Home cinema - Rigger's Diary: Useless aerial riggers that I feel superior to

This post will annoy that pillock who goes on about me going on about the
idiots in our trade. The ones I look down on. The ones who have tattoos and
ear rings and bobble hats and who smoke in customers' houses. But never
mind. Mr Pillock, could I suggest you click on the cross in the square (top
right)? This post will also annoy that mardy git who hates it when I veer
'off topic' -- as if anything could be off topic in this wonderful forum in
which we discuss life, love, politics, sexual deviancy, what we had for
breakfast, and when we next met it? So, Mr M. Git, please switch off now.

We had a tremendous thunderstorm during the week. You won't have seen it on
the national news because it happened outside the M25, but there were floods
and lightning damage and all sort of chaos. One particular village seemed to
get the worst of it as far a lightning damage was concerned. Everyone there
wants to tell you their 'storm story'. "I was just buttering the
toast/putting lard on the cat's boil/shafting my ex-wife's mother/having a
dump when BANG! There was was a bang, a real bang, like in the war/a war
film/bonfire night/when the Aga filled with gas/when Hazel put the car
through the back of the garage that time, and everything went white/black/.
We were in the dark for two hours/three hours/four hours/all night. The High
Street was like a river/lake/log flume. I've never seen anything like it
since June 2007/ the war/1947."

A customer who has his aerial on a hill with a long underground downlead had
a scare. The cover of the masthead amp power supply jumped off the wall and
flew past his head. The cable (CT125DB) was vapourised between the aerial
and the pig pen half way down the hill. At that point the cable emerged from
the ground and was fixed along the metal fence for about 50m.

This customer's neighbour woke to find that three tellys, a Skybox, an
aerial amplifier, and an outdoor cat had all died. The cat was found on the
back step soaked to the skin and whether it died of fright or electrocution
will never be known. Could even have been malnutrition knowing what a
miserable old ******* the owner is.

Down the road is Miss Clegg's bungalow, down by the beck. She had the water
in the house and then BANG everything went white, then black. Her consumer
unit and meter are in the undercroft. Eventually the water dropped, the
power came back on, and it became obvious that the tellys wouldn't work.

Eventually I turned up.
"The fire brigade had to pump me out!"
"Did it hurt?"
"Oh don't be daft! That lad of yours is much more sensible than you are!
He's such a good lad. I'm surprised he's only an aerial man like you.Did you
hold him back?"

I was bemused, to start with. Years ago I'd done her a TC18A on Belmont,
because the Emley is really bad down there. I'd added a low gain masthead
amp and an 8 way dist. amplifier and six feeds. As I parked the van I could
see a horrible wideband aerial where the TC18A should be, and no low gain
masthead amp. The turd on a stick was pointing towards Emley. "Since you
were here my mother became infirm (well, mental) so I built her a flat in
the loft, then she died. So it's all a bit different." I found the 8 way
amp, disused, in the bit of loft that was still loft. Next to it was a
Vision one-in/four out masthead amplifier, which was apparently dead.
"Is there a little box thingy with a light on, near any of your tellys?" She
led me to a Vision power unit, which didn't have a light on. "How come you
had this job done? Was I out of favour?" She was a bit embarrassed.
"I thought you'd retired." A flimsy excuse. I suppose she thought I was
expensive. Anyway, what about Paul, who she seems to think so highly of?
Bah!
"The aerial is pointing the other way now."
"Well, when I got the new telly I couldn't get all the channels, so I had
the new aerial, and I can't stand that Peter Levy, so I asked him to point
it the same way as John's. John gets Harry Gration and my sister does in
Bramley." John has the pub. It's a tall building on a small hill and he has
the only successful Emley Moor aerial at that end of the village. "I think
he's (she spoke in hushed tones) one of THEM."
I looked blank, momentarily.
"You know, a nancy boy."
"John? No, not likely! Bloody hell, I don't think so! He's in been in
trouble for . . ."
"No, that Peter Levy. He's so smart all the time! I think he's one of THEM!"
"Not in the BBC surely?"
"Well I don't know . . ."
"So anyway, you got someone to fix up an Emley Moor aerial. What's the idea
of the new gadget in the loft and the little grey box behind the dining room
telly?"
"It's the digital booster. You see I'd got the new telly, it's one of them
digital ones, have you seen them? You have to have a special booster, so
that one you did was no good."
Internally I said "**** me!" but I passed no audible comment and checked the
aerial signals that were entering the 'digital booster'. They were horrible.
"So what's your reception been like?"
"Oh it's been lovely."
"Have you had that thing where the picture sort of stops and starts, and
breaks into squares?"
"Oh yes, I get that all time, but only on the digital set. Digital does that
that all the time though doesn't it?"
Internally I said "**** me!" again.
I went outside and put the ladders up. I noticed a coax cable loosely
affixed to the wall. All the downleads are internal.
"What's that cable for?"
"It's so I can have the telly on in the back bedroom."
"But you've got an aerial socket in there, on the wall."
"Ah well, with digital you can only have four tellys on at once." The aerial
rigger had told her that she'd have to chose four outlets. The others
couldn't be made to work. She'd agreed to lose the back bedroom and the
kitchen. But a year later when her sister came to help look after mother the
lack of signal in the back bedroom had become a problem. She'd rung someone
out of the Rotherham Record (bloody determined not to use us; what had we
done?) who'd come along and run a cable right over the house to the dining
room. He'd then told her that she could have the telly on in the dining room
or the back bedroom, but not both at once.
Internally I said "**** me drunk! Dip me in a vat of ****e and call me a
chocolate lolly!"

I won't bore you with the details of what I did to put it right, and all
that. But honestly, what are these clowns playing at? I mean, it's beyond
mere stupidy. This trade is crying out for some sort of regulation.

Bill