#1supertech
New Member
bountyhunter,
I guess when you work on enough TV sets (like my old WI next-door neighbor used to do running a home TV repair shop from his customized garage add-on TV workshop) you build up an eye preference as it were.
Because people are/were such cheapskates when it came to paying for good TV repairs I never cared to go into a career as a TV service repair Tech even though some of my fellow DeVry graduate friends chose to go that route. See - I was DeVry Degreed as well, and TV repair work wasn't enough of a challenge for me - as far as electronic repair work went.
The poor economy at that time (mid to late 70's when I graduated from DeVry) meant that I had to move to CA just to get a great paying job in the Electronics Industry there vs the Midwest, which was just so-so at that time. East Coast was even worse with the high unemployment rates and all. Post Vietnam Era is why. Money was tight all over the place!
That is why I further Degreed as a Bio-Med Tech (BMET II), and I was making $13-14/hr in the very early 80's, which was great money at that time! Now those same BMET's are making $25 to $35/hr, which is even better pay wise! I just got burnt out on the hospital politics part, and so I moved on to being a self-employed Bldg consultant making $45/hr with NO overhead cost at all. Pretty turnkey work as far as I was concerned with the travel time driving from point to point being the only negative part - if you can even call being outdoors 24/7 a negative thing at all. I sure couldn't anyway!
I will agree with you that the TV sets of the 80-90's were far better made then anything out there today, but the Sony's of present day are just what I said they are previously - all junk! Everything being made in China these days not withstanding btw - as it's just the American way of life these days as it were - both here and overseas! It will never change unless we the buying people change it. That's a given!
Magnavox used to make some great TV sets as well, but they are ancient history now as well.
I still remember my early Bio-Med Tech days of the early to mid 80's when people would have all those mobile TV repair guys actually come out to their homes and give them a FREE repair quote on fixing their TV sets.
Many a fellow hospital employee at that time, and/or co-worker, and even friends of mine would do it as well - esp when their TV sets needed fixing. Once they had the FREE repair quote telling them what was wrong with the set they always tried to buy the parts themselves for pennies on the dollar as it were, and then they tried to get me to fix it for something absurd like $5 worth of my labor time! Minimum wage at that time being about the same, so I guessed they figured the repair time was always an hour at best and that was the going rate ($5) for GOPHER WORK if you were stupid enough to bite on it. Pretty lame huh? You bet it was!!
Some years later the legit repair guys started charging something like $9.95 just to make a run out to quote a repair because they were losing time & money in all that running around for FREE! I didn't blame them a bit, as they were just being played - as it were! Same thing went for every other service trade as well - being it a plumber, electrician, roofer, whatever. Everyone expected FREE quotes on this & that to no end. Not me though! My Electronics labor rates alone were $18/hr even at that time - take it or leave - as I KNEW what I was worth. Big difference there!
I even kept telling all my construction trade friends to start charging flaky people a TRAVEL FEE just to go out and give flaky homeowners a FREE quote on anything. $30 minimum is what I would have charged as then that '3 bid thing" would have been more legit to start with. Some ridiculous people (I just call them look-e-loo's or window shoppers) would actually take something like 10-20 bids just for a simple roof repair, and then call back 2-3 years later expecting the low bidder to eat the same price quoted earlier. Again - never intending to actually fix the roof to start with. In other words - they were just wasting EVERYONE'S TIME is all.
That is the biggest reason I never cared to ever be a TV repairman to start with! Being a lonely Maytag repairman had better status as far as I was concerned…….hahahaha….!
That is why I only did the few chosen TV repairs I did over the years - as a fun thing - just to keep up on the changing circuitry's found in the newer model TV sets. Little as it changed over the recent years that is. The cost of those needed SAMS PHOTOFACTS was the other reason even if they were only $7-8 at that time in the 80's. When they went up $18+ a pop then it just got to be way too much - even to the customer - as they always had to buy them first so then I knew they were actually serious about getting the set fixed. That was always my "going in" security net as it were!
If I had to look at a broken TV set for anyone (if I even thought it was worth repairing it) I would just quote them a flat repair fee (with undisclosed parts and labor - not breaking out anything separately - take it or leave it as it were), and with the PHOTOFACTS left out as well. That latter part always cut out a lot of the BS right there! Why fix a TV set for $5 - like many a cheapskate wanted you to do - esp when you the Degreed Tech had to invest $25 of your own time and effort in fixing it in the first place - parts included or no parts? Just didn't make any sense period!
