My
second venture into the TV aerial erecting business came like this.
I think that it was 1950 or thereabouts. Our local cobbler used
to dabble in electrical goods such as torches and light bulbs, and
I called in for some torch batteries. The cobbler had ventured into
the brave new world of television, and a new set had just been delivered
to the shop. The cobbler was unpacking it, and I took the opportunity
to show off the 'specialist knowledge' I'd gained as a result of
my having fixed up an aerial some time before. I said, "Isn't
that one of those television things?"
"It certainly is, young man! How did you know that?" asked
the owner. I told him I had fixed an aerial in Doncaster a few months
ago. He asked me to come with him through the shop into the back
yard. There on the concrete was a pile of rods, bolts, brackets,
wire, etc., just as he had tipped it out of the box it came in.
He said 'I couldn't even think about putting that together. Do you
think you could do it?' On noticing an instruction leaflet among
the pile of bits and pieces I agreed to go there next day after
work, which was a Saturday. I worked until twelve o'clock every
Saturday. So next day after a quick lunch I gathered together some
spanners, pliers, and anything else I might need, and off I went
to do battle with that aerial.
In
reality it wasn't too bad to fix together, first a study of the
instructions, then all the pieces laid out in order on the concrete.
There was a drawing of the completed aerial on the instruction
leaflet. This helped a great deal. By five o'clock it was finished,
all except the cable to be coupled up. I had left this for Sid
the cobbler to do. There it was reared up against the house, all
the five or so long rods bolted to the horizontal bar, the whole
lot fