Nowt so queer as folk (part 812)

"That box you put in the cellar isn't right! The old one used to buzz so
we knew it was working. This one you put in doesn't make a sound. It
must be broken. You'll have to come back!"

"What's your TV reception like?"

"Oh it's perfect! Quite frankly I don't think we need a box. All the
tellys are working fine without one."

"But you've got one; the new one."

"Yes but it isn't doing anything. There's a light on it that's all, and
that isn't as bright as the one on the other box. That was a blue one,
and it was a proper bright light. This one's far too dim."

"The new box is working fine. Modern ones don't buzz. And they don't
have a bright light because the environmentalists have made it against
the law to have a bright light on all the time in the cellar."

"Well that's as maybe but I want you to come and take this box out and I
want my money back."

"If I do that none of your tellys will work. Remember when the old box
broke down?"

"Well I don't think that thing you put in there is doing anything. How
can it be? I want you to come and take it out."

"You know how the 'thing' is plugged into the electric? Why don't you
unplug it and see what happens?"

"Well I'll do just that."

That was this morning. I haven't heard anything since.


Got an email the other day from a housing association. The tenant had
been into the office and had been rude and offensive, and said that if
something wasn't done immediately about his TV reception he was going to
contact his MP, etc etc. His complaints had been disregarded because he
has a long record of wasting the assn's money by calling maintenance
people out for nothing. Only a month ago he had the emergency plumber
out because of a 'leak' which turned out to be one square of kitchen
roll's worth of condensation. No-one else had a problem with their TV
reception. As soon as I got there he started. Mouth mouth mouth. What
wasn't he going to do if I didn't fix it... I managed to get into the
living room where I saw that the TV was connected to the socket clearly
labelled RADIO. The socket labelled TV had a lead running through the
wall to the bedroom. I queried this arrangement and he said "What else
am I supposed to do?"

"Yes but you didn't really expect the telly to work from the radio
socket did you?"

"Look, I pay my rent, I want some service."

Normally I would give them a splitter but in this case I told him to go
out and buy one. And I expect he has his rent paid for him anyway, the
lard-arsed *******.


Three weeks ago I went to a block where some stupid contractor had
installed a new TV system, at the behest of a stupid person in the
office who decided the place needed upgrading for digital. This was done
a year ago. It was unnecessary; the old system was done by me in 1990
and was working fine. But anyway, that's just one small example of the
******** that's happening with DSO. The new system has a 10 element
wideband aerial and this is in a place where reception is poor, even
with the new high powered transmissions. Reception from this aerial is
very bad, with the strongest signals being Emley Moor bounced from the
nearby steelworks, despite the aerial being on Crosspool.

In 1990 I'd installed two stacked logs at the other end of the building,
where Crosspool reception is much better. So three weeks ago I fixed a
cable the length of the building, and when I get some channel filters in
stock I'll go and connect the old aerial to the new system. Meanwhile
the new system is untouched by me. Since I was on site the office has
had a lot of complaints. Apparently I made reception a lot worse when I
was there running this cable. One person had figured out that since the
cable links the old aerial to the new wallbox the system must now be
running on the old aerial. He has written to the office saying that he
always had a bit of ghosting on the old aerial especially on Channel
Four, and now he's got it again. Could I go back and re-connect to the
new aerial, the little one above Mrs Millington's garage?

About a fortnight ago I fitted a ch37 to 53 bandpass filter and a 10dB
attenuator behind a customer's telly, because of problems with it
finding out-of-area channels. She rung up this dinnertime.
"There's two things Mr Wright. Firstly that thing you put behind the
telly has made the picture go pink. And to be quite honest I don't think
we need it because my son plugged the aerial straight into the telly and
it worked just the same."
I called in on the way home. The pink picture was on DVD playback only
and was caused by the scart being half out of the telly. I tried to
explain, as I had originally, about the filter, but it was pointless.


