Customers Repairs

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feel free to click on anything underlined...

See below for sets included...

Bush Repairs	Hacker repairs
Decca Repairs	Marconi repairs
HMV Repairs	McMichael repairs
Murphy Repairs	Pilot repairs
Philips Repairs	RAP repairs
Pye Repairs	Communications Receivers
Roberts repairs	Portable Receivers
GEC repairs	Old Receivers
Grundig repairs	Miscellaneous

Repairs to computers seem to be getting more and more difficult. Is it just that the easy ones are being sorted out by their owners and their neighbours and I get all the impossible ones?

This is a sample list of repairs and refurbishments carried out over the past few years

Communications Receivers etc

HRO	Heathkit SB220 Linear Amplifier
AR88	RA17

Portable Receivers

Bush VTR103	Murphy A689 Transistor 10	Roberts R309	Roberts R700
Decca CR1000	Philips D2225	Roberts R404	Roberts RC15
Decca PR209	Philips D7032	Roberts R500	Roberts RC45
Grundig 700	Philips L4X95T	Roberts R505	Roberts RRM20
Hacker RP18	Philips L4X95T	Roberts R505	Roberts RT1
Marconiphone	Philips L5W34T/15	Roberts R600	Roberts RT1
Murphy A689 Transistor 10	Pye TR2820	Roberts R600	Roberts RT24

Old Receivers

Bush DAC2	HMV Model 1375	Pye Model MP/C
Bush DAC90A	HMV Model 1643	Pye Model P93U
Bush DAC90A	KB LR10	RAP
GEC BC5441	McMichael 851U	Pilot Little Maestro
HMV Model 1121	McMichael FM55	Philips 2514
Murphy A682SR	Goblin Timespot Radio

Miscellaneous

Grundig TK5 Tape Recorder	Alba R16 Tape Recorder
Grundig TK141	Zapping faults
Hitachi VT130 VCR	Marconi Test Equipment
Goodmans 28" TV	Philco Car Radio
Circuit boards	Marine Radio

New TVs & the Battle for Viewers (click to read more)

I've left this in place for its historic value.. it was written when On-Digital had just got underway......

People seem to be dreadfully poorly informed about digital TV. At least those who do not receive Satellite TV who presumably are badgered by Sky to swap over from analogue. I see now that On-Digital are going to spend some money on informing the public. Hopefully the information will be assimilated and acted upon before the analogue transmitters are turned off! Now that On-Digital will be called ITV-Digital how is BBC going to fare and how will this affect the appearance or otherwise of ITV on satellite? It's starting to look more and more like the battle between the two satellite providers Sky and BSB and then the battle for viewers time on Astra. Does anyone remember the time when we had three satellite sports channels? Screensport was taken over by Sky and closed down. "There isn't room for that many channels dedicated to sport". Having got rid of the competition they expanded the number of Sky Sports channels. Eurosport and Bloomberg are still free on analogue but you have to pay for them on digital. S4C is free on terrestrial analogue but you have to pay for it on digital satellite. Discovery used to be free, Children's Channel used to be free....

Now I hear that ITV is losing revenue. Not surprising as the lion's share of digital viewers are told to revert to steam TV to receive ITV. As most viewers don't understand how to use their TV sets they will now skip trying to watch ITV and instead, look at an alternative. Although ITV are leasing satellite space for ITV1 & 2 these won't materialise until Christmas, I hear. They are caught between a rock and a hard place... if they broadcast on "Sky", as it would appear to most people, there's no chance of existing viewers subscribing to On-Digital or now "ITV Digital". All they can do now is wait until the terrestrial digital bandwagon inexorably rolls towards analogue switch off and capture the few remaining viewers who would NEVER switch to satellite. Loads of people can't receive terrestrial digital yet and anyway the satellite option is adding more and more channels, not only through Sky, but also through new Eutelsat satellites that were originally guaranteed that orbital slot at 28-odd degrees East. It seems to me there are currently only a smallish group of viewers who might take up the terrestrial option... viz. those that haven't heard about the "free"satellite option; those who have a tree in the way of 28 East; those who haven't got a telephone point available; and those who will respond to On-Digital's advertising without checking on their options.

