Goodness me, back on air! Only two weeks down. I wonder how many of us will not come back?
Scopes, 35 years ago, I started fixing CTVs (had a G6 and a 2000) and also scopes. I made a contact at Telequipment who used to buy end of line spares, and he was giving up repairs to take over a guest house with new wife, so I bought all his stuff. That lot set me up, so I concentrated on TQ stuff (and Grundig on TV front). I had to learn a bit of electronics sharpish, but managed enough to do the biz. I packed up both when I moved here 25 years ago, but after one year, I had to go back to Staffs to look after my unsold cottage. So I did a bit more repair for a while. I bought about 15 decent TQ scopes to recon, calibrate and sell, but then sold my cottage (took 7 years), so came back here with the scopes. Because I needed to take a paid job, they sat there, and it is only since retirement that I have fixed them and sold a few. I still have two of those TQs, plus about 6 or 7 others acquired "as you do". Problem is that even after full overhaul and calibration, they are not worth much more than I paid, so no profit. I recently bought a Tek 475A, and use my long owned mains/bat HP1703 tube storage model. Have thought about one of those little chinky things, but somehow prefer something with 10 to 20KV flowing around inside. Full report please.
When I returned to UK in 1990, I took a job sorting out a kiln manufacturer's insoluble problems. Once all done, I was "released", so was stuck, quite penniless. Managed to get a job repairing CDs, which I had never toughed before, so more quick learning. I even became quite good at it, and wrote an occasional column in the monthly. I found that I used my scope most of the time, switching it on as soon as I got to my bench in a morning, so I am quite handy with them. I have an intermittant ignition fault on the 'bike right now, but am going to diagnose it with the scope, rather than just changing bits, a practice which led my up the garden path a few years ago, when I finally found ALL my spare four coils were intermittantly faulty!
Davy, those ECC88s are probably worth putting on Ebay. I am hoping that with a photo of the CT71 screen, yielding emission and Gm, I ought to get a decent price, especially if I match them. We shall see.
Les.
