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Old 23rd Jul 2021, 7:28 pm   #21
stevehertz
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Default Re: (The trade). Golden years?

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Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler View Post
....The careers lot seemed rather fixated on whether my colour vision was good enough. In the junior school we all got tested. We weren't told a thing about what it was or what it was for. They just plopped a thing in front of me and asked me which number I could see. I didn't bother with all the coloured dots, there was a nice clear number printed bottom left, a PROPER number so I read them that.... "No no, just the first number you see" so I read them the first digit of what must have been the serial number of each successive page they showed me. I now know what it was and what went wrong. They failed to explain that there were numbers hidden in the dots, they failed to be suspicious that I never hesitated....
David
Well I got tested recently and was told I'm colour blind. The news came right out of the yellow.
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Old 25th Jul 2021, 11:47 pm   #22
Ted Kendall
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Default Re: (The trade). Golden years?

Having just taken young son to an optician chain to be assessed for his competition licence, I was appalled to see practitioners swapping their faded Ishihara card sets to try and get reliable results - judging by the condition of the sleeves, some of these were thirty years old. Evidently the hues degrade in an unpredictable fashion.
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Old 26th Jul 2021, 6:01 am   #23
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Default Re: (The trade). Golden years?

Does this count?.........

When a school boy, each Saturday, I worked in a tiny wireless shop
in Shepherds Bush Market for some years, 1945 period.
I was paid half a crown (2/6d) each week.

That's where I first learnt the difference between an R and a C
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Old 26th Jul 2021, 9:55 am   #24
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Default Re: (The trade). Golden years?

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Having just taken young son to an optician chain to be assessed for his competition licence, I was appalled to see practitioners swapping their faded Ishihara card sets to try and get reliable results - judging by the condition of the sleeves, some of these were thirty years old. Evidently the hues degrade in an unpredictable fashion.
Printers’ Pantone colour swatch books were only considered reliable for a few years. Even if kept in a drawer chemical changes in the paper will degrade the colours, especially the lighter ones.
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Old 26th Jul 2021, 10:41 am   #25
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Default Re: (The trade). Golden years?

I left school in '77 and went into the repair trade. I remained until late 2000. It seems to me that the Government and their policies had a big effect on the retail and thereby the repair trade. Followed by being boosted by the latest 'want' of the consumers.
Spending control in the 70's meant that decontrolled rental sets had a value hence we were busy keeping older sets going, Video recorders then gave the sales and rental end a boost with repairs subsequently riding on the back of that.
Then there was a slight increase in sales due to the colour boon sets becoming beyond economic repair and the end of spending restrictions and import restrictions you could now buy a Japanese TV over 19".
Despite the fact that there was a recession people always found the money for what they wanted. Video games gave a boost to portable set sales colour and mono . Hence the Ferguson 37140 and the good old Amstrad sets selling well.
The first generation VHS machines started to become available on the ex rental market which meant a lot more people could afford a VCR. We must have sold hundreds of 3V16/22s used.
Used colour sets still had a value so used sales and repairs were still going strong.
Camcorders and satellite topped things up and then in 1998 things started to change. Supermarkets started piling them high and selling them cheap.
Large companies were encouraged by the new government and we started to see the end of the high street, slowly one by one the local shops closed as the supermarkets became electrical retailers, butchers, bakers, key cutters etc.
Satellite sales became very low profit as $ky started offering free Amstrad equipment if you signed up with them it ended up where it was difficult to compete with Dixon's .

What annoyed me was if I sold a portable I was expected to deliver and install it and yet I had to compete with the supermarkets' and Dixon's cash and carry prices.
By 2000 I saw a drop off of Video repairs and repairs in general. Used sets had much less value as new ones were so cheap (and nasty,) but by the time the customer found out they had bought junk it was too late you had lost the sale.
I Jumped ship! So for me I would say the golden years were the '70s through to the late 90's .
Rich.
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Old 26th Jul 2021, 11:52 am   #26
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Default Re: (The trade). Golden years?

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Originally Posted by slidertogrid View Post

What annoyed me was if I sold a portable I was expected to deliver and install it and yet I had to compete with the supermarkets' and Dixon's cash and carry prices.
By 2000 I saw a drop off of Video repairs and repairs in general. Used sets had much less value as new ones were so cheap (and nasty,) but by the time the customer found out they had bought junk it was too late you had lost the sale.

Rich.
Hi Rich,
I was the same for me. It wasn't just the matter of selling a £149.00. portable TV set and saying good bye to it, the set had to be delivered and time spent fiddling about with the aerial to receive a decent pictures on all four channels. In due course I solved the problem, just stopped selling the things. Anyway, it was becoming more difficult to compete with the discount stores, even having direct accounts with manufactures didn't help.
For me the golden years were between 1980 to 1990. 1990 to 2000 wasn't too bad either. After that, just awful.

