Rigger's Diary: This week's daftest occurrance: analogue, so off-topic

"tony sayer" wrote in message
...
I'd reckon at least 80 quid, if not a Hundred..

Yes, about a ton I think, and that's concessionary really.

Bill

Bill Wright wrote:
Early last year we installed a TV distribution system in a very large
private house. The house is absolutely beautiful. It's set on a
hillside and when you come into the valley it looks fabulous. I love
that house. It's brilliantly designed to sit on the hillside just
below the trees and it has a sort of modern perfection that is rarely
seen. It is all, as Kenny Everett used to say, 'in the best possible
taste'. The place was brand new and the AV equipment was state of the
art. My part of the job was relatively simple. I installed a VHF and
UHF distribution system. It carried five analogue off-air TV
channels, six off-air DTT muxes, ten CCTV channels, a channel derived
from a Sky HD box, a channel derived from a DVD player, and a channel
derived from an 'imerge' audio unit. There's a home cinema seating 30.
Strange to say the owner is not really very interested in
television, but he just thought that he'd better do it right.

Once everything was up and running I didn't hear a thing from this
job until Tuesday this week when the main contractor rung up,
sounding agitated. The owner of the house had rung him to complain
about the TV system. Now this tale as you'll see is an example of how
the facts get distorted beyond recognition, and the story was that
'it didn't work upstairs'. I expressed my surprise. Before I had time
to turn round the owner himself rung me. There was 'terrible
interference upstairs'. He was polite but I could tell that he
thought I'd let him down. He wanted me there as soon as possible. I
asked a series of questions but I could tell that he didn't want to
answer them or discuss the matter. He just wanted me there. But I was
able to prize out a few salient facts. All the TV sets in the house
were working perfectly, except for two. These had been delivered and
installed that day by Comet. The man from Comet had tried for ages
but he could not get the TV sets to work on the satellite channel
without 'terrible interference'. He had declared that the problem was
caused because there was no space between the channels, so one of the
CCTV channels was interfering with the satellite reception. I got the
impression that he had been quite scathing about the RF system. For
some reason he had put the satellite on preset 20, despite the fact
that every other set in the house has it on preset 6.
"Could you describe the interference?"

"Well no I can't, it's just terrible interference, you couldn't
possibly watch it."

I was perplexed. 'Terrible interference' on the two new sets, but
perfect reception on all the others? Every one of the 16 downleads
was connected to the same amplifier. I just couldn't think what the
problem could be. I wondered if there was some weird fault on the two
new sets that caused problems on one particular UHF channel.
Clutching at straws, I know.
I went out. The place is quite a long way from here, so this could be
no casual five minute thing. I was shown upstairs to the first of the
two TV sets. The owner said as we climbed the beautiful curved
staircase that the two TV sets would probably never be used because
the two rooms were just 'overspill guest rooms', but he thought it
best to have them right.
The sets were identical wall mounted LGs in bedrooms larger than our
main one, with en-suites. I switched the first TV set on. It came on
with analogue BBC1. I flicked through the channels and was
disconcerted to find that Channel Five had a really ropey picture and
no sound, just a loud hissing noise. I was prepared to believe
anything of analogue Channel Five because I hadn't been allowed to
install an outdoor aerial, and the signal was really poor on channel
37. I hadn't bothered about it because I knew that every telly would
be an IDTV and the DTT signals were fine. I connected the analyser
and the C5 audio carriers, both analogue and nicam, were fine. The
penny, I have to admit, did not drop. I shrugged and flicked through
the camera channels. They all looked OK. I found the satellite
channel up on preset 20. To my astonishment the picture was perfect,
but when I turned the sound up I just heard the same roaring hiss
that I'd heard on C5. At that point the penny finally dropped. I
pressed 'menu' 'set up' 'manual tune' and switched from System BG to
System I. I then re-tuned every channel so everything was in the
right order. I noticed that only presets 5 and 20 were set to System
BG. The other TV set had preset 20 only set to system BG.
I then thought it wise to go round the whole house, checking that
everything was correctly tuned in. The Sony in the kitchen needed
retuning, but only to put everything in the right order. Everything
else was OK.
So what do we learn from this wasted afternoon? Firstly, that the
Comet man was not a competent installer. Secondly, that a report of
'it doesn't work upstairs' can be whittled down by close questioning
to 'one channel doesn't work on two new TV sets'. Thirdly, that we
should bear in mind that when a customer talks of dreadful
interference that he can't describe, he might be talking about a
sound-only fault.
20 miles there, 20 miles back, 2 hours on site. No materials. One cup
of tea. What shall I charge? The main contractor would like me to
'absorb the cost'. Of course I can't do that.

Nor should you. Hitting the wallet concentrates the mind wonderfully. Twenty
years ago I flew from Birmingham to Glasgow to fix a computer "fault" having
first gone thought the obvious things such as if it was plugged in. This was
after the MD of the firm had phoned my company's group MD and demanded a
visit. When I arrived the first thing I checked if the machine was plugged
it and of course it was not. Back at the office my boss agreed with me that
my visit should be billed as "Training staff how to plug computer in and
switch it on". The recipient's MD was not amused but the bill was paid on
time.

Peter Crosland

On Feb 9, 2:38 am, "Bill Wright" wrote:

At that
point the penny finally dropped. I pressed 'menu' 'set up' 'manual tune' and
switched from System BG to System I. I then re-tuned every channel so
everything was in the right order. I noticed that only presets 5 and 20 were
set to System BG. The other TV set had preset 20 only set to system BG.

This surprises me, since all the LG LCD sets I've tuned in have auto-
detected the system of each signal they've found while scanning, and
automatically switched to system I even when BG had been manually
selected in the menus.

wrote in message
...
On Feb 9, 2:38 am, "Bill Wright" wrote:

At that
point the penny finally dropped. I pressed 'menu' 'set up' 'manual tune'
and
switched from System BG to System I. I then re-tuned every channel so
everything was in the right order. I noticed that only presets 5 and 20
were
set to System BG. The other TV set had preset 20 only set to system BG.

This surprises me, since all the LG LCD sets I've tuned in have auto-
detected the system of each signal they've found while scanning, and
automatically switched to system I even when BG had been manually
selected in the menus.

I didn't investigate, but I thought at the time that it was odd that the
first set was on BG for preset 20 (Sky box) and preset 5 (off-air Channel
Five) but not any any other preset. It can't be anything peculiar about the
signal on the satellite channel that confused the telly because that channel
came from an identical modulator to the CCTV channels.

I never found out why the Comet man had insisted on putting the satellite
channel on preset 20 despite the customer pressing him to put it on preset
6.

I didn't properly investigate the second LG; I just quickly retuned it. I
have a feeling that preset 5 was already on System I though.

I wonder if LGs auto detect the system on auto tune, but not on manual. My
first attempt to retune the first set was to use auto tune, but the set made
a complete mess of it. It didn't detect the channel idents and simply
assigned presets in UHF channel order. It also failed to find the two
monochrome CCTV channels.However it did find and store the modulator for the
DVD player, which was off, hence no modulation on either the video or audio
carriers.

What a contrast this is to a Sony PVR that I installed the other day. This
had separate loopthroughs for DTT and analogue; it did a full auto tune, put
all the analogues in the correct order, then tuned every DTT signal and
finally removed the DTT duplicates, explaining exactly what it had done on
screen. Magic!

Bill

Likewise, many years ago, my boss told me to drive (2.5 hours) into the
city of London to see a friend of his ('high flying' financial type) to
take up a new printer because the one he'd just sold him wasn't working.
I wasn't given a chance to do any over-the-phone diags.

When I got to site I had a quick look, unclipped the parallel lead from
the back of the printer, straightened the securing clip the guy has
managed to mangle and latch improperly, plugged the lead back in,
secured the side latches, did a test print and left - all of 3 mins I
reckon - oh, and 5 hours on the road.

linker3000 wrote:
Likewise, many years ago, my boss told me to drive (2.5 hours) into the
city of London to see a friend of his ('high flying' financial type) to
take up a new printer because the one he'd just sold him wasn't working.
I wasn't given a chance to do any over-the-phone diags.

When I got to site I had a quick look, unclipped the parallel lead from
the back of the printer, straightened the securing clip the guy has
managed to mangle and latch improperly, plugged the lead back in,
secured the side latches, did a test print and left - all of 3 mins I
reckon - oh, and 5 hours on the road.

monty python four yorkshiremen sketch

That's nothing. A colleague of mine flew (three hops each way) from London to
Vladivostok, to move a single BNC connector to the correct socket on the back
of broadcast TV editing controller. The customer was charged accordingly.

/monty python four yorkshiremen sketch

Mind you he came back with a nice bottle of duty free vodka :-)


--
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.

"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...

wrote in message
...
On Feb 9, 2:38 am, "Bill Wright"
wrote:

At that
point the penny finally dropped. I pressed 'menu' 'set up' 'manual
tune' and
switched from System BG to System I. I then re-tuned every channel
so
everything was in the right order. I noticed that only presets 5 and
20 were
set to System BG. The other TV set had preset 20 only set to system
BG.

This surprises me, since all the LG LCD sets I've tuned in have auto-
detected the system of each signal they've found while scanning, and
automatically switched to system I even when BG had been manually
selected in the menus.

I didn't investigate, but I thought at the time that it was odd that
the first set was on BG for preset 20 (Sky box) and preset 5 (off-air
Channel Five) but not any any other preset. It can't be anything
peculiar about the signal on the satellite channel that confused the
telly because that channel came from an identical modulator to the
CCTV channels.

I never found out why the Comet man had insisted on putting the
satellite channel on preset 20 despite the customer pressing him to
put it on preset 6.

I didn't properly investigate the second LG; I just quickly retuned
it. I have a feeling that preset 5 was already on System I though.

I wonder if LGs auto detect the system on auto tune, but not on
manual. My first attempt to retune the first set was to use auto tune,
but the set made a complete mess of it. It didn't detect the channel
idents and simply assigned presets in UHF channel order. It also
failed to find the two monochrome CCTV channels.However it did find
and store the modulator for the DVD player, which was off, hence no
modulation on either the video or audio carriers.

What a contrast this is to a Sony PVR that I installed the other day.
This had separate loopthroughs for DTT and analogue; it did a full
auto tune, put all the analogues in the correct order, then tuned
every DTT signal and finally removed the DTT duplicates, explaining
exactly what it had done on screen. Magic!

Bill



Only problem is what happens if the station you want is one of the
deleted duplicates?

This lo-hi tuning has a lot to answer for, especially if as here we get
both Bilsdale (gp A) and Emley (gp B) and we want to watch the latter!


--
Woody

harrogate three at ntlworld dot com

Mark Carver wrote:
linker3000 wrote:
Likewise, many years ago, my boss told me to drive (2.5 hours) into
the city of London to see a friend of his ('high flying' financial
type) to take up a new printer because the one he'd just sold him
wasn't working. I wasn't given a chance to do any over-the-phone
diags. When I got to site I had a quick look, unclipped the parallel lead
from the back of the printer, straightened the securing clip the guy
has managed to mangle and latch improperly, plugged the lead back in,
secured the side latches, did a test print and left - all of 3 mins I
reckon - oh, and 5 hours on the road.

monty python four yorkshiremen sketch

That's nothing. A colleague of mine flew (three hops each way) from
London to Vladivostok, to move a single BNC connector to the correct
socket on the back of broadcast TV editing controller. The customer
was charged accordingly.
/monty python four yorkshiremen sketch

Mind you he came back with a nice bottle of duty free vodka :-)

Luxury!

Peter Crosland

Bill Wright wrote:
...............................
So what do we learn from this wasted afternoon? Firstly, that the Comet man
was not a competent installer. Secondly, that a report of 'it doesn't work
upstairs' can be whittled down by close questioning to 'one channel doesn't
work on two new TV sets'. Thirdly, that we should bear in mind that when a
customer talks of dreadful interference that he can't describe, he might be
talking about a sound-only fault.

20 miles there, 20 miles back, 2 hours on site. No materials. One cup of
tea. What shall I charge? The main contractor would like me to 'absorb the
cost'. Of course I can't do that.

Bill



Well the "proper" answer is to charge him the full amount, then tell him
he could get it back from Comet by taking them to the Small Claims court
on a failure to provide the services required charge. Any Council's
trading Standards Dept would help with that one!

:-)

Richard

Woody wrote:
What a contrast this is to a Sony PVR that I installed the other day.
This had separate loopthroughs for DTT and analogue; it did a full
auto tune, put all the analogues in the correct order, then tuned
every DTT signal and finally removed the DTT duplicates, explaining
exactly what it had done on screen. Magic!


Only problem is what happens if the station you want is one of the
deleted duplicates?

With modern Sony tuners, you can manually tune to the appropriate mux, and add
it back in, assigning it to any channel number of your choice. In fact you can
move any DTT channel to any position you like. I've put BBC News 24 on Ch 8.

--
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.