Good to know some things have changed very little in our world over the years...

http://www.vacuumtubeera.net/ConsumerRe ... epairs.pdf

Other good, vintage, CR articles:

http://www.vacuumtubeera.net/RefMat-1940.html

Tell me something I don't know.

I've taken exactly three electronic items(all radios) to a "repairman" in my life.The first two items I never got back.The last item in 2005,I paid for a chassis restoration and all he did was replace a handfull of paper caps and break a couple of the alignment slugs.That's what convinced me to start doing my own work.

I was rather surprised to see that last fellow check into this sight one evening and ask a rather newbie-oriented question,especially since he was such an expert (according to him).

As will a certain percentage of the population in any field. As one that spent the first 25 years of my working days as a radio/TV repairman I resent such articles. I feel quite confident that the percentage of crooked customers is much higher that of the servicemen.

I agree with Bruce. I have been in the consumer electronics repair business for 44 years and you will not believe the dishonest customers. Everything from saying " you just worked on it so it should be under your warranty". Looked up the ticket, 2 years ago! To bringing the set back with liquid spilled in it, saying "it was working fine before you fixed it", or the same model set was brought back, but the serial number is different! I could go on, but you get the point.

Hmm, $2 an hour? I make at least $3 or $4 on most my jobs

In 1965 when I was 8 I accidentally spilled perhaps 2 oz. water into my friend's family black and white TV. The repair place said there was no hope of fixing it, but they gave them $50- I think towards a new set that my family paid the rest of the bill on. I know now from repairing old TVs that I knocked out the vertical oscillator (set displayed a single horz. line) but what do you think the chances are that that was an honest call? Though I have worked enough in service to know dishonesty is a two-way street, we did fess up to exactly what had happened to the repair shop. My parents reminded me forever about this incident.

John H.

Hagstar,
If the TV in question used a PC board,the water
spill could have burnt the PC board leaving carbon
traces on it.Sometimes you can repair that kind of
damage but most repair shops probably would
not attempt it because the repair would not be reliable
and could not be properly guaranteed.Occasionally
at my job someone will spill some kind of liquid into
a piece of equipment while it is powered up and
the same kind of damage usually will result.We do
not even try to fix the burnt PC boards.We just
install new ones to make sure the repair is reliable.
Regards,
Swanson

Cheating repairers are indeed present in EVERY field. Some might even be inclined to say that there tend to be a larger percentage of 'those' people in certain fields.... like auto mechanics.

You don't often hear of scamming horologists...



Of course, adjust for inflation and you will find that he is actually making over $30/hr.

Is that what they're calling them now?
(Ducking and running.)
'Kay. Back to the topic.
Nelson

............

One of our 3 long time repair shops overcharges pretty bad . I go into these places to pick up electronics that were left behind because of the huge repair estimate . over half of the stuff i get does not need much to get it fixed , why he charges so much i dont know . Looks like charging less and making the money would be a better choice . One shop here wants 150$ to replace a simple broken off cable jack .

Making good money on the hour, it shouldn't cost more than $50. What's he plan to do, spend 10 minutes taking out each screw?? I can have a TV totally apart in 10 minutes, back together in about twice the time.

My gypsy friends take exception to this thread .

John H.

So he has to remove the back of the TV, Remove the tuner box and possibily the internal circuit board to install the new jack. How much do you think he should charge?

He should charge YOU 175$ , He should also charge you for going to the bathroom and zipping down his pants and extra for zipping them back up , then there is the trip to the coffee pot so he can charge you to fill his cup and more to go pee again ........ otherwise it should cost no more than 35 to 45$ . I have replaced alot of cable jacks and dont remember ever needing to remove the tuner .

Now dont get mad because i am beeing silly . Really it takes about 20 minutes to replace the average cable jack . 150$ is taking advantage .

I spent decades working on consumer electronics, and dealing with 'customers' who would walk up to the counter and start spewing all these stories listed in the article. Most of the time we would take in the equipment, call with an estimate, listen to the same stories about how we were all thieves, only to recommend that they take the set elsewhere. Once they heard that, they would back peddle and make excuses as to why they couldn't go someplace else; most likely because they burnt their bridges and no one wanted their business.

At least that article stopped with advising them to test their own tubes. I couldn't count the thousands of mangled sets I've seen that were abused by the 'home repair technician'. I'm not complaining; it usually put money in my pocket, but I had to work my ass off to get it. Sometimes I demanded payment in advance; this caused problems not only between me and the customer, but between me and the boss--if I worked on commission, it was MY paycheck I was worried about. Most of them would claim the repair was a '5 minute job'; I would usually hand it back to them asking for a demonstration. I also had a Do Not Repair list; those customers who cost me money for one reason or another. Their next repair would put money IN my pocket, or they had to leave.

BTW, I have known techs who cheated customers, but the ratio was dozens of good techs to a single bad one.

Why replace the broken cable connector, when 95% of tv's have a video and audio input jacks in them.The same goes for most cable boxes having video and audio output jacks. Just use them instead of the cable connector.. It does the same thing and saves the hassle of spending money you dont have to.. especially on an older tv..

So try to find a qualified board level tech. who will work for $10/hr today or a qualified board level tech. period. The consumer doesn't understand that as soon as you open the door in the morning it starts costing you money. Reasonably priced service data today is a joke as well as the manufactureres wanting to charge $500 board costs on a TV which can get replaced for $300 or less. Add to that equasion that insurance costs go up, as well as rent, utilities and everything else associated with running a shop. After 40 + years owning and operating my business I closed and took an early retirement. The guy who bought my name and phone is still complaining that he's having a hard time making money even working out of his house.

Back when I was young , , , And the greatest majority of TVs and Radios still had tubes in em , I used to make great money as the neighborhood "go to guy" when a TV or radio was dead .There was so much honest money to be made , that not once did I ever even consider overcharging anyone for repairs , and word got around fast . The two "real" shops in town were too expensive to have any real work done by , and so I was a good option . The good thing about them being neighbors , was that in a neighborhood where everybody knows everybody , Nobody is gonna act like a jerk for the rest of the neighborhood to see ...

........ Ah , the good ol days .........

I've had good experiences with repair techs, mostly.

An example of a tech going above and beyond the necessary: My Realistic TRF stopped working -- completely dead, like no signal was getting to the audio section (nothing but slight hiss), and I knew less about radios then than I do now, which is still very little.

For some reason (can't remember why I thought a transistor was the problem), I thought I'd replace one of the transistors. No change. (Obviously it was a cap, or some other problem).

I took it to Radio Shack, and first thing, the sales guy wants to sell me another radio. I reminded him that there wasn't another radio in the store that was as good as the TRF for what the TRF does best, AM distance listening.

Realising I wasn't gonna budge, the guy stops his sales pitch, takes the radio, I fill out the form, and add notes to it, telling the tech what the problem was, and also telling him what I'd done.

I get the radio back two weeks later, working great, and the tech even gave me my transistor back, taped it to the side of the radio. Radio still works today. It didn't cost me that much, either, maybe 50 or 60 bucks?