People always wanted QUALITY work done at cheapskate labor prices! Still do for that matter, only now it's even worse then it was back then.
When I ran my smooth running self-employed Bldg Inspection business for some 18+ years until semi-retiring a few years ago - my minimum inspection fee was usually $180-250 figuring on average for at least 4 hours of project site work time (including 2 hours driving time both ways on average as well).
If it was a small bldg then I could do a complete bldg scan in usually under an hour, and that other remaining hour was used for home/office paperwork time drafting the report and billing invoice on my cmptr once I was back home. Pretty turnkey as far as I was concerned - all except for the actual travel time and onsite inspection time as well. Any additional onsite bldgs were added in on a per bldg cost factor for the additional inspection time needed to finish that added on bldg inspection - as related to the overall state or condition of said bldg. Pretty clean work too!
Going back to TV sets -
I'm sure if you look really hard I'll bet you can find TV sets out there with way better convergence/purity above and beyond what Sony offers - all PiP's aside! Old or newer sets as well. I'm sure if I were to ask my "now past retired" TV repairing neighbor back home - he'd somewhat agree with me on that part. Being totally unbiased that is.
Of course that's just my past to present viewpoints, and my past experiences as well - love em or leave em as they say!
Speaking of PiP's btw - going back some years now - I once took 4 Sharp 13" TV's, and custom cabinet stacked them in QUAD so I could get (or watch as it were) 4 different outside Antenna received programs at one time (I never subscribed to cable or SAT ever - still don't). Worked pretty damn nice, and sure beat the hell out of a single bigger TV set with only the one PiP feature! The 13" picture was a bit smaller overall, but having 4 screens going at one time was well worth it. I also took each TV's Mono audio sound signal from each set (via an added mini jack in the TV cabinets), and ran it out to 4 separate power amplified twin L/R speakers (similar to those cheapy cmptr type powered speakers). Only got a little "noise" crazy during multiple football games….hahahaha…
Food for thought.
Best regards as always,
Frank
I guess when you work on enough TV sets (like my old WI next-door neighbor used to do running a home TV repair shop from his customized garage add-on TV workshop) you build up an eye preference as it were.
Because people are/were such cheapskates when it came to paying for good TV repairs I never cared to go into a career as a TV service repair Tech even though some of my fellow DeVry graduate friends chose to go that route. See - I was DeVry Degreed as well, and TV repair work wasn't enough of a challenge for me - as far as electronic repair work went.
The poor economy at that time (mid to late 70's when I graduated from DeVry) meant that I had to move to CA just to get a great paying job in the Electronics Industry there vs the Midwest, which was just so-so at that time. East Coast was even worse with the high unemployment rates and all. Post Vietnam Era is why. Money was tight all over the place!
That is why I further Degreed as a Bio-Med Tech (BMET II), and I was making $13-14/hr in the very early 80's, which was great money at that time! Now those same BMET's are making $25 to $35/hr, which is even better pay wise! I just got burnt out on the hospital politics part, and so I moved on to being a self-employed Bldg consultant making $45/hr with NO overhead cost at all. Pretty turnkey work as far as I was concerned with the travel time driving from point to point being the only negative part - if you can even call being outdoors 24/7 a negative thing at all. I sure couldn't anyway!
I will agree with you that the TV sets of the 80-90's were far better made then anything out there today, but the Sony's of present day are just what I said they are previously - all junk! Everything being made in China these days not withstanding btw - as it's just the American way of life these days as it were - both here and overseas! It will never change unless we the buying people change it. That's a given!
Magnavox used to make some great TV sets as well, but they are ancient history now as well.
I still remember my early Bio-Med Tech days of the early to mid 80's when people would have all those mobile TV repair guys actually come out to their homes and give them a FREE repair quote on fixing their TV sets.
Many a fellow hospital employee at that time, and/or co-worker, and even friends of mine would do it as well - esp when their TV sets needed fixing. Once they had the FREE repair quote telling them what was wrong with the set they always tried to buy the parts themselves for pennies on the dollar as it were, and then they tried to get me to fix it for something absurd like $5 worth of my labor time! Minimum wage at that time being about the same, so I guessed they figured the repair time was always an hour at best and that was the going rate ($5) for GOPHER WORK if you were stupid enough to bite on it. Pretty lame huh? You bet it was!!
