I still have a friend from back then, who is still a TV engineer, and who will help me maybe once or twice a year, should I have queries I cannot answer, from friends. GOD bless the analogue TV days and the folks who repaired them - it was my first EVER job at 16, and I have extremely fond and sentimental memories of those lovely days.

I can just plcture those relays "click, click, click, cick, click, click....."
Just messing round?--No way, you learnt an important lesson about the inherent delays in such a sequence.

My first few years working with the old Oz PMG's Dept in the, then, Radio Section  taught me a lot of stuff which has paid dividends over the years.
Shifts with the older shift leaders were like a "Master Class" in Applied Electronics", as they had such a wide range of experience, & also encouraged me to "get in there" doing proper tech work, rather than just "holding the AVOmeter".

As well as the Broadcast building, we had the HF Comms building, where the HF SSB & CW transmitters lived, & I got to spend time in "solitary splendour".

That was where the "Midnight Shift" (0000-0800) was done,which was pretty much a "caretaker shift".
Apart from the morning frequency changes on the SSB Tx, & checking the CW Txs worked when the operator remotely keyed them, you were "left to your own devices".
You could read, with one ear cocked for the sudden cessation of the blower noise from one of the big SSB Tx, which meant trouble, or mess around with your own projects.

I still remember bringing in the skeleton of an AM mantel radio, which still had a complete power supply section, & borrowing the Dept's 12AT7 twin triodes & some other bits, as well as my own junkbox, to make up various versions of multivibrators, which I  then observed with the station Telequipment Serviscope CRO.

It is one thing to be taught about something, but to able to "see what happens if I do this" really embeds concepts.

Before anyone says "Aieee!!" :scared: :scared:, the dead "mantel set" was a standard Australian design of the period, using a power transformer, not a transformerless type, so the danger was minmal.

 

Offline CJay

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Re: What ever happened to TV technicians?
« Reply #80 on: May 12, 2022, 04:53:33 pm »
He had HUGE archives of the UK TV engineers magazine - I forget the name of it now.

It was, rather aptly, named Television and featured such names as Les Lawrie Johns, Pat hawker as well as other notables from the various professional engineering bodies around the UK.


 
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Offline vk6zgo

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Re: What ever happened to TV technicians?
« Reply #81 on: May 13, 2022, 01:33:32 am »
He had HUGE archives of the UK TV engineers magazine - I forget the name of it now.

It was, rather aptly, named Television and featured such names as Les Lawrie Johns, Pat hawker as well as other notables from the various professional engineering bodies around the UK.
An excellent magazine!
Somebody, in the past, organised a subscription for the TV studio I worked at.
It was very useful for the non-Sony Picture Monitors & some other stuff, as it had much better detail on some of the special ICs, & other devices so beloved of EU manufacturers than their rather skimpy service manuals.
 

Offline KG7AMV

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Re: What ever happened to TV technicians?
« Reply #82 on: May 14, 2022, 09:24:14 am »
We still exist.. look in to arcade monitor repair it is in demand!
 
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Offline eti

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Re: What ever happened to TV technicians?
« Reply #83 on: May 15, 2022, 12:35:11 am »
We still exist.. look in to arcade monitor repair it is in demand!

I used to love learning all about LOPT and CW multipliers, and love the unique design of the HV plastic enclosure with focus and "screen" (?) controls; I always thought how challenging it must've been to go to all the effort of potting them SO carefully, and then having to have a potential source of EHT breakdown, two holes for the pots, in the casing.
 

Offline ethernet

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Re: What ever happened to TV technicians?
« Reply #84 on: May 30, 2022, 04:19:12 am »
New Member. First let me say that on a very very old 'Get Smart' episode radio repair or TV repair' technicians were associated with KAOS and ultimate evil doers.  Secondly, it would be wise to know why 'Radio Rentals' was formed, later moving into TV rentals. Thirdly that TV technicians has the rug pulled under them when brand makers hid manufacturing defects and cause of failures from them, and also tried to upsell module replacement, which failed when they got the message that inventory was expensive.

Product liability, and unenforced consumer warranty is why manufacturers - sorry - Chinese box movers, are still going. Nobody will ask 'Why did it fail, and when did you know' - not OK we will absorb the repair cost. Rarely does a real EE designer like Magic smoke or Louis Rossman expose design bungles for what they are - consumer defects .

As for the smartest TV tech: He jumped into airport scanner machines and security. Never looked back. He told me about some of his most outlandish quotes, and asked if he works for KAOS.
 


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