I love it when TV shops don't want to/don't know how to fix TV's

[radiotvnut]

Picked up a '99 25" CTC185 XL100 mono jack-less TV from the repair shop. Plugged it in, dead as a hammer. I started checking for raw B+ at the filter cap and found nothing. I then checked the fuse and fusible resistor and they were good. Went back to the AC cord and one of it's conductors showed an open circuit. At first, I thought my DMM had took a dump. Checked the meter and saw it was working, soldered on another power cord and the set works perfect.

I suspect this was one of those deals where the customer brought the set in for repair and told the technician that he didn't want to spend over $40 on it. The technician took it in, kept it a few days, called up the owner, and told him it was going to cost $157.96 to repair. When the owner said "no", the shop never bothered to look at it. Or, maybe the technician overlooked the AC cord as "these rarely go bad".

I'm sure others have similar stories.

At the same time; I got an '05 27" JVC "D series" with a bad CRT and an old beat up 25" Magnavox that blew HOT's. I dumped the Magnavox but rejuvenated the tube in the JVC. It looks OK; but, I know it won't last. It uses one of those bonded yoke style Thomson/RCA tubes; so, finding a good tube shouldn't be a problem.

[grimer]

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[Hemingray]

Had a similar thing back at my old home in FL. Picked up a beautiful looking 80s GE 19" that had some picture issues (half dark, half light). Swapped out some electrolytics and the picture snapped right back to life. Eventually passed it onto one of the neighborhood girls before moving to AR.

[Findm-Keepm]

In defense of TV repair shops (Dad was a TV Repairman, I spent 30 years helping out in his shop), sometimes shops come about sets that belong to deadbeat customers. Dad had one customer that brought in a nice Mitsubishi (PIP, the works), approved the estimate, but later didn't like the 90-something dollar repair bill. A day after we called to say it was ready, the guy brought in another set "to see if we could fix one he could afford to get out of the shop." Dad didn't touch it until the Mitsu was paid for and picked up.

Shops lately have become dumping grounds for those making the ATSC transition. They buy a new set, and don't want to hassle with getting rid of their old set, so they trump up a problem and have the shop worry about disposing of it.

Believe me, in these times, shops are hurting - they want to get every penny they are due, and I can't imagine a shop passing on an easy fix. But then, why sink time or money into a 10-year old mono set that wouldn't likely sell? Craigslist is full of them around here - they are under "Free"

Still, nice snag and save!

Cheers,

[67Zenith]

LOL all true. I have only one free find in my collection, a 1968 RCA Victor portable, that I found in the basement trash of my old apartment building. It does not work well but the cosmetics are real nice. I've never put in the time on getting it restored - yet. I gave up asking TV repair shops for 60s and 70s sets - the responses I got the last few years were usually:

"Things of the past"
"Are you crazy?" followed by a lot of laughs
And finally, no answer at all, just a long nasty stare in my face

[drh4683]

most shops are a total joke today. They don't want to help you and most of the time, they tell you the set isn't worth the repair. I could never understand that. Do they want the job? Arn't they hurting for business? No wonder they're dissapearing. They don't want to work on anything!
I remember as a kid I'd call up shops asking for tubes. The old guys knew right away what you were working on just by saying the tube number. "I need a 6GJ7" and the tech was like "you must be working on a zenith color set". Then they'd tell you "no, we threw all the tubes away a few years ago, nobody uses those sets anymore, but I might have some at home". They'd take your number like they'd call you back but they never did. There were a couple shops that still had a huge load of tubes, but figured they were worth a fortune. Me spending $15.00 for a 6HA5 back in 1994 as an 11 year old was a huge chunk of change for me. (way before ebay and the internet proved to everyone that TV tubes were worthless for the most part).

I can't tell you how many nice projection sets I've picked up from friends, family and even neighbors who claimed "the tv man" said "the main board" was bad and that it was $500+ to fix. They said no to the TV guy, called me to ask if I want it for parts or fix and keep it. For some reason though, they'd call the TV shop instead of me, take his advice and then go buy a brand new set and keep the bad one for me to haul away to "fix". They always played me for a sucker, let Doug have it for free, (he won't fix it) and he'll move it out of here on his own and we won't need to touch it! win-win they'd think. The usual every time, the convergence IC would short out and the convergence would be all over. What, $5.00 for the IC, solder it in and reconverge which is simple on a projection set. You had a perfect set and it only took a couple hours and a couple dollars to fix it. They'd always ask "did you fix it". Yeah, it works nice and the part was only $4.99. They'd get sick because they just foolishly spent $2000 for a new TV they didnt need!

