So, for the last 5 years the venerable Philips Hugeatron Widescreen has been providing entertainment; coming from freecycle with an alledged ‘dead tube’ and being fixed with a 21p capacitor it has provided good service. It is getting on for 15 years old now, the set having been about 10 when I got it.
Today, however, it showed signs that all isn’t well within it’s HT circuitry. The picture did that which my mum’s set used to do. Varying brightness and lines across the screen.
At 15 years of service and knowing that the there are only 1 or 2 boards inside that case and therefore replacement isn’t going to be cheap – if they’re even still available – I am vaguely concerned about the future of the TV set. Most TV shops looked in horror at my old set because it had discrete components, as opposed to whole entire whop-out-and-replace-boards. I fear that my 15 year old Philips set may get the same ‘you want that fixed?!’ treatment.
…I can’t recall seeing a TV repair shop in Slough…come to think of it….do they even exist?*
If it dies, however, then it either needs fixing or replacing because…
Well, I don’t actually watch that much TV*** so you might think not, but a more accurate statement is that I don’t sit and gaze at it in it’s mind-numbing glory – instead being selective and watching only the shows I actually like (House, BSG, Big Bang Theory, Dr Who), but I do like to watch those shows. And films. I like films. And thus there is a requirement for a decent TV set. I don’t actually care for a TV Tuner, between iPlayer and the internet one can find virtually all the shows one might want to watch, but the screen bit, that’s kinda important. I’ve been quite happy living in my low-def glory, 625 lines has been quite sufficient. But they’ve been 625 lines of 15 year old top-of-the-range widescreen-flatscreen-CRT-glory. It has great colour, it has a really nice smart-widescreen-mode which is so lovely that Lauren wanted it; and it’s not too clever for it’s own good (i.e. it doesn’t switch itself off just to wind you up).
But I must consider the possibility that it’s passing is nigh, and plans must be made for it’s repair or replacement. The annoying thing is I’d got myself all ready, conceptually, for replacing the shonky Technics amplifier which lurketh underneath the TV. It has started producing audio with the left channel much quieter than the right. No Dolby Digital 5.1 shinyness for me, oh no. I was thinking about a nice, understated Cambridge Audio A1. Simple, to the point, and moderately cheap.
The most annoying thing is, stepping up from Lauren’s god-awful Beco? Bush? 22″ goldfishbowl TV (which was equal to my 1970 Ferguson Colourstar but without the high-pitched-whistle that she could hear) to the Philips 32″ Widescreen was, to put it bluntly, lovely. Going back (when I moved in here) to using the Digital 19″ CRT as my TV for a while was painful, and so the idea of going down in screen size is a bit of a difficulty for me. But I look at the prices of TVs and think ‘do I really, really need 32 inches’?
Bah. Still, if it is going to expire and allow out it’s magic smoke then I guess just before the New Year sales is a pretty good time for it to do so. Tell you something though, you know life’s not that bad when the worst thing**** in itis the near death experience of a telly.
As a non-related-tangential-sidepoint (involke tangent:repair places:non-tv:lack-of-money:lack-of-time=car) I dropped off the gearbox to be reconditioned yesterday. The owner of the workshop where I dropped it off, currently battling failure of heating, is a little (i.e. he is little) Indian/Sri Lankan chap of an age where he possibly was, many years ago, an immigrant to the country, and is, quite frankly, awesome. It’s that kind of shop where you drop off something the age of the minor’s gearbox and you know this guy is going to take care of it appropriately. Shelves stocked with piles of bits-of-engine. The guy was wearing a proper (green) overall/coverall/labcoat thing (who’s name I can’t think of at the moment; like the chap in Open all hours, but in green), closed with *string*.
There were parts manuals around that almost certainly date from the time of the minor. It was fantastic. I am hoping that once the Diff arrives and goes off to him, and the gearbox is done, he’ll allow me to take some photos of him working, because it’s an awesome environment, and while I suck at portraiture, I’d love to shoot some shots in his workshop (of him, and the space).
As if to prove my point, they don’t take cards and the invoices appear to be prepared on a manual typewriter.
* Apparently there are quite a few**, but most of them seem to start LCD repair; it may be worth checking it out, but I suspect that we’re into the area of spending lots to get very little.
** One of which goes by the intriguing name of Audiorama Vintage Radio.
*** I say that a lot, I’m not sure who I’m trying to convince
**** Apart, obviously, from the near terminal lack of money and time.