Some years later the legit repair guys started charging something like $9.95 just to make a run out to quote a repair because they were losing time & money in all that running around for FREE! I didn't blame them a bit, as they were just being played - as it were! Same thing went for every other service trade as well - being it a plumber, electrician, roofer, whatever. Everyone expected FREE quotes on this & that to no end. Not me though! My Electronics labor rates alone were $18/hr even at that time - take it or leave - as I KNEW what I was worth. Big difference there!
I even kept telling all my construction trade friends to start charging flaky people a TRAVEL FEE just to go out and give flaky homeowners a FREE quote on anything. $30 minimum is what I would have charged as then that '3 bid thing" would have been more legit to start with. Some ridiculous people (I just call them look-e-loo's or window shoppers) would actually take something like 10-20 bids just for a simple roof repair, and then call back 2-3 years later expecting the low bidder to eat the same price quoted earlier. Again - never intending to actually fix the roof to start with. In other words - they were just wasting EVERYONE'S TIME is all.
That is the biggest reason I never cared to ever be a TV repairman to start with! Being a lonely Maytag repairman had better status as far as I was concerned…….hahahaha….!
That is why I only did the few chosen TV repairs I did over the years - as a fun thing - just to keep up on the changing circuitry's found in the newer model TV sets. Little as it changed over the recent years that is. The cost of those needed SAMS PHOTOFACTS was the other reason even if they were only $7-8 at that time in the 80's. When they went up $18+ a pop then it just got to be way too much - even to the customer - as they always had to buy them first so then I knew they were actually serious about getting the set fixed. That was always my "going in" security net as it were!
If I had to look at a broken TV set for anyone (if I even thought it was worth repairing it) I would just quote them a flat repair fee (with undisclosed parts and labor - not breaking out anything separately - take it or leave it as it were), and with the PHOTOFACTS left out as well. That latter part always cut out a lot of the BS right there! Why fix a TV set for $5 - like many a cheapskate wanted you to do - esp when you the Degreed Tech had to invest $25 of your own time and effort in fixing it in the first place - parts included or no parts? Just didn't make any sense period!
People always wanted QUALITY work done at cheapskate labor prices! Still do for that matter, only now it's even worse then it was back then.
When I ran my smooth running self-employed Bldg Inspection business for some 18+ years until semi-retiring a few years ago - my minimum inspection fee was usually $180-250 figuring on average for at least 4 hours of project site work time (including 2 hours driving time both ways on average as well).
If it was a small bldg then I could do a complete bldg scan in usually under an hour, and that other remaining hour was used for home/office paperwork time drafting the report and billing invoice on my cmptr once I was back home. Pretty turnkey as far as I was concerned - all except for the actual travel time and onsite inspection time as well. Any additional onsite bldgs were added in on a per bldg cost factor for the additional inspection time needed to finish that added on bldg inspection - as related to the overall state or condition of said bldg. Pretty clean work too!
Going back to TV sets -
I'm sure if you look really hard I'll bet you can find TV sets out there with way better convergence/purity above and beyond what Sony offers - all PiP's aside! Old or newer sets as well. I'm sure if I were to ask my "now past retired" TV repairing neighbor back home - he'd somewhat agree with me on that part. Being totally unbiased that is.
Of course that's just my past to present viewpoints, and my past experiences as well - love em or leave em as they say!
Speaking of PiP's btw - going back some years now - I once took 4 Sharp 13" TV's, and custom cabinet stacked them in QUAD so I could get (or watch as it were) 4 different outside Antenna received programs at one time (I never subscribed to cable or SAT ever - still don't). Worked pretty damn nice, and sure beat the hell out of a single bigger TV set with only the one PiP feature! The 13" picture was a bit smaller overall, but having 4 screens going at one time was well worth it. I also took each TV's Mono audio sound signal from each set (via an added mini jack in the TV cabinets), and ran it out to 4 separate power amplified twin L/R speakers (similar to those cheapy cmptr type powered speakers). Only got a little "noise" crazy during multiple football games….hahahaha…
Food for thought.
Best regards as always,
Frank
