Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Jim Lesurf wrote:

Out of curiosity I opened up the set. To discover one valve was now
missing. When asked, the 'repair man' denied he'd removed it. So it must
have been a valve rustler ambushing his van. He was unable to explain
why he'd not noticed it being absent, though. So perhaps he was in
cahoots with the rustlers! :-)


A different 'repair man' fixed the set easily (without taking it away),
and confirmed it would never have worked at all without the missing
valve.


Pretty well all those old TVs had series heaters - so even if the valve
wasn't essential - unlikely - non of the others would work either.

My father bought our first TV from a neighbour in the trade. RGD. Cost the
equivalent of a very posh plasma these days. Which went wrong
frequently. Several new tubes fitted over its life. We got a new set when
ITV arrived, and I got to play with the old one. The tube was a re-gunned
one. But charged for as new.


I can't help but smile at this, one of the strongest memories I had as a
kid was the TV repair man coming to fix the ailing set, and he always
reminded me of a doctor, with a large leather case full of exotic secret
things. The family would await the result of a few minutes delving into
the back of the box with trepidation, hoping the problem would not mean
"it needs to go back to the shop".

From that point, if someone had asked me what I wanted to be when I
grew up, I would have said a TV repair man, instead of the normal train
driver or fighter pilot.

And Pratical Television at about that time had a wonderfull (or so it
seemed) regular spot about a repair man and his young apprentice, each
month solving some electrical problem, and imparting a bit more theory.
Sort of a electronic "Mr Crabtree".

I know that all of that is why I enjoy myself playing with valves now,
but given that, as it happens, I am messing about with DAC's and Xilix
CPLDs at the moment, ho hum.

--
Nick