I had this morning free and really needed to get into the workshop to complete a few repairs, there was also a 37″ Samsung that had been dropped off at our house to look at, and a customer just around the corner with a 26″ Sony that was freezing on channel change, then rebooting itself. I had a nasty feeling this was another software problem associated with the BBC red button, the clue…it only happens on BBC channels! ...

Well today was always going to be about the 50″ Samsung Plasma I’ve been working on for the last couple of weeks. Sound but no picture, doesn’t sound too bad does it, but on these it can get very complicated indeed. At the customers house I noticed that the top buffer IC had destroyed itself, this means the one below it is probably gone as well, also a whole host of parts on the Y-Sus panel. It’s a ...

Today started with a couple of aerial jobs, one inside and one outside in the terrible wind. The one in the loft was easy enough, just replace a two way masthead with a four way and run a lead into a bedroom, I was even able to use some existing trunking to hide the cable down the wall…an easy job.

Next it was out with the ladders and up on to a roof in Washford where the ...

Today started with something I haven’t done in a long time…putting a hairdryer into a video recorder! Why, you might ask…well I was called to install this machine not knowing that it had just been brought in from a cold car. Videos suffer badly from condensation and being brought into a warm room had caused a lot of it to form on the rotating heads. In this condition putting a cassette in results in the tape sticking to…and ...