[radiotvnut]

The last tube set that I got from a shop (same shop that I got the RCA from) was a 19" late '60's tube type GE B&W set, several months ago. Some lady brought it in and asked the shop to discard it. He knew I liked tube stuff; so, he saved it for me. Before that, the last tube set was a metal cabinet RCA CTC39 Mural TV that was on the discard pile at the local Zenith/RCA dealer. This was around '95.

I can't begin to tell you how many TVs that I've gotten from people who had already put them in the shop only to be told that they were unrepairable or would cost more than a new set. One was an '80's General Electric PC chassis console that was on someone's garbage pile. The owner told me that the shop said it needed a "horizontal board". What it actually needed was a new HOT, a horizontal centering pot, and an electrolytic cap. Another set was an older Symphonic TV/VCR combo that I bought for $2 at a yard sale. The owner was told that the board was burned beyond repair. The only thing burned was the horizontal yoke plug on the chassis. I hard-wired the yoke connections and the set worked fine.

At one time, this town was full of TV shops and most of them were the kind that didn't like to help people such as myself when I was a kid and trying to learn about TVs. There were a couple of older shops here that would help me and acted like they were glad to do so. There was another shop in a town about 30 miles away that would give me used parts and tubes if I needed them. And, I always made it a point to return the favor to the shops that helped me. Now, there's only two or three shops in town and I think only one of them still accepts CRT sets for repair. The rest are only interested in DLP, LCD, or Plasma.

Like was said earlier, it's very possible that my RCA could have belonged to a deadbeat customer and that's why the shop didn't mess with it. The guy that gives me these sets once told me that he didn't even open some of them because the customers didn't want to spend any money and he already had many TVs for sale.

Now, let's see if I can make a few $ off of the RCA so I can buy something with tubes in it.

[dr.ido]

Originally Posted by drh4683

The usual every time, the convergence IC would short out and the convergence would be all over. What, $5.00 for the IC, solder it in and reconverge which is simple on a projection set. You had a perfect set and it only took a couple hours and a couple dollars to fix it. They'd always ask "did you fix it". Yeah, it works nice and the part was only $4.99. They'd get sick because they just foolishly spent $2000 for a new TV they didnt need!

I've given up on projection sets as I the last couple of times I've ended up with the fakes that either die on switch on or last a couple of weeks at best (seems the same whether I spend US$9.99 plus delivery from somewhere online or AU$30+ from a supposedly reputable local supplier).

Where are you getting good convergence ICs for $4.99? It's kind of a rhetorical question though. I'm aware of the supplier recommended here in the past (Tritronics?). Now that the AU$ has taken a shit it isn't really worth it now once shipping and currency conversion are taken into account.

It seems even some of the manufacturers gave up on them as one of the last RPTVs I had actually had discrete transistor convergence amps. That one lost all it's coolant over the chassis though.

[AUdubon5425]

I don't even know where the nearest TV repair shop is anymore - they were slowly disappearing and then when Katrina hit it was pretty much "that's all, folks!" I know of two still open last time I passed through my old neighborhood, one of them used to perpetually have consoles sitting outside the front door, but they were mostly 80s-90s Zenith/RCA particle board sets.

There is a shop about 40 miles from me that has been listing stuff on CL over the last several months - I noticed an ad for Zenith modules; about a month ago it was about 500 TV tubes (not picture tubes) for something like $250. I have to go to that town next week and I may stop by just to check the place out.

[kx250rider]

There are a handful of shops left in the Los Angeles area, but mainly in low-income hispanic neighborhoods. Of those, most I seem to think just take in a set, wait for another one with the same board in it, and swap parts to get a working set. Then either afford to charge the customer $25 for a few minutes of swapping parts, or sell the set from the sidewalk for $39. Only one of the "real" shops is still actually in business, and barely. Harvey's TV & Radio on Pico Blvd. That shop was established in 1936, and is on it's 3rd owner (present owner since '79). His business savings account is near zero, and he's barely still there. Very sad, as his shop IS a real repair shop with the ethic in mind to please the customer, and cause them to come back for life. He has many customers who are grand children of customers!

