Inside a TV repair shop
 

Photo found on ebay

stuff in photo
 

A BIT OF HISTORY !
lets identify the stuff in the photo.
It looks to me that the radio on the shelf with the tag is a Howard general coverage receiver.It is just to the right of the RCA color bar generator.

KB2LRI

Awesome photo! I think I see a B&K 1076 Television Analyst to the left of the scope and Precision E-200 RF generators to the right.
Also some 8XP4 / 8YP4 test CRTs on the workbench.

Don't forget that metal cabinet roundy test jig at the far right..

Don't forget the "Packard Bell" color TV sign.

It would be interesting to know a little bit about the history of that picture!

Wao, lots of deja vu in that pic. 'Cept the logos on the wall were RCA and DuMont/Emerson.

It sure would, but of course, there isn't any.

Barely visible in the original - I increased the contrast when I scanned it.

It looks like an awfully narrow bench. They must've used wheeled work benches for the larger sets.

Yep, wheeled work benches for the big stuff, like consoles sometimes stood on end with the chassis slid partway back.
Our benches were an 'L' configuration with an auto radio section at the far end of one.

I visited a shop a few years ago that had an identical bench, right down to the roundie jig up in the corner. I saved the jig, the shop is gone now.

Wiremold raceway plug strip along the bench front: I have the same (except mine's above on a shelf edge) and I'll bet a lot of you do, too.

I like that raceway. But have you ever priced it? I guess I have not gone to the correct store. I have done boxes and Romex in the past. But the Wiremold is better for sure.

Thanks for taking the time to scan and post the photo. It is a big part of our past and I am sure that there were many hours spent bent over those chassis and possibly a few colorful words uttered at times...

what a trip how different people dressed and looked. A bit of class I guess you could say.
I have several of those pieces. Very cool.
I bet they all smoked

In our shop...
 

We had an island wide enough for two or three consoles in the service area and a mirrored wall to observe from the rear while adjusting. Long antenna leads with "clothes-pin clips. Upper body stregnth was always being built up in those days! We 'serviced while you wait' if the problem was minor.

More stuff
 

Would that be a 6/ 12 volt power supply behind the head of the guy on the left?
How bout a component sub box on top of the Analyst.
Remember wrist watches! I'd guess late 60's

You may well be right. It could be a Howard...or possibly a National NC-46...which had a similar dial bezel.

the rca color bar dot generator it is and its a wr-64a because i have that one,lol.

After touching the wrong wire on a live chassis....You can bet they smoked and swore. lol.

I bet they all smoked[/QUOTE]

Back in those days, it was unusual, if you didn't smoke. When I see old test equipment, you can see right away, the equipment that came from a heavy smokers shop.:yuck:

I don't think Wiremold makes plugstrip with recepticles that close together anymore. Ever since they had to make it with grounding recepticles.

We used "Tapaline" at the first shop I worked in. No polarization, just long strips to plug it in. If you get tingled when standing on the floor after a rain shower in wet shoes, turn the plug over! EICO VTVM's, soldering guns(!) and metal RCA rollaround tables with RCA rubber mats on top. We fixed anything! TV's, radios, car radios, tape recorders, even lighted firemans helmets! Fun days back then, and the owner smoked like a chimney!

Yep i've still got one, a 6 footer. Also a set of three mini-cabinet IRC resistor assortments in 3 wattages (although the stock's severely depleted from 'post retirement' work over the years). And about third remaining of a 1 lb.roll of Kester 'real' solder from back in the day.

I make pleasure myself from the story talk of before times!!! :music:

In village of my borning, me uncle Bishar Ali would renew the frequent households and TV sets of the upper caste. He would pleasure himself to your stories also. Yet he was cut off head for disloyalty to the party group, so he has passed. :thumbsdn: :tears:

This :banana: is why contine myself in his way and love TVS

Work with one hand in your pocket so you can be the engineer and not the conductor.

One thing I don't see and don't care to are cockroaches and the occasional mouse or rat. Removing the back, hard telling what might come out to surprise you.

"Remember wrist watches?" ????

Ersin multicore. Wish I still had some of the latter.

