What Happened to TV Repair Shops? | The Trade That Died in Every Town at Once

Comments · 20

• FR

  @frankmcelroy3792 · 3 weeks ago (edited)

  This video brings back lots of great memories. &nbsp;As a teenager in the late 60&apos;s and early 70&apos;s, I earned extra money repairing TVs in my neighborhood. &nbsp;Even changed out a few picture tubes and did chassis repairs when the local TV repair man gave up. &nbsp;Yep, I also had a whole collection of those Sams Photofact schematics. &nbsp;Back then I must have built well over 25 Heathkits. &nbsp;All their test equipment, a complete SB series Ham radio station and yes, one of the Heathkit 25&quot; color TVs. &nbsp;And I still have all of it today. &nbsp;But, I&apos;ll admit that the TV hasn&apos;t been turned on in over 40 years. &nbsp;The Ham radio station and text equipment still do work. &nbsp;As a teen, electronics was a hobby. &nbsp;<br><br>In my late 20&apos;s, I graduated college with a PhD degree in Analytical Chemistry as an Electro Chemist and worked for big oil retiring as an Executive Manager after 35 year. &nbsp;In retirement, my electronics hobby returned but this time it&apos;s all solid state electronics. &nbsp;My new hobby became a small business specializing in repairing multiplex chassis control systems in 100K$+ motorhomes that without my repair are not drivable - they are very expensive park models. &nbsp;A repair of $1,000 to replace a 28 pin micro surface mounted device and being able to reprogram it to get an expensive high end motor home back on the road is just like the economics replacing a tube in a TV from the 50&apos;s or 60&apos;s. The market niche that I have is that over the past 3 years, nobody else has figured out how to do the repair that I&apos;m able to do.

  7

• LI

  @lilah66 · 3 weeks ago

  50 year+ tech here. I am 71 now and repair vintage Hi Fi &nbsp;and antique radios and pre 1955 TV sets. My dad was a radar engineer for GE and I remember watching him work at night in the shop in the basement. It is a nice feeling bringing a 1960&apos;s Pioneer or Marantz back to life. Also today I received a piece of test gear I have wanted for many years. A Tektronix 570 tube curve tracer. It looks beautiful next to my 575 transistor tracer. One last thing transistors do not last forever. They go noisy, they crackle sputter snap and pop. I change probably around 100 per year. I have radios with original Rf and IF and oscillator tubes that are 90 years old. Power and rectifier tubes like power transistors and 5U4 rectifier tubes are the ones that die.

  4

• BA

  @bartblack3434 · 3 weeks ago

  Well done. I spent about 25 years in the home entertainment sales and service business starting in 1969.<br>You represented the repair trade with much accuracy. I still do quite a bit of electronics but not commercially any more. Just for friends, neighbours, and myself.<br>Thanks for the walk down memory lane.

  5

• AL

  @alanmichel613 · 3 weeks ago (edited)

  I remember testing tubes to repair TVs when I was a teenager. &nbsp;I wanted to be a TV repairman “when I grew up”. &nbsp; My dad did not encourage it. &nbsp;He said there would be no money in it in the future. &nbsp;Boy, was he right!

  2

• JV

  @jvolstad · 3 weeks ago

  Remember tube testers at the Drug Store?

  5

• VK

  @vk6xre · 3 weeks ago

  I worked, 70s and 80s, at the other end of the TV pipeline, the transmitters. They too went solid state but kept the Final stage as a Tube. For awhile.... I left that industry to go into the new fangle dangle Computer industry in 1986. &nbsp;It hung over, in the days of early IBM and clones, to service them once a quarter, blow out the dust, re-seat the RAM chips, clean the floppy drives, Clean and oil the printer. It was a support contract. Then I became a network Engineer. Retired now. Home Lab player.

  2

• DO

  @douglashoff95 · 3 weeks ago

  Some of the biggest selling tubes 6LQ6, 6LF6, 6DW4, 3A3, 6BK4, 6GH8A (color). 6DQ6, 6DA4, 1B3 (b&amp;w). Remember those? We had at least 20 file cabinets loaded with Sam&apos;s Photofact folders numbering from #1 to the 2000&apos;s. There were still plenty of failures in solid state and sets with integrated circuits to keep us busy. Bad solder connections on printed circuit boards became a common problem. Because of the number of electrolytic capacitors in solid state sets, these became a pretty common failure item. We did VCRs, car radios, microwaves and high fidelity stereo equipment as well as TVs. Inspection fee was $30.

  2

• RO

  @rogercrump4077 · 3 weeks ago

  I still have a shop in my garage and tube caddy and test equipment i went into video game repair and worked &nbsp;until i retired. Brought &nbsp;back memories

  1

• HA

  @hakangustavsson3538 · 3 weeks ago

  Many memories, my dad and myself repairing our old fifties b/w tv. Always suceeding. Much fun.

  1

• CS

  @CSmith-gb1sl · 3 weeks ago

  I used to walk up to a small appliance storefront shop with my dad, while he tested the tubes. &nbsp;I was going to get into this profession. &nbsp;I still fix my flat screens, I don’t want an integrated smart TV.

  1

• RI

  @richardnalisnick462 · 12 days ago

  I am a retired tv repairman. I worked in one of the biggest &nbsp;factory shops in western PA. I started out in the tube era and worked to the late 1990s &nbsp;I still have all my test gear and yes 2 tube testers. Yes tubes are still made and in use. Today. I am a ham radio operator and all my Gear was made in the 1950s all tube and still works today.here is what I use. You can look it up. Johnson Viking 500 Transmitter National NC300 Received. Dow key relay .All Vintage AM gear. Still on their today.73

• FR

  @francisgrizzlysmit4715 · 3 weeks ago (edited)

  my little brother is still good at fixing these thinks our first colour TV was one he resurrected, this was in Geelong, Australia

  1