Charles

[Celt]

We've been a throw-away society far too long. I'm in my 50's and have friends my age that'll throw away a perfectly good items rather than spend a few minutes and dollars fixing them.

[zenithfan1]

Originally Posted by Celt

We've been a throw-away society far too long. I'm in my 50's and have friends my age that'll throw away a perfectly good items rather than spend a few minutes and dollars fixing them.

I agree, it frustrates me when people are like that. There are plenty like that around here. People are lazy too and that don't help either

[ablethevoice]

After reading the responses here, you guys have restored some hope in me that there are some folks who still do have a decent set of ethics - and are willing to actually LOOK at an item and determine if, indeed, the device is truly dead or only "unconscious".

And yes, this damned "everything is disposable" mindset is a plague. Of course, modern manufacturing techniques support this habit. Anyone ever see a cellphone repair shop? Is it possible to resurrect/repair a PCs motherboard? Has anyone ever tried?

[zenithfan1]

And the most frustrating part of it all, they say "We're going green, we're buying a new green product now". When all they needed to do was fix one small part on the old one (whatever it may be) instead of throwing it in a land fill.

[Arkay]

Originally Posted by ablethevoice

After reading the responses here, you guys have restored some hope in me that there are some folks who still do have a decent set of ethics - and are willing to actually LOOK at an item and determine if, indeed, the device is truly dead or only "unconscious".

And yes, this damned "everything is disposable" mindset is a plague. Of course, modern manufacturing techniques support this habit. Anyone ever see a cellphone repair shop? Is it possible to resurrect/repair a PCs motherboard? Has anyone ever tried?

There is a whole row of little street-side shops on one street here, where the guys repair cellphones. I think --but I'm not sure-- they all used to work for the repair departments of big-brand dealers, but then decided to be entrepreneurial. Anyway, take them almost any brand or model, they'll tell you right away whether they can fix it and how long it will take. Usually, they can, and usually, it takes only a few hours if they have parts on hand, and a extra day or two if they don't. Prices are quite reasonable. They stay busy, too, which proves that not everyone insists on just throwing stuff away when it breaks, in order to get the latest and trendiest. Give them a reasonable option, and people would like to get things repaired!

I agree with you in general on the "disposable society" bit, though. And it isn't just televisions or audio. I just bought a new desk lamp the other day. I think it dates from the 1940s, give or take a decade. Cool Art Deco-like pen-rest base, and stylish top part. After decades of neglect, the gooseneck part needs some de-oxidizing and polishing, and the paint needed a touch of Meguire's paint cleaner (after which it gleams! ), but it works fine, and probably will for several more decades, at least. I doubt there is a lamp in the shops today that will have half so long a lifespan!

Personally, if something I own breaks, I always open it up and take a good look, to see if it can be repaired. That's just the way I grew up. Things made before the late 1980s - 1990s almost always CAN be. More recent junk, er, stuff usually cannot be.

I have a large clay pot and a smaller chinawear dish that have "repairs" in them. Years ago in Hong Kong, if your dish broke, you could take it to the China repair shop. They would drill little holes through the broken pieces and put wire staples through the holes, to hold the parts together. Then they would melt lead and pour it into the cracks between the pieces, to seal it up water-tight. (Think stained-glass windows, and you'll get the idea of the lead.) I keep these pieces as reminders of a lost age, when people valued things and kept them in use for as long as they could.

Perhaps this was, at least in part, because things were more expensive then in relation to peoples' incomes, and since labor costs were lower, so were the repair costs more affordable. But a lot of the change between then and now is just because of our emphasis on "make it cheaper". The Wal-Mart effect, if you will, that says to squeeze materials costs and production techniques to the cheapest possible level that you can still get people to buy at a price. Good in a sense, but very bad in other ways.

Give me the old, wasteful, heavy stuff that lasts for decades instead of months, ANY DAY! Heck, most of it is intrinsically or "retro-" stylish enough that it never really goes out of fashion, anyway!