When I got home Great Uncle Sam Twice Removed was sitting in the kitchen
with a briefcase on his knee. In the briefcase was a small 4:3 telly.
"Can you make this work for me? I bought it off Leslie (not Leslie at
the butchers', Leslie who does the dogs when they need a haircut) and it
won't work."
The remote appeared to be the right one. The telly was dreadful. It had
two aerial sockets, unidentified. I put signal into both, pressed DVB,
menu, settings, factory default. The set switched to analogue every time
and just sat there. I tried 'add channels' with the same result. I tried
everthing. In the end I thought I'd try an analogue tune. Switched to
ATV; 'menu' did nothing. Tried every button and one on the bottom row
brought up the analogue tuning menu (mention of system BG, etc). Pressed
'OK', TV switched instantly to DVB and autotuned. But no analogue tuning
I noticed, and on DVB the audio was stop-start on the radio channels.
Also the picture was stretched and no amount of button pressing would
correct the AR.
At that point Great Uncle Sam Twice Removed, who is not known for his
subtlety of expression, said, "Somebody's shat their pants!" but no, it
was the in-line PSU for his telly just starting to smoulder.
"What shall I do? What would you do?"
"I would smash the telly over Leslie's head."
"That seems a bit harsh."
"Harsh, but, I think, fair."
"I'll wait 'til he's done the dogs before I mention it."

Bill

On 10/11/2011 18:28, Bill Wright wrote:

(snip sad tales)

Could you let me know who your local builders are? I'd like to buy some
shares in them, as you must spend a fortune on them having to repair the
damage caused by you repeatedly banging your head against the wall when
you get home...

--

Jeff

Hey, Bill, I hope you are keeping a copy of all these stories. They
are a fascinating insight into human nature, as well as being
entertaining, informative and interesting.

I hope you'll keep 'em coming.

--
SteveT

In article ,
Steve Thackery writes:
Hey, Bill, I hope you are keeping a copy of all these stories. They
are a fascinating insight into human nature, as well as being
entertaining, informative and interesting.

I hope you'll keep 'em coming.


Seconded. I think you could get a book out of them.
--
John Hall
"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism
by those who have not got it."
George Bernard Shaw

Jeff Layman wrote:
On 10/11/2011 18:28, Bill Wright wrote:

(snip sad tales)

Could you let me know who your local builders are? I'd like to buy some
shares in them, as you must spend a fortune on them having to repair the
damage caused by you repeatedly banging your head against the wall when
you get home...

Ha!

Bill

John Hall wrote:
In article ,
Steve Thackery writes:
Hey, Bill, I hope you are keeping a copy of all these stories. They
are a fascinating insight into human nature, as well as being
entertaining, informative and interesting.

I hope you'll keep 'em coming.


Seconded. I think you could get a book out of them.
It's a bit 'niche' though, isn't it? The trouble is, a general reader
wouldn't understand many of the issues. But thanks guys, for saying nice
things.

It's odd how these incidents seem to have become more common since DSO.
Has DSO had some strange effect on people's brains?

I've also noticed a tendency for people to imply that I (little me,
personally) am responsible for all the DSO grief!

I am in the role of customer tomorrow as the IT man is coming here. He
regards me as a congenital moron, which from his perspective I am. I
will try very hard to appear intelligent!

Bill

On 11/11/2011 00:08, Bill Wright wrote:
John Hall wrote:
In article ,
Steve Thackery writes:
Hey, Bill, I hope you are keeping a copy of all these stories. They
are a fascinating insight into human nature, as well as being
entertaining, informative and interesting.

I hope you'll keep 'em coming.


Seconded. I think you could get a book out of them.
It's a bit 'niche' though, isn't it? The trouble is, a general reader
wouldn't understand many of the issues. But thanks guys, for saying nice
things.

It's odd how these incidents seem to have become more common since DSO.
Has DSO had some strange effect on people's brains?

