Monday

First job was out in Burrow, a quick set up of a second hand Sony tv she had been given by a friend. An easy enough job once I had run the gauntlet of six Jack Russells, once on the way in and once on the way out.

Only two jobs in the afternoon, a little advice in Staunton lane regarding the purchase of a new tv, plus the set up of a Humax PVR to replace the sky box they had been using. Unfortunately the aerial was not connected into the front room so that would have to wait until I could come back at a later date and investigate why.

From there it was up to St Audries to look at a tv with a solarized picture, it was a Samsung and given it’s age replacing the Gamma correction IC probably wasn’t going to be economically sound. So we spoke of new tv’s and they asked me to order them one, a slightly larger LG, I told them I would return with it later in the week.

Tuesday

An easy first job today, just to extend a twin satellite cable so the tv could be moved to the other side of the room, that didn’t take long.

Next job was a call to Porlock where a lady was house sitting and had lost all her channels, it was a simple matter of putting the tv on the right source for the Humax Freesat box and the job was done. I also explained to her that she had probably caused that, accidentally of course, and showed her what to do if it happened again.

The biggest job of the day was to call back to Cutcombe and install the Freesat box and satellite dish, arranged from last week. Being a bungalow it was a simple job, I left the aerial in situ for them as it gave them a few channels in the bedroom.

Then there was a quick retune of a panasonic dvd recorder and a tv that had lost TBN. It’s not a channel I ever watch but a bit of researched revealed that although it’s a standard definition channel it was being transmitted on one of the high definition frequencies. This was a problem as her tv wasn’t equipped to receive these frequencies and so either some kind of PVR, either Humax or Panasonic, or a new tv was needed. Being an old lady with memory problems there was no way she would cope with a separate box and two remote controls so we settled on ordering a new tv.

Wednesday

The people had just moved in at my first call this morning, they wanted some aerial points added and some extended, so I did a quick test of their signal strength, worked out where all the existing cables were and where the best place would be to extend the system from. This can take quite a time but I was able to work out a quote for them and a call was arranged for another day.

The afternoons calls were just a matter of downloading new software into  a Humax PVR and then give some advice on a faulty soundbar. Then off to Alcombe to see an old customer who said she was receiving Netflix in German. I doubted that but soon found that although all the menus were in English, all the captions on the film menu were indeed in German. We tried a factory reset of the stick, this didn’t work but she seemed to be confused about her Amazon account as a friend had signed her in using a made up account, obviously Amazon didn’t recognise the login. Eventually, after trying to sign her up for an Amazon account we discovered she already had one and after resetting the password we were up and running. The older generation really seem to suffer with all these logins and passwords.

Thursday

This morning I had to fit a satellite dish to a converted barn, it had been set up as holiday accommodation and had an aerial that struggled to receive the Welsh transmitter. I had met the owner before new year and we had decided to replace the aerial with a satellite dish, at the same time replacing the tv with a new LG with built in Freesat. This would be much easier for the holiday makers than adding a receiver to the old tv, that’s asking for trouble and confusion. So  a pretty easy job, the dish went where there aerial had been, the cable was almost new anyway and so was kept in place, and the tv’s were swapped over, the new one being tuned in and set up with the barn’s wi-fi.

On to my next call in Watchet, right on the harbour. The old lady wanted a tv mounted on the wall of her bedroom and connected to the aerial. Looking at the way the room was arranged meant that connecting to the existing aerial would have meant bringing a cable through the wall and across a doorway, this would look messy. Seeing there was a built in wardrobe right next to where the tv was going, I suggested putting a separate aerial in the loft and dropping the lead down through the wardrobe, there was even a power point inside the wardrobe, so the power lead from the tv could be routed in there and the aerial lead brought out through the same hole. This way no leads would be seen, the suggestion was accepted and I arranged to return to do the work.

Next was an old man in Minehead, a regular customer who simply forgets how to use his remote control, once reminded I was on my way to the next call. This was a man in Wheddon Cross who had break up of his satellite signal. Looking outside the dish was looking into some nearby trees, they were bare of leaves but as soon as they started to appear he would lose all his signal. I arranged to come back with a new dish and mount it further up the wall.

Friday

First call was to look at a job where an extra aerial point was needed. There was already a two way masthead amplifier on the aerial and to add a third cable I would need to fit a four way amp in its place. The quote was accepted and I arranged to return at a date to suit her.

This afternoon I had an aerial job booked in Carhampton. The system they had was very old and limited in what it could receive, even though the local relay is just up the road and Wenvoe is very strong from just across the channel. With new aerials they could get a the mix of the local relay and the Welsh transmitter, this meant they could get a full freeview line up of channels plus the English channels variations. So there was no point trying to improve what they had, it was just a matter of taking out all the old aerials and cables and going with a new installation all the way through. Once completed the reception on all channels was superb.

Last call of the week was a faulty tv in The Beeches caravan park, unfortunately beyond repair.