General > General Technical Chat
What ever happened to TV technicians?
VK3DRB:
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.
Ysjoelfir:
I was an TV technician journeyman, finished with two times shorting my apprenticeship because of good grades and still managed to achieve the best result in the journeymans exam in the country back than. TV and Radio repairs were demising back than already, and that quite notably. I worked as a repair technician for a year than, got basically nothing in terms of money or appreciation, built up my own department in the company in search for alternatives and found that in fixing coffee machines. After 3 months that already made quite a bit of money for mr. boss, still he was not willing to pay me more than what a unskilled worker gets.
Switched to another company, got kicked out after 3 months and 1 day because of a contract with germanys biggest cable TV provider that was canceled (i got hired to basically provide the support for their products in the region, and they just decided to screw up and cancel the contract after my company just bought TME, a car and, well, me.)
Went to a transport company than to get some income and worked as an IT guy there. Than I moved halfway through germany to Frankfurt and ended up studying electronics, which basically didn't teach me anything I didn't already know, but now I had a paper that says "I can do the stuff I learned years before!" and found a job at one of the world leading manufacturers for power analyzers, had a nice project I could work on there, but sadly after that was finished I was not needed any longer.
Been freelancing besides that for some years, and moved again, this time to Hamburg where I worked as a product manager and finally got some good money. Company went bankrupt this year and now I am unemployed since may and am sitting in the EEVBlog IRC channel, complaining about how miserable life sometimes is and being grumpy in general :P
Regarding the demise of electronics repairs:
That is indeed a thing, many products are absolutely not repairable, and aren't even designed with repair in mind. its just not a thing anymore, sadly. I always tried to create products with serviceability in mind, but that is not realy what customers want nowadays - all (most of them) they care about is the stuff being cheap cheap cheap. and it must have RGB LEDs, for whatever reasons. ;)
tggzzz:
--- 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.
VK3DRB:
--- Quote from: tggzzz on May 07, 2022, 06:44:24 am ---...Smart in a limited practical area sufficient for their job.
They didn't need broad theory to do their job...
--- End quote ---
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.
A friend owned a TV repair shop up until about 15 years ago. When the industry died, he trained and qualified to become an electrician where there is plenty of work in this highly protected industry. He is happy.
HighVoltage:
I helped a friend repairing TVs in the 1980s and learned all about that trade.
My friend was about 10 years older and had a professional TV repair shop in northern Germany with several employees.
He taught me to find any problem in a TV set with a maximum of 6 measurements, If it took more, he got mad!
Our mail tool was a Fluke 70 series DMM
Eventually he closed his repair shop and started selling lights, very successfully I might add!
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