I've also noticed a tendency for people to imply that I (little me,
personally) am responsible for all the DSO grief!

I am in the role of customer tomorrow as the IT man is coming here. He
regards me as a congenital moron, which from his perspective I am. I
will try very hard to appear intelligent!

Bill
I'll tell you what Bill, your anecdotes, while entertaining don't half
re-enforce that fact that Joe Public is as thick as ****!

I really despair about standards these days.

Rob.

Ah that telly must have been made by the same company as one I had whose psu
glued itself to my coffee table.
The PSU was built for the French market so maybe they have higher
temperature laquer on their coffee tables than we do.

Brian

--
Brian Gaff -
Note:- In order to reduce spam, any email without 'Brian Gaff'
in the display name may be lost.
Blind user, so no pictures please!
"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
"That box you put in the cellar isn't right! The old one used to buzz so
we knew it was working. This one you put in doesn't make a sound. It must
be broken. You'll have to come back!"

"What's your TV reception like?"

"Oh it's perfect! Quite frankly I don't think we need a box. All the
tellys are working fine without one."

"But you've got one; the new one."

"Yes but it isn't doing anything. There's a light on it that's all, and
that isn't as bright as the one on the other box. That was a blue one, and
it was a proper bright light. This one's far too dim."

"The new box is working fine. Modern ones don't buzz. And they don't have
a bright light because the environmentalists have made it against the law
to have a bright light on all the time in the cellar."

"Well that's as maybe but I want you to come and take this box out and I
want my money back."

"If I do that none of your tellys will work. Remember when the old box
broke down?"

"Well I don't think that thing you put in there is doing anything. How can
it be? I want you to come and take it out."

"You know how the 'thing' is plugged into the electric? Why don't you
unplug it and see what happens?"

"Well I'll do just that."

That was this morning. I haven't heard anything since.


Got an email the other day from a housing association. The tenant had been
into the office and had been rude and offensive, and said that if
something wasn't done immediately about his TV reception he was going to
contact his MP, etc etc. His complaints had been disregarded because he
has a long record of wasting the assn's money by calling maintenance
people out for nothing. Only a month ago he had the emergency plumber out
because of a 'leak' which turned out to be one square of kitchen roll's
worth of condensation. No-one else had a problem with their TV reception.
As soon as I got there he started. Mouth mouth mouth. What wasn't he going
to do if I didn't fix it... I managed to get into the living room where I
saw that the TV was connected to the socket clearly labelled RADIO. The
socket labelled TV had a lead running through the wall to the bedroom. I
queried this arrangement and he said "What else am I supposed to do?"

"Yes but you didn't really expect the telly to work from the radio socket
did you?"

"Look, I pay my rent, I want some service."

Normally I would give them a splitter but in this case I told him to go
out and buy one. And I expect he has his rent paid for him anyway, the
lard-arsed *******.


Three weeks ago I went to a block where some stupid contractor had
installed a new TV system, at the behest of a stupid person in the office
who decided the place needed upgrading for digital. This was done a year
ago. It was unnecessary; the old system was done by me in 1990 and was
working fine. But anyway, that's just one small example of the ********
that's happening with DSO. The new system has a 10 element wideband aerial
and this is in a place where reception is poor, even with the new high
powered transmissions. Reception from this aerial is very bad, with the
strongest signals being Emley Moor bounced from the nearby steelworks,
despite the aerial being on Crosspool.

In 1990 I'd installed two stacked logs at the other end of the building,
where Crosspool reception is much better. So three weeks ago I fixed a
cable the length of the building, and when I get some channel filters in
stock I'll go and connect the old aerial to the new system. Meanwhile the
new system is untouched by me. Since I was on site the office has had a
lot of complaints. Apparently I made reception a lot worse when I was
there running this cable. One person had figured out that since the cable
links the old aerial to the new wallbox the system must now be running on
the old aerial. He has written to the office saying that he always had a
bit of ghosting on the old aerial especially on Channel Four, and now he's
got it again. Could I go back and re-connect to the new aerial, the little
one above Mrs Millington's garage?