Roaches and Rats and mice, oh my!
 

Roaches, rats and mice were the norm. One day I went to a house to service a magnavox console and the owners son was under a big cardboard box with a tiny hole to watch me. As I pulled the set from the wall, I asked, "What are you doing under the box?". His reply, as he peeked from under the box was, "I want to see what happens when you poke the wasp nest in the TV!". I took my flashlight and looked carefully thru the holes in the back, and hanging from the top of the cabinet was a wasp nest the size of two closed fists, covered in wasps. Needless to say, I did not fix the set. The wasps were coming in from a broken window covered by a curtain behind the set.
Another one was a king snake that went into the set for warmth and got across B boost to ground. The owners were not happy when I picked his remains out of the set with my hot tube puller while their son watched....
Remember mid engine Ford Econoline vans for house calls?

looks like the shop I "worked" in one summer as a kid, about 13 IIRC. Really just after school day care (dad was friend of the shop owner). Owners wife/office manager did not like it at all, I would work on AA5's and totally mess up her inventory system by pulling parts and not keeping track of them.

Heard that electricians often find dead mice and snakes inside circuit breaker panels. These critters find the terminals for the 120 and 240VAC feeds and get zapped. Open knockout holes are likely how they get inside. Why they go inside, maybe it's a bit warmer in there...

I have seen some on eBay... 60/40 good enough?

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=...at=0&_from=R40

Not affiliated,
jr

Anybody else think the 'scope might be a Sylvania?

My late Uncle West (West Stereo Service on Metairie Rd. - Audubon Radio on Magazine before that) had some experiences like that - wish I could remember them all. His Dad contracted with Morse for warranty work back in the sixties and he had some amusing stories about making house calls in the projects. Electrophonic rent-to-own consoles loaded with roaches, component failure due to gunshot - stuff like that.

Ohh how I have missed this! I pleasure myself daily with the knowledge that I have the television set of the upper class rather than the flatscreen of the peasant:banana:

Like Uncle West, I used to run service calls. Definitely an education on seeing how life was on both sides of the track. The boss even offered to give me combat pay to go to certain areas :thumbsdn: (but we both knew I would never take him up on the offer). I may have been dumb, but I wasn't stupid. For a high school kid in the late 60's it was a worldly experience.

I saw an old print ad (circa. 1971) for our local shop showing his shop at the time, including his 60s Chevy van parked out front. Fast forward, last week I was driving down a backroad just outside town and, in the backyard of a house...there it was! It still has the lettering on the side, clearly visible. I need to catch the owner home and get some photos.

To kinda go off topic, I have several invoice books from 60s/70s tube caddies. Some day I should scan them and post them up.
The prices are amazing...the dollar has lost so much value. $5 for the service call and repair, and a $3 tube. Wow..

I do, though I haven't worn mine for several years. At that time, it was the fifth item I would have been carrying with a clock on it, after my pager, two cell phones (personal and work), and my handheld computer.

Ersin solder: didn't know they still made it! Too bad I loaded (leaded?) up on some big rolls of something else last year.

Watches: in much less time that it would take to pull my phone out of my pocket, I look at my watch and in 1/10th of a second I know the time. It's just convenient for me. Plus it makes a fashion statement: "look at the guy with the cheap watch." I keep the good ones for dress and wear a $15 Timex that if it gets crunched, no big deal.

My dad worked for Sears servicing TV's and electronics from sometime in the mid 1950's to sometime in the mid 1960's in Birmingham AL and the last year in Pascagoula MS. He even drove the crappy old Econoline van!

His customer stories were priceless! He opened several roach / mouse infested sets! One lady called the store demanding a new picture tube under warranty, turns out her kid was watchind a western and blasted the bad guy with dads shotgun!

He also told me a story of a nice old lady in Hueytown and he asked her one time "whats with all the junk cars in your yard"? It was Bobby and Donnie Allisons mother!

Before he worked at Sears he worked for the DuMont dealer in Birmingham, once he told me they installed "the biggest g-d set he ever saw" in a swanky nightclub. It was a Royal Soverign! I would love to find that set today, but I'm sure its long gone.