This job would be great if it wasn’t for the customers (part 4)

The breathless voice of the girl at the council brought the unwelcome news that the Dyke Road flats had got no TV reception, "again!"

This was a bit annoying, because I had changed the main head end amplifier after the lightning about a week ago and everything else appeared unscathed and was working fine. Apparently the weather had gone ‘very dark, very suddenly’ at 6pm last night, and although there hadn’t actually been any lightning the TV system had stopped working at that moment. This time it was the pre-amplifier. How odd.

As I left Dyke Road the mobile rang and a female voice started gabbling at me nineteen to the dozen, only about three of which I could understand. It really was a torrent of words, and I kept hearing something about ‘de cows in’. After a while I realised that she was saying ‘degaussing’. What do I know about degaussing? Nothing. Can’t even spell it.

“Why are you telling me about this?”

“Well you did the aerial and I thought you might be able to advise me.”

“Oh, where do you live? I don’t remember . . . “

“Oh I suppose you see lots of people don’t you? It was when we bought the new telly. Not the new new telly, the one we had before. Anyway, he waved this magic wand thing at it and it made it no better and he said it was my speakers but they’re not anywhere near the telly they’re on the other side of the fireplace but he said it was them and he picked my speaker up and waved it at the telly and it went pink and he said there you see that proves it was your speakers (he WAS a nasty man) and he said it was my own fault as well because I’ve been turning it off by pulling the plug out and he said that would have damaged it as well but the switch stopped working just after I got it and I asked them to come but they said I’d have to take it to the shop well how can I with my leg?” She had to stop for breath momentarily so I dived in but all I managed was “So . . .” before she was off again. As I listened it became more and more obvious that the TV shop was giving her a rough deal, but no matter how often I attempted to interject with helpful advice I just couldn’t get a word in.

“Anyway he mended the switch so I’ve turned it on and off with that for a week now but it’s no better and I can’t sleep, I really can’t, for the worry of it, I mean what am I going to do, he said because the telly was £500 and it should be £600 there was no guarantee . . .” I had to get a word in somehow. Shock tactics were called for.

“You’re a very bad listener you are!” I said loudly, over her voice. The flow stopped. There was a silence.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I do go on a bit sometimes. But you see I was so worried and I just didn’t know what to do I mean what if it won’t ever come right I’ve turned it on and off twenty times just now and it isn’t getting any better . . .”

“SHURRUP! SHURRUP! For God’s sake woman will yer shurrup and let me get a word in?”

“Oh yes, sorry, but I’m so worried.”

“Look, I don’t mean to be rude but you’ve rung me for advice and really I ought to do at least some of the talking.” From then on she listened, a bit, and I hope I helped her, although the whole business was ‘outside my area of expertise,’ as they say. The conversation ended as I got home, twenty minutes after it started. It must have cost her a fortune to ring a mobile for that long.

As I finished lunch the phone rang. It was a good customer who had been told by his Panasonic dealer that the fact that his IDTV (with TopUp) kept 'going black' was because the aerial (new by us) was not wideband. The aerial points at Emley Moor, with every mux within Group B. What are we coming to when firms like that mislead customers in that way?

When Paul was away last week I went to a domestic call for him. The problem was poor reception of the ITV mux. All the muxes were at the same strength and carrier to noise ratio, the 64QAM used for the ITV mux just tipping the balance. I decided that the solution would probably involve a tall mast, a new downlead, and maybe a masthead amp, and since it was teatime I told the bloke that Paul would do when he returned. But in the event I went to it today.

The downlead loss was 8dB (about twice what it should have been) and lifting the aerial 6ft gave an extra 6dB. So a new masthead amplifier, mast and downlead were installed. The box was a Sagem and as soon as the new cable was connected it said “New channels detected on the stream. Autotune?” to which I replied “Yes please dear box.” But the autotune added muxes that were obviously not from Emley Moor, and when it was done I noticed that the BBC and ITV channels were showing very poor strength on the red bar. I looked at ‘technical details’ to see that the two relevant muxes from Belmont were present. So I guessed that the box had tuned them. I fitted an Emley channelpass filter, which killed the BBC reception, thus proving the point. ( Belmont ch48 sneaks thro’ an Emley filter). So I tried to do another autotune, but this time I needed the four digit code. I looked at the customer and he said quick as a flash ‘1202’ but this gave ‘code error’. Of course I tried several times, tried 0000 and 1234 and 4321 and 9999 lots more, but all to no avail.

The customer was adamant that the code he’d given was right, but then he remembered what had happened. He’d got the box free with the telly and the installer had asked him for a four digit number, so he’d given a number and said “I’ll not forget that, it’s the same as the burglar alarm.” Afterwards he’d realised that he’d told the guy the alarm code, so he changed the latter from being ‘someone’s’ birthday to being ‘Lucy’s birthday’. 1202 was the new alarm code, and he couldn’t remember who the 'someone' was, still less their birthday. We tried the birthdays of every son, daughter and grandchild without success. I even tried my own and our cat’s. Meanwhile the ITV started to pixellate and the missus said “It’s no better than it was before.” So in the end I’ve emailed Sagem to find out if there’s a solution, although to be honest I could have thrown in a new box and it wouldn’t have increased the total cost by much of a percentage. Ho hum!