What's going to happen to terrestrial digital? One option is to give the whole show to BBC. If they were then to then pull out of satellite TV taking with them their TV and radio channels together with any other channels they could persuade to leave, and maybe also ITV even, then terrestrial digital would be in with a good chance of survival. The real pull towards BBC is the absence of advertising and the real pain with Sky is their boring, distracting advertising together with their unwanted loss of program coverage when relaying say golf from a US broadcaster (when they add their own huge amount of advertising).

All-in-all the organisation of digital TV broadcasting, I believe, is abysmal. It's even worse than the start of satellite broadcasting when government assurances weren't worth the paper they were printed on. Remember the "squarial". Faced with absolutely overwhelming opposition, the government "sponsored" D2MAC "official" satellite broadcasters ended up pushing the shape of their dish because that was all they had left. "I've got a SQUARE dish and 6 channels"... "I don't really know what shape my dish is but we've got 36 channels". BSB had no competitive channels, too few channels, too specialised an equipment, and a rotten orbital slot (over South America would you believe!). They went bust, were swallowed up by Sky, closed down, and their satellite was sold off to a Spanish concern at a knockdown price.

It's about time a professional was put in charge of the whole thing and politicians wheeled out to the sidelines before big business brings about their own plan to the detriment of all but themselves. The slippery slope is already under our feet. Sky have now introduced huge price increases (175% that's one hundred and seventy five percent) for their set top box "installation" for subscribers because, presumably they see little opposition in the competition. Next we may see price increases and restructuring of how channels are paid for as they capitalise on their approaching near monopoly.

Since I wrote the above ITV digital took over DTT, and after a short while went bust due to inept management leaving FA Football Clubs reeling from a budget shortfall.

BBC have taken over the helm and because of their existing avenues for broadcasting commercials for their own products, with the help of manufacturers like Pace who made a set-top box at an economic price, telling sort of big fibs by not mentioning the possible need for an (expensive) new aerial, cranking up the power of digital transmissions against the advvice of the experts and changing the mode of transmission... should make a go of things. Many people though are being hoodwinked into paying nearly as much for "special cables" as the box itself by big-name retailers, anxious to make money from the opportunity.

Post script... it's now some years later (October 2006) and "Freeview" is now commonplace, although a good few people still haven't heard of it. "HD" or High Definition TV is next on the horizon. This is basically 1300 odd lines instead of interlaced 625 (really 300 odd). I haven't seen any examples myself, but I guess it goes well with flat screen TV, which is quite capable of really good results as it's been weaned on computers. Flat screen HD TVs are generally very expensive, although some models are available at a third or a quarter the price of the dearer models. Because HD uses a lot more bandwidth it's a lot more expensive than ordinary digital channels when it comes to subscribing.

Incidentally when it comes to "lines", some viewers of new TV sets will profess that they can't see any. Very large screen TVs employ a method of scanning that shifts the position of successive frames so that lines are effectively invisible. This is all very well but the loss of lines results in picture definition way below what is technically feasible, hence the need for something better ie. HD. If only 300 different lines are used in a standard TV, then on a screen 30 inches in height, the picture is viewed in tenth-inch stripes (2.5mm) . Compare this to the pixel spacing on a good quality computer screen, CRT or flat panel, and technically you can resolve down to 0.15mm. In other words the screen can accommodate a TV line scan of 5,000 lines. A 30 inch high flat screen would need a pixel spacing of around 0.4mm for this scan rate, or for 1300 lines for HD TV, around 0.6mm spacing.

Looking in the other direction... I bought some new boxed VCR's for £10 the other day and DVD/Hard drive recorders are available around £100 and prices will continue to fall until old stocks are exhausted. This is because these models use analogue TV tuners. Good bargains as a digital set top box is £25 and can be used as front end to both an old VCR or DVD recorder. There are two drawbacks, first is the set of three remote controls needed to make timer recordings, and secondly the technical expertise needed to understand how to use the system !

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