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SiriusHardware · 21st Jul 2021, 11:22 pm

I have a rather dark, but true story seen from the other side of the fence.

This took place when I was a sixth former, not working, and at the time very keen on CB and Short Wave Listening. My parents' TV downstairs - a Thorn 3500, as I later found out, gave me no problems in this respect until the day it refused to turn on. The rental company were called out and since I was interested in electronics, I noticed the engineer changed the PSU which was a kind of module which dropped into the upper part of the chassis. That got the TV working.

Only later did I then find that the TV was now generating terrible, and I mean off the scale, RF interference. Since the only difference was the replacement PSU, that had to be the cause. The problem was that I couldn't see anyone being sympathetic about it. My parents were just happy to have the TV back on and the rental company wouldn't want to know anything about it as long as the TV was working.

So.. when I had the house to myself I removed the back and arranged a temporary fine wire short across one of the PSU rectifier diodes, put the back on again, and waited. Parents came in, TV went PHUT, the problem was duly reported to the rental company again. I used another window of opportunity to excise any sign of the actual cause of the problem.

The engineer came out - same one, looking suitably baffled, and changed the PSU again. This time, everything was back to normal - TV working and no significant levels of RF interference. Everyone happy, apart from the person whose job it was to work out why the 'unreliable' PSU had failed.

Not long afterwards I went on to work in a radio and TV workshop and have been a repair technician (electronics) dedicated to making broken electronic things work for more or less the whole of my working life. This was the one and only occasion on which I ever used my knowledge to intentionally break something, rather than repair it - although I suppose you could say that ultimately, I used my knowledge to force a proper repair.

21st Jul 2021, 11:22 pm	#55
SiriusHardware Dekatron Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, UK. Posts: 11,547	Re: Humour in the TV trade. I have a rather dark, but true story seen from the other side of the fence. This took place when I was a sixth former, not working, and at the time very keen on CB and Short Wave Listening. My parents' TV downstairs - a Thorn 3500, as I later found out, gave me no problems in this respect until the day it refused to turn on. The rental company were called out and since I was interested in electronics, I noticed the engineer changed the PSU which was a kind of module which dropped into the upper part of the chassis. That got the TV working. Only later did I then find that the TV was now generating terrible, and I mean off the scale, RF interference. Since the only difference was the replacement PSU, that had to be the cause. The problem was that I couldn't see anyone being sympathetic about it. My parents were just happy to have the TV back on and the rental company wouldn't want to know anything about it as long as the TV was working. So.. when I had the house to myself I removed the back and arranged a temporary fine wire short across one of the PSU rectifier diodes, put the back on again, and waited. Parents came in, TV went PHUT, the problem was duly reported to the rental company again. I used another window of opportunity to excise any sign of the actual cause of the problem. The engineer came out - same one, looking suitably baffled, and changed the PSU again. This time, everything was back to normal - TV working and no significant levels of RF interference. Everyone happy, apart from the person whose job it was to work out why the 'unreliable' PSU had failed. Not long afterwards I went on to work in a radio and TV workshop and have been a repair technician (electronics) dedicated to making broken electronic things work for more or less the whole of my working life. This was the one and only occasion on which I ever used my knowledge to intentionally break something, rather than repair it - although I suppose you could say that ultimately, I used my knowledge to force a proper repair.