It seems late in the game for me to ask this, but what exactly is a road techie? Didn't repairmen go to the homes for those big consoles and if they couldn't fix it there, they brought it back to the shop? I'm sure some people could carry in their portables to the shop to probably save on a house call charge.
Quote:
Originally Posted by old_coot88
On house calls, that's absolutely correct. However, most road techies would routinely give all the tubes the 'tap test' to reveal any borderline intermittents and arcing damper tubes (a very common problem). Weak tubes could often be identified by turning the set off for about 10 seconds and then back on. A lag in horizontal lock-in would reveal the oscillator tube becoming weak, a lag in color sync lock-in showed a weak color osc. tube, slow width fill-out showed a borderline horiz output tube, etc. For house calls the old adage was that the set itself is the best "tube tester".
But in the shop, all the tubes were routinely tested on a tester unless the customer specifically requested a cut rate.
|