DFWB.
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Old 26th Jul 2021, 1:38 pm   #27
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Nothing as subtle as an Ishihara Test at Granada Rentals.
Remids me of the eye test given at school in the '70s. "What is on the last line?", I replied "Made in Britain by Goblin Instruments", I read that walking past the test to get to the right position. Back to the trade, I went for an interview at Pye Unicam where my colour vision was tested by showing me various resistors and asking what the colours were. I found that quite hard as I was so used to looking at a resistor and knowing the value like reading a word, so I had to translate the value back to colours.
 
Old 27th Jul 2021, 1:09 am   #28
Graham G3ZVT
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Default Re: (The trade). Golden years?

I've got an even better eye-test anecdote.
I went to a local optician for a routine test, he seemed perplexed as I read the chart, I thought I had done quite well, and then I realised what had happened.

In his small examination room, the laterally reversed chart was behind me and I was viewing it through a mirror in front of me.
Because I was aware of the mirror I automatically read the lines from right to left!

I asked him if many of his patients did that, but he said no, I was the first in his career, but he did go on to say that clearly this was evidence of a superior intellect.
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Old 27th Jul 2021, 11:01 am   #29
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Default Re: (The trade). Golden years?

The '50s for me, most sets were so simple and easy to repair. I also had problems with colour recognition but managed to work round it.

Peter
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Old 27th Jul 2021, 11:19 am   #30
brunel
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Default Re: (The trade). Golden years?

It still is "The Golden years" according to this. Still in business in Harrogate.
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Old 27th Jul 2021, 4:03 pm   #31
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Default Re: (The trade). Golden years?

The 80's and 90's; particularly the 90's as I started in the trade in the late 80's.

So many new technologies and products. As someone who loved tech, this had to be a great time to grow up and work in the trade.
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Old 28th Jul 2021, 8:13 pm   #32
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Default Re: (The trade). Golden years?

l am still in the trade now, l started in business in 1986 and soon managed to secure a part time job at a local TV repair shop, kind of an unofficial "apprenticeship" two days a week, while carrying on my business the other three days.

ln those days (as already said by others on here) almost every TV that came in was repaired. ln fact if we couldn't find the fault the Hitachi or Panasonic rep would visit and what a (friendly) rollocking we got if it was an easy fault that we'd missed!
I would repair dozens of VCR's every month, with a regular order for belts, idlers, and video heads sent to a place in Manchester for repairs every week

Nowadays TV repairs are a nightmare, all the parts suppliers have gone and it's mostly board replacement, with every TV (even visually identical models from the same manufacturer) having different boards.
There are a few companies specialising in used boards but l would say 50% of TV sets that come in, are scrapped.

Fortunately l branched out into white goods repair about twenty years ago, and that's where l make most of my living now.
Dishwashers, washing machines, electric cookers etc.

l've always repaired HI-FI which few engineers seemed to want to do, even back in the 1990's.
HI-FI still comes in for repair, although not the steady stream of Aiwa units with the 5 disc changers and twin auto reverse cassette decks, that everyone seemed to own.

Sony have recently discontinued the KSS series of lasers which is a real problem for all these older units when they can no longer be adjusted to make them read discs.

There are alternative lasers available but they are Chinese rubbish, it's a lottery as to whether they read discs at all when you install them. Also a lot of IC's are no longer available, l've just scrapped a nice Cambridge A1 amplifier for want of a pair of decent TDA1514A.

Turntables are a current popular item, exhumed from the loft after thirty years, last week someone gave one to me "found in my dad's loft" and "Can you get it going, if it's not worth doing scrap it"

lt's a good job l am honest, it was a pristine Linn Sondek LP12

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Old 28th Jul 2021, 11:15 pm   #33
Graham G3ZVT
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Default Re: (The trade). Golden years?

One of my late father-in law's invoices, showing how versatile one had to be.

It's not dated but clearly the early days of ITV.
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Old 29th Jul 2021, 12:02 am   #34
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Default Re: (The trade). Golden years?

I think that if you are prepared to work in different fields there is still a good living to be made. People are waiting months or sometimes years for specialist synthesizer repairs because of a lack of good repairers. Some of the best known recording studio repair technicians have also retired recently so there is almost certainly work available repairing studio gear. I tend to only take on the odd job here and there because I'm too busy with other things and I've got too much of my own gear to fix, but there's a demand out there. What is more, service information can often be found on the net with much of the kit that I look after so you're usually not just prodding around in the dark.
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Old 29th Jul 2021, 10:53 am   #35
Peter.N.
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Originally Posted by brunel View Post
It still is "The Golden years" according to this. Still in business in Harrogate.
If that is referring to a Band 111 convertor it will in all probability be the summer of 1955, I remember it well, worked many late nights fitting them, everyone wanted one before ITV started.

Just occurred to me that the Croydon transmitter which served us at the time was the first one so that would have been a year or two later.

Peter
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Old 29th Jul 2021, 11:12 am   #36
HG MICKE
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Default Re: (The trade). Golden years?

For me the golden years (earnings wise) were the early 70s to the mid 80s,thanks in large part to the introduction of split diode loptx fantastic failure rate especially 1976.

Colin
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