Why I Like NH Better than NJ - Reason 2

Skilled artisans and technicians can be found in NJ if you look hard enough, but mediocrity is pervasive and don't try to get component level trouble shooting for your TV.

While in NJ, we had a 9 year old large screen projection TV that once turned off, would not turn on again for 4-6 hours. I did some research and found that it was most likely a bad capacitor on one of the boards. I began calling around, but no one would come out to my house and no one would trouble shoot at the component level. The best they could do was have me haul it in and they would replace the entire circuit board for about $450.

When we arrived in NH, I asked around and was told that Tony's TV Repair in Portsmouth would come out and would trouble shoot. I called them and Mark, their tech spent about 15 minutes with me on the phone doing as much trouble shooting as he could that way. He then did his research, ordered a set of 8 capacitors and set up an appointment. He was clear that if they didn't do the job, it would then be a needle in a haystack search that would require bench work at the shop and probably not worth doing.

When he arrived we duplicated the problem, he pressed two keys on the front panel and an LCD flashed out an error code suggesting the capacitors on the signal board were the most likely problem. He replaced them and we gave it a try. While it didn't solve the problem, it did improve things considerably.

He said he could replace the capacitors on the other board, but if they were the problem we would have gotten a different error code. He felt that the problem could also be a transistor, in which case it would have to go to the shop for serious bench work. I decided to leave things as they were.

Watching him work was a pleasure. I'm trained in computer repair and even if I knew which capacitors to replace, it would have taken me at least two to three times as long to do what he did. He traveled 25 miles in each direction and spent well more than an hour here, but since he couldn't fix it, he just charged me the travel charge, the minimum labor charge and the cost of the four capacitors. It cost $156, which considering everything, was a bargain. The set is working better and I am perfectly happy with the results.

Thanks, Mark!

I've had a similar experiences with my house, my car, and even my hair, but more about them in a future posts.