89 Magnavox Console TV

[JohnCT]

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

What ever happened to television tuner repair shops like Castle, et al.? Castle used to advertise quite a bit in TV repair magazines like Electronic Technician (to name but one; there were many others) in the 1970s. However, I can't believe these shops went out of business with little or no warning when TV went digital ten years ago. Is there something about today's digital TV tuners which has made them unrepairable if they go bad? Integrated circuit chips, after all, can be replaced if and when they fail. If the tuner in this TV has a bad IC, I would just replace the chip and be done with it. The set will work again and its owner will not have to buy a new one.

We used Castle, PTS, and several other of their competitors for years. When tuners were mechanical, it was far easier to send them out for rebuild for $7.95 than to do it ourselves. They would come back repaired, tank-dipped cleaned, lubed, and aligned. They were literally as close to new as you can get without buying a new tuner.

I never sent them an electronic tuner however as it was cheaper to do the electronic ones in house. I must have changed a hundred NAP scaler ICs in those tuners for us and for other shops in the area. The chips were only a couple of bucks when bought in quantities of 10 or more.

And yes, those tuner companies pretty much disappeared in a hurry if they didn't get into other things like module rebuilding (which extended their time a few years - like PTS for example). We used to do a hundred VCRs a week, and then they pretty much dried up within a year or two at the most. Things in electronics move quickly.

John