A Life Beset with Problems Donald Bullock There's Nothing Quite Like a Birthday to Get You Down
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A Life Beset with Problems Donald Bullock There's nothing quite like a birthday to get you down. Not noticed that a nearby resistor, R906, had also failed. Time when you're regarded, by the more polite people anyway, to look at the circuit diagram. This showed that R906 is as mature. Even aged-in-the-wood. There was a time when 680 and is part of the feedback network connected to the the approaching prospect sparked weeks of blissful, patient base of the self-oscillating chopper transistor. With great anticipation. Each day hung still. It was fun looking presence of mind I checked the associated 2.211F forward to the joyous day. But all this is no more. electrolytic capacitor C911. Sure enough it punished the Nowadays if you're in my boat you simply wake up one meter. So out it went and a nice new one was fitted. I day to find that Father Time has jabbed you yet again with checked around for anything else amiss but everything, his trident thing. It makes you think. You know you're including the nearby ceramic module that does the older, so you feel older. Your salad days have long since regulating bit, seemed to be o.k. passed. You've enjoyed a spell on the flat: now dottage Time to switch on. The set cut the air with an anguished looms ahead over the next fence — if you can clear it! gasp and a little puff of blue smoke curled along the bench. And if you're a self-employed TV engineer, as kindly As soon as the yellow lights cleared from my vision I folks have described me over the years, extra confirma- noticed a black hole in the module, where there'd tions of the ageing process are liable to occur almost previously been a printed transistor. CP901 said the service hourly. sheet, so I ordered one from Wizard. When it arrived I noticed that the printed transistor had been modified in favour of something more bulky, Mr Prattle's Hitachi soldered on. Good thing too I thought. I fitted the module, I now know that I should have slipped out the back way switched on and the transistor blew. asunder. when I saw Mr. Prattle struggling from his car under the At this I decided that it was time to try logical thought, weight of a large, square-screened monster I didn't as instilled in me at Gloucester technical college some forty recognise. He kicked open the door, plonked the set years ago. I checked the chopper transistor Q901, a big, down, belched and stifled a yawn. I yawned too, but more silent rogue strapped to the chassis by the module. It had successfully. expired. Spurred on, I checked the line output transistor. "Went off like a gun" he announced. "I 'spect a valve's This was also in an unhappy condition. At last I'd got to gone. Or a condenser!" the bottom of the problem. The strain was beginning to "I poised my pen over the pad. "Let's have your phone tell, so I lurched out of the workshop towards the house. number" I said. "I'll look at it and phone you later." With Perhaps there'd be a cup of tea. that he went. I ran straight into Mr. Prattle. "Got 'im done, 'ave The set turned out t6 be an Hitachi CPT2178 — the G6P yuh?" he cried. "Nothing much wrong, was there?" chassis. I gradually realised that the panel suspended in space to the right of the tube housed the power supply and quickly discovered that the mains fuse had blown. So I Faces accused the nearby mains bridge rectifier of its downfall. I was never much good at remembering faces. But it cried honour bright and sure enough was o.k. Then I Nowadays I'm even worse. This explains why newly made 206 TELEVISION JANUARY 1991 friendships sometimes have a short life when someone who picture that remained on despite the punishment I had meets me a while later receives the old fish-eye in response given the tube's neck. Another successful repair! I'm to their greeting of familiarity. It happened again this getting pretty good I thought. afternoon. Mr. Beamer poked his head around the workshop door and winked. "Did you manage it, Mr. Bullock?" Where are the Knobs? "Er . manage what?" But I'm out of my depth with the modern sets and videos "The little matter we discussed yesterday. Remember?" that have been coming in lately — the ones without knobs, I modulated my troubled brow and pressed my knuckle accompanied by aeroplane cockpit type consoles. And under my nose. Was this the chap who'd pestered me to because I'm becoming increasingly cantankerous and advertise on the football fixtures poster, or was it the impatient with "progress" I get nasty. specialist I'd met and discussed an old trouble? "Er . ." One of these sets came in the other day. I put it on the was about all I could manage. bench and raised my hand towards the top right-hand part Beamer's features faltered. Then, his grin hovering on of the screen, extending my index finger in search of the the brink of recovery, he squared up to me and spoke with usual well-disguised, flush on/off button. There wasn't one. emphasis — as though I was not only deaf but slow on the Then I picked and pressed at the horizontal strips uptake. underneath in search of the vital control, all to no avail. "You know. My folks lived next door to yours during Some comedians amongst the design boys hide the the war. My sister had one brown eye and one blue! control under the front underside of the cabinet to make Married that podgy Yank GI and found that his Ohio viewing more fun, so I ran my fingers along here. No luck. ranch was a bedsitter over a condemned pork butcher's It was then that I noticed an enormous collection of shop in the Bronx. Remember?" buttons in a nasty plastic slot behind the set. I surveyed it I snapped into life and beamed. "Of course! With you with increasing incomprehension. Who on earth would now. Let's see — which of these is yours?" I turned to the know what the huge variety of symbols meant? I smacked shelf of repaired videos and surveyed them as though I it back and yanked the set off the bench. knew which was his. "You said you wouldn't use that word again!" It was "It was the telly, Mr. Bullock. That one on the floor Greeneyes poised in the doorway with a mug of tea. "It's there, with all the videos on top, I think. Wasn't much, was no good your getting angry. That won't get the set it?" mended, will it? I'm off to my Spanish lessons for an hour. Is it any good asking you to turn on the microwave grill at four and set the dish washer? Then there's that letter to fax Timers and Search Tuners and the new central heating timer to programme." I looked at her blankly . Then there's the problem of not being able to set up VCR timers or TV set search tuners. I usually put the job on one side until after school and get my ten-year old lad to do it. Takes him about fifteen seconds usually. The other day he came home late with a capful of apples, having torn his jacket in the process. Boasted he'd got them from the vicar's garden. As I was about to remonstrate the phone rang. It was Mr. Quick. Said he'd be round in ten minutes to collect his Pye TV set into which I'd soldered a memory battery. I'd no choice but to give up any idea of chastisement and enlist the boy's help in order to get the Pye tuned and set up. So much for parental dignity. A 1500 Chassis Three months ago I virtually gave a second-hand HMV 2809 — one of the 1500 chassis models — to Mr. and Mrs. Trew. They're a parsimonious couple who say they've no interest in colour. However that might be here it was back again. "The picture's gone unsteady" said Mr. Trew. "My wife's afraid it'll cost us money. Only we're pensioners, see." With that they went off. I plugged the set in and reached for a 47k0 resistor — R44 in the sync separator's screen grid circuit used to be a stock fault with these sets. But it wasn't that. The picture was largely absent, flashing on now and then. I tapped the tube's neck and the picture danced on and off in sympathy. How was I going to get out of this one? Then I spotted the light blue plastic spigot cover that peeps through the tube base and recalled how these become dry and brittle with age. As a result the built-in wire ring spark-gap arrangement earths some of the pins. Quick as a flash I hooked it off, replaced the tube base and switched on. Up came a surprisingly good and stable TELEVISION JANUARY 1991 207 other cyphers. I put in a tape and the machine worked beautifully. This did wonders for Ernie's ego but little for What a Life mine. But Ernie's wife knows where to find him.