The great Britsh tradesman

I've been to see a customer recently who had a lot of CCTV equipment
installed some time ago. He paid well over the odds for the job. It never
worked properly and the faults we have found so far include:

The cameras, IR lights and audio units were powered at 12V via an
astonishing rats' nest of cables in the loft including CAT5, 6 core phone,
CT100, RG59, mains twin flex, all connected by twisting the conductors
together. Power came from two small power supply units rated at 750mA and
1.2A respectively, with the outputs connected together. One of these units
was hidden under the boards. Both were red hot and the voltage on the line
was 11.6V, with some ripple. Current drawn after we fitted a proper PSU was
3.1A.

The cameras, which had been invoiced at £250 each, were £49 bullets.

The audio came from little units with a mic on a short lead and a small pcb.
These pcbs were sitting unprotected on the floor of the loft with the mics
pushed through holes in the plater board. The audio was carried back to the
'head-end' on four core alarm cable.

The video signals were carried on a mix of RG59, RG6, and CT100 except in
one case, where four core alarm cable was used. The BNC plugs used were of
the screw-on variety, and since the cables did not fit, a lot of black tape
had been used in an attempt to augment the physical integrety of the
termination. Cables were joined by the twisting together of the conductors.
No pvc tape was used on these joints. Most of the cameras were of the type
that have a flying lead with a BNC on the end. This connector had been cut
off and the cable twisted together with the RG59 or whatever. The 12V was
connected similarly.

The HD recorder looked to me (I could be wrong) to have been 'previously
owned'.

And now we get to the best bit. In order to add the video and audio to the
TV distribution system it was necessary to use modulators of some sort.
Remember those Pace analogue satellite boxes that looked like weighing
scales? The ones where you could feed AV into the scart and it came out as
RF? Well, there were eight of them, all piled up. The piling up was pretty
clever because the boxes are wedge shaped. There were bits of wood inserted
in the pile where necessary. This stack of antique boxes was keeping the
loft pretty warm.

Needless to say the RF from the aerial was looped though the Sky box in the
living room and then through the eight antique boxes. It then passed into an
eight output amp, which was daisy chained into another ditto. This was how I
got involved. The customer wanted me to install a new aerial because ever
since the CCTV had been installed his analogue reception was very poor and
his DTT didn't work at all. The CCTV man had said it must be the aerial.

Some weeks later when I was putting all this right, by one of those odd
coincidences the phone rung.
"Is that Mr Wright?"
"Grunt."
"Err, could I pick your brains for a minute?"
"Grunt snarl."
"All it is, Mr Wright, well Mr Jones up at the farm, he says you're the man
to ask, well, we've put him some cameras in and connected them to the aerial
and well, once you connect the aerial it buggers the picture up something
'orrible. Well, we've messed about with the mondulator but we can't get it
right."
So I'm thinking, "Why didn't the old fool ask me about this before he called
in these people?" But anyway, I asked what channels they'd tried. They
didn't know, because the modulator just has a screw. Mr Jones lives on top
of a hill and signals from Belmont, Bilsdale, Emley, Waltham, Conisboro' and
Crosspool are readily available. So I tried to explain, but it was a waste
of time. So I said, "Get old Jonesey to ring me up and book a call and I'll
sort it out." But he hasn't. I guess they finally found a botch that sort of
works. I expect he'll ring on Dec 24th at 5pm and it will be an emergency.
And he'll want to pay in turnips. Which they do round here. Yes they really
do.