About a fortnight ago I fitted a ch37 to 53 bandpass filter and a 10dB
attenuator behind a customer's telly, because of problems with it finding
out-of-area channels. She rung up this dinnertime.
"There's two things Mr Wright. Firstly that thing you put behind the telly
has made the picture go pink. And to be quite honest I don't think we need
it because my son plugged the aerial straight into the telly and it worked
just the same."
I called in on the way home. The pink picture was on DVD playback only and
was caused by the scart being half out of the telly. I tried to explain,
as I had originally, about the filter, but it was pointless.


When I got home Great Uncle Sam Twice Removed was sitting in the kitchen
with a briefcase on his knee. In the briefcase was a small 4:3 telly.
"Can you make this work for me? I bought it off Leslie (not Leslie at the
butchers', Leslie who does the dogs when they need a haircut) and it won't
work."
The remote appeared to be the right one. The telly was dreadful. It had
two aerial sockets, unidentified. I put signal into both, pressed DVB,
menu, settings, factory default. The set switched to analogue every time
and just sat there. I tried 'add channels' with the same result. I tried
everthing. In the end I thought I'd try an analogue tune. Switched to ATV;
'menu' did nothing. Tried every button and one on the bottom row brought
up the analogue tuning menu (mention of system BG, etc). Pressed 'OK', TV
switched instantly to DVB and autotuned. But no analogue tuning I noticed,
and on DVB the audio was stop-start on the radio channels. Also the
picture was stretched and no amount of button pressing would correct the
AR.
At that point Great Uncle Sam Twice Removed, who is not known for his
subtlety of expression, said, "Somebody's shat their pants!" but no, it
was the in-line PSU for his telly just starting to smoulder.
"What shall I do? What would you do?"
"I would smash the telly over Leslie's head."
"That seems a bit harsh."
"Harsh, but, I think, fair."
"I'll wait 'til he's done the dogs before I mention it."

Bill

On Fri, 11 Nov 2011 00:08:14 +0000
Bill Wright wrote:

John Hall wrote:
In article ,
Steve Thackery writes:
Hey, Bill, I hope you are keeping a copy of all these stories.
They are a fascinating insight into human nature, as well as being
entertaining, informative and interesting.

I hope you'll keep 'em coming.


Seconded. I think you could get a book out of them.
It's a bit 'niche' though, isn't it? The trouble is, a general reader
wouldn't understand many of the issues. But thanks guys, for saying
nice things.

It's odd how these incidents seem to have become more common since
DSO. Has DSO had some strange effect on people's brains?

Simply that, until DSO, everyone's existing system never needed
fiddling with. If it worked, it worked, only needing attention if
something broke.
I returned from the US, where the only problem I had with their DSO was
the sudden switching off, unnecessarily, by my cable company of its
analogue signals, thereby rendering my analogue VCR almost redundant or
at least a right pain to use, and here I find myself deep in a long
drawn out process that seems designed to turn the average non-technical
punter into a raving lunatic. Hence the material for your maybe book.
In my case, the blurb at the beginning of the year said that DSO would
take place on two dates in November, and then an additional date in
August suddenly appeared.
I read your notes, and enjoy them, but I am hazy on the need for, or
use of, signal attenuators hanging off the backs of TV sets. But I don't
see a need for one, in my case.
Keep writing, Bill. I always enjoy a good laugh.
--
Davey.

On Fri, 11 Nov 2011 10:01:01 -0000
"Brian Gaff" wrote:

Ah that telly must have been made by the same company as one I had
whose psu glued itself to my coffee table.
The PSU was built for the French market so maybe they have higher
temperature laquer on their coffee tables than we do.

Brian


French Polishing?
--
Davey.