Are there any tv repair shop left in the U.S.A.?
 

After I've read a discusion about how profitable is the job of tv repair man today I got a curiosity: are there any longer tv reapir shops in the U.S.A. (and Canada)?

Up until about 10 years ago, there was probably 15 between here and Casper, including my shop. Now they are all closed. Now, I think the nearest one is in Cheyenne, 110 miles away.

I work on TVs but not very often. I wouldn't call my shop a TV shop but an electronics shop. We usually work on cruise ship and hotel TVs. Lately that has fallen off as they are all trashing the old TVs and going LCD.

There are a few, but very few. Maybe 5% or less compared to how many were in business in the 1980s? The ones that are keeping busy seem to be doing mostly warranty work. Their territory keeps getting bigger and bigger as competitors close. I know of one town locally that had 5 or 6 shops 20 years ago but now has none.

To be honest my biz is mostly keeping old sets going so they don't have to replace them. I have started working on LCD, LED, and Plasma just to keep my fun. They just ain't as fun!

There is just one TV shop left in my area (actually, the shop is about five miles away in the next town), but I'm not sure if they do much more than warranty service on flat screens. Haven't been there in years; in fact, I don't know if the shop is even in business anymore. (Another TV shop that was in my home town moved to another part of the county several years ago, then apparently went out of business as they are no longer listed in the telephone directory.) The last time I called the shop in the next town was about 13 years ago, when I had problems with my then-new RCA CTC-185 color table model TV.

I think there are 3 left in my area.

Number one has been here the longest and is the only one I'd trust to work on anything; but, he won't work on anything old and his attitude is not the best.

Number two was around during the later CRT days; but, he made most of his money off of up-front check-out fees and he'd eventually tell the customer that parts were NLA. Now, I think all he does is warranty work on flat screens. Honestly, about all he has sense enough to do is change boards.

Number three is actually a satellite dealer who used to farm out most of his TV repair business to a friend of mine who had a shop in his backyard. Then, my friend got out of the business and the satellite shop owner was forced to fix TV's himself. His usual practice is usually to get a big estimate approved before pulling the back. If the estimate is approved, he'll look for a simple problem and/or check the online TV repair tips pages. If it takes him more than 15 minutes to do a job, he's not interested. He was giving me a lot of TV's that he claimed were junk; but, many turned out to be easy fixes. I stopped talking to him when I found out that he told someone that all I knew how to work on was that old tube shit that ought to be thrown away. He had a lot of nerve to talk about me, since I was fixing most of the solid state stuff that he was writing off as junk.

There was another shop, who's now out of business, who's owner was an arrogant, crooked jerk. He wanted me to work for him and he thought he could pay me in junk TV's. I know for a fact that he often charged customers for major parts replacement on sets that actually had minor problems.

During the '80's, there were TV shops on just about every corner and most of them stayed busy.

Still a few around here. The one I deal with has been around since at least the end of the tube era, and still has some tubes and other parts that I occasionally buy. I don't think he works on the really old ones anymore but he will work on tube amps and other vintage audio gear.

I'm still doing it but may stop in about a year or so. Most of my work is vacuum tube audio as it is still profitable. I try to keep the older TV's (BPC types) working for a lot of older customers who are "technically challenged".
I do one old tv at a time. I just finished a Philco Predicta for a customer and will probably start on another 7 inch TS-4 for myself while I wait for another "marathon repair".
My CTC 9 Latham is sleeping here also right now.

Yes, theres a few old shops near my house here in Toronto Canada still that repair CRT's.

http://www.ringaudio.com/ 17 Carlaw Ave

American Electronics Service - 3058 Dundas St W.

Howard Tv - 3893 Bathurst St, 416-636-4822

Absolute Electronic Service Inc 2904 Dufferin St, Toronto, 416-782-3448

Found one.
 

There is one in Pt St Lucie Florida. I stoped in one day and spoke with the fella. Just him for the most part and his wife. Old chassis around from the solid state era. Plasmas are junk he says with power supplies and bad mother boards. He has an old self serve tube tester in the corner, kinda cool but not much for "legacy" parts or sets.

Truely the end of an era.

I closed up shop back in 1998. I suppose I "saw the writing on the wall" a little earlier than some.

Up until the early 90's, there were plenty of repair shops in Knoxville and the surrounding communities. Many were owned by older guys who had been repairing TV sets since WATE channel 6 went on the air in Knoxville. I knew a good many of them, and (for the most part), we were friendly with each other and shared parts and expertise freely.

The first wave of closures came mostly from retirements. I remember buying parts and service literature from several shops where the owners retired. The second wave of closures came as folks went broke.

My last friend in the business closed up last year. He had kept his doors open by doing work for a hospital, a few motels, the school system, and a local college. When they changed over to LCD sets, his repair jobs from those sources dried up. I remember him telling me in about 2007 that he couldn't make enough on retail customer jobs to stay in business.

I'm still in business, and there is a guy about 15 miles from me. That's it for this area. Not near as much business as in the 80s and 90s though. I'd like to stay around for another 10 years or so, but time will tell.

There used to be at least one shop in every little town around here, but they're all gone now except for one in the tiny town of Caldwell, nearly 50 miles from me. I've stopped in and talked to the owner. Nice guy who works on new stuff, but still does repairs on old sets and even repairs radios as old as the late 20's. He has a Zenith Space Command B/W set from the early 60's in the shop that I'd like to get if possible.

I know of at least 3 shops in New York City and Nassau County which are now all gone. One in Rockville Center, one in Marine Park, Brooklyn and one in The five towns L.I. The last one I tried going to in order to ask about parts told me no one looks for old junk anymore. Ha!

Where I worked in the Boston 'burbs there are only a few still
working out of the house. Wont do anything over 10 yrs old. Period.
No more mom & pops. Used to be everywhere & so much work you turned a lot down.
Abt 10 yrs ago I went to my last seminar. I was the youngest
there at 50. Most over 70 & doing it to get out of the house.

If you can get a phone book from the 70's & look under TV
repair. Pages of shops & big ads, a major industry GONE.

73 Zeno

Used to be 6 shops in my town. All are gone.. Ironicly, the shop that taught me how to fix tvs as a kid i just visited his house and bought some of the leftover tools and parts left from the store uptown he closed months ago..

Definately sad days for tv repair techs.. Its a disposable world these days...

SR

There seem to be more than four places that claim to repair tv sets in Port St. Lucie, I went to the one in front of our bowling alley and made a stupid request for a late '70s Zenith System 3 remote control. I couldn't give him the tv model number because it had faded off the label. Thought he might know off the top of his head what would work on it. I did not waste his time past two minutes, he had this mega attitude, and I expect too much of people some times.

Seems everyone left in TV is cranky. Probably bitter at the loss
of the good old days when you could make a decent living.
Your remote is probably an ultrasonic, look for a 124-*** number
in the battery box. There are also stickers inside the set with model ##.
If you find one locally they will LOVE to sell it !

73 Zeno:smoke:

I know of two local guys that claim to still make a humble living at it. Lately they've been mostly replacing cheap bulging electrolytic caps in LCD and LED sets. So pretty much the same process we go through with our old sets. :)

No shops here in Tucson that I'm aware of. When I was in college in California back in the 70's, I used to buy and sell (and repair) sets out of my apartment. After graduating, I continued to do that on a limited basis until about 1982. It was about that time that people started developing the "throw it away" attitude and my business dropped to almost nothing, so I gave it up. A friend of mine continued operating a TV shop in town for a few years after that, but he gave up in the late 80's.

I still run a TV shop, But its not just TVs, its ALL electronics both commercial and consumer, including car audio repair and installation + remote starts and security.

Only way I can survive these days. TVs I can still do component level repair in alot of cases, as long as the processor isnt fried or something liek that. (which is pretty common nowadays). but I did notice as the years go by, each new "model year" with TVs have more and more proprietary ICs that cant be found unless its a pull from the black market in china.

Even have the equipment to do processor swaps if I have to, the BGA rework equip isnt cheap, and the process is very intricate, not quite to CRT rebuilding intricacy but its up there. The modern plasma TVs I change the QFP buffer ICs all the time on the Samsung and LG units. They all fail.

We lost another one here.
 

I was stopping in here every few months to buy cables and the like. I admired all the old and new stuff on display but I figured it was just a matter of time. :sigh:
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I walked in on the last day open, today. I left with a carload of old record players, small tube testers, 3 B&K CRT testers, Tektronix 516 scope, B&K frequency counter, etc.
The owner is a great guy and we came to a price we could both agree on.
I gave him my card and asked if anything tube-related, especially old color tubes were found, but I did not see any, just some OEM Sony 510 something.
The old radios were gone by now and no TV stuff was seen prior to 1980. Lots of Sony, RCA and Zenith manuals. Lots of VCR-Audio-etc repair jobs never picked up.....and newer parts parts parts

This place was around since I was a kid, same location.....
I think they call CRT sets "direct view" looks like
they still work on em.....

Nanuet NY - Same town as the place I worked at, and
there were about 5 shops there back in the 80's.

http://www.brynmawrtv.com

http://www.yelp.com/biz/bryn-mawr-tv...spring-valley#

https://www.facebook.com/BrynMawrTV

Quite the marketers......

This guy is in the next town from me, I was in there once years
ago for a part of some kind, which he did not want to order for me,
so I never went back...... He is behind a regular store front.
Pretty little place...

http://totaltvrepair.com/

No idea where this guy actually is.....

http://qualityelectronicandappliance.com/

I guess tv repair is still around.....
I don't go to shops any more for parts, so if they
are around even just around the corner, I don't know
about it.....

.
.

Thankfully there is ONE shop about fifteen minutes from my home. Very nice man owns the place. He does his own work, and is very friendly towards folk like us! He has given me lots of advise on how to do my own work.

This is NOT a "tv repair shop", BUT it IS a place where one can go and get many parts to work on them, which are not available at radio shack. He also has a lot of "vintage parts" still around too.

http://stclairelectronics.com/

I have been going there off and on for over 20 years now. If you go inside--it is a "throwback" to what a tv parts store must have looked like maybe in 1974 or so !! But he increasingly carrying parts for modern flat-panel sets.

He is the ONLY place around here anymore--to get this stuff, aside from MCM in springboro. There used to be a LOT of parts places in CINcy and dayton area...but NO MORE.

This place is about all we have left, but it is well stocked.

http://www.baynesvilleelectronics.com/index2.ivnu

This place is about all we have left, but it is well stocked.

http://www.baynesvilleelectronics.com/index2.ivnu
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Dave G
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Ah, yes, good old "Brainsville Electronics" or as we used to call them(LOL). They used to have some good deals in the 1980's on surplus and used stuff, but into the 1990's-2000's, their pricing was getting way up there. You're right, they were the go to place for parts in the Baltimore/Towson area for many, many years. They sure beat Radio Shack for selection.

Tom (PK)