Yesterday morning I went to a customer in a very large house who has a CCTV
system and an RF system done by me. Without asking he they had called Sky in
and got Sky+. The extra dish cable had been run down the beautiful tiled
external wall, despite the fact that there was a spare cable from the dish
position to the living room, put in by us last year for this eventuality. I
found yards of that horrible shotgun cable they use shoved under a tile.
Anyway, the main complaint was that the Sky didn't work in the bedrooms.
Despite my neat Dymo label on the cable saying 'RF2 out on ch55' the RF out
was set to ch68. The idiot Sky insaller had done an auto tune on the nearest
'other' telly and had declared that the aerial system was 'crap'. He
obviously didn't realise that the Sky box output, like the 13 modulator
outputs, passed though single channel filters. Having fixed that (very
easily!) I wondered why the analogue reception on the main TV was so poor.
The effect was a bit like the old satellite with FM video, when the signal
was weak. The DTT reception was very blocky. Some strange intuition caused
me to disconnect the mains to the Sky+ box. This cured the fault. Even with
all other connections off, the box still radiated a load a hash if it was
powered. I'm expecting the Sky man to tell the customer that it is an aerial
fault. Apparently she had mentioned the fault to the Sky man and he had just
fobbed her off.

Bill

I've been to see a customer recently who had a lot of CCTV equipment
installed some time ago. He paid well over the odds for the job. It
never worked properly and the faults we have found so far include:

Customer received refund? Or heading to court with you as expert
witness?

--
Robin

Bill Wright wrote:
I've been to see a customer recently who had a lot of CCTV equipment
installed some time ago. He paid well over the odds for the job. It never
worked properly and the faults we have found so far include:

Jeez. On the aggregate of Bill's amusing
stories, I've mentally added "aerial installer" to my mental list
of trades with more than their share of villains.
to go alongside

* driveway repair
* double glazing
* water softeners

BugBear

"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
I've been to see a customer recently who had a lot of CCTV equipment
installed some time ago. He paid well over the odds for the job. It never
worked properly and the faults we have found so far include:

Sounds like another job from 'Bodge-it & Scarper Limited'

bugbear wrote:
Bill Wright wrote:
I've been to see a customer recently who had a lot of CCTV equipment
installed some time ago. He paid well over the odds for the job. It
never worked properly and the faults we have found so far include:

Jeez. On the aggregate of Bill's amusing
stories, I've mentally added "aerial installer" to my mental list
of trades with more than their share of villains.
to go alongside

* driveway repair
* double glazing
* water softeners

BugBear

I think you can add roofing and guttering to that list.

"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
I've been to see a customer recently who had a lot of CCTV equipment
installed some time ago. He paid well over the odds for the job. It never
worked properly and the faults we have found so far include:

The cameras, IR lights and audio units were powered at 12V via an
astonishing rats' nest of cables in the loft including CAT5, 6 core phone,
CT100, RG59, mains twin flex, all connected by twisting the conductors
together. Power came from two small power supply units rated at 750mA and
1.2A respectively, with the outputs connected together. One of these units
was hidden under the boards. Both were red hot and the voltage on the line
was 11.6V, with some ripple. Current drawn after we fitted a proper PSU
was 3.1A.

The cameras, which had been invoiced at £250 each, were £49 bullets.

The audio came from little units with a mic on a short lead and a small
pcb. These pcbs were sitting unprotected on the floor of the loft with the
mics pushed through holes in the plater board. The audio was carried back
to the 'head-end' on four core alarm cable.

The video signals were carried on a mix of RG59, RG6, and CT100 except in
one case, where four core alarm cable was used. The BNC plugs used were of
the screw-on variety, and since the cables did not fit, a lot of black
tape had been used in an attempt to augment the physical integrety of the
termination. Cables were joined by the twisting together of the
conductors. No pvc tape was used on these joints. Most of the cameras were
of the type that have a flying lead with a BNC on the end. This connector
had been cut off and the cable twisted together with the RG59 or whatever.
The 12V was connected similarly.

The HD recorder looked to me (I could be wrong) to have been 'previously
owned'.

And now we get to the best bit. In order to add the video and audio to the
TV distribution system it was necessary to use modulators of some sort.
Remember those Pace analogue satellite boxes that looked like weighing
scales? The ones where you could feed AV into the scart and it came out as
RF? Well, there were eight of them, all piled up. The piling up was pretty
clever because the boxes are wedge shaped. There were bits of wood
inserted in the pile where necessary. This stack of antique boxes was
keeping the loft pretty warm.

Needless to say the RF from the aerial was looped though the Sky box in
the living room and then through the eight antique boxes. It then passed
into an eight output amp, which was daisy chained into another ditto. This
was how I got involved. The customer wanted me to install a new aerial
because ever since the CCTV had been installed his analogue reception was
very poor and his DTT didn't work at all. The CCTV man had said it must be
the aerial.

Some weeks later when I was putting all this right, by one of those odd
coincidences the phone rung.
"Is that Mr Wright?"
"Grunt."
"Err, could I pick your brains for a minute?"
"Grunt snarl."
"All it is, Mr Wright, well Mr Jones up at the farm, he says you're the
man to ask, well, we've put him some cameras in and connected them to the
aerial and well, once you connect the aerial it buggers the picture up
something 'orrible. Well, we've messed about with the mondulator but we
can't get it right."
So I'm thinking, "Why didn't the old fool ask me about this before he
called in these people?" But anyway, I asked what channels they'd tried.
They didn't know, because the modulator just has a screw. Mr Jones lives
on top of a hill and signals from Belmont, Bilsdale, Emley, Waltham,
Conisboro' and Crosspool are readily available. So I tried to explain, but
it was a waste of time. So I said, "Get old Jonesey to ring me up and book
a call and I'll sort it out." But he hasn't. I guess they finally found a
botch that sort of works. I expect he'll ring on Dec 24th at 5pm and it
will be an emergency. And he'll want to pay in turnips. Which they do
round here. Yes they really do.

Yesterday morning I went to a customer in a very large house who has a
CCTV system and an RF system done by me. Without asking he they had called
Sky in and got Sky+. The extra dish cable had been run down the beautiful
tiled external wall, despite the fact that there was a spare cable from
the dish position to the living room, put in by us last year for this
eventuality. I found yards of that horrible shotgun cable they use shoved
under a tile. Anyway, the main complaint was that the Sky didn't work in
the bedrooms. Despite my neat Dymo label on the cable saying 'RF2 out on
ch55' the RF out was set to ch68. The idiot Sky insaller had done an auto
tune on the nearest 'other' telly and had declared that the aerial system
was 'crap'. He obviously didn't realise that the Sky box output, like the
13 modulator outputs, passed though single channel filters. Having fixed
that (very easily!) I wondered why the analogue reception on the main TV
was so poor. The effect was a bit like the old satellite with FM video,
when the signal was weak. The DTT reception was very blocky. Some strange
intuition caused me to disconnect the mains to the Sky+ box. This cured
the fault. Even with all other connections off, the box still radiated a
load a hash if it was powered. I'm expecting the Sky man to tell the
customer that it is an aerial fault. Apparently she had mentioned the
fault to the Sky man and he had just fobbed her off.

Bill

Crikey. How frustrating it can be when you get called back and find
something like that. Even worse when you try to explain that it's not your
work at fault but the idiot who came in after.

The customer just sees 2 people blaming each other...............but I
usually manage to get the message across clearly in the end so they are in
no doubt who's to blame. I had a similar one recently where I'd run spare
dish cables for Sky+ or HD in future, but when the gourmless idiots turned
up they just ran a new cable (badly) which was a real eyesore.

"neverwas" wrote in message
.uk...
I've been to see a customer recently who had a lot of CCTV equipment
installed some time ago. He paid well over the odds for the job. It never
worked properly and the faults we have found so far include:

Customer received refund? Or heading to court with you as expert witness?

He is very angry but hasn't mentioned what action he might take.
Unfortunately he has muddied the waters a bit because he allowed someone to
replace some of the cameras a while back. Although this was done without
anyone going into the loft, apparently, it is 'another finger in the pie' so
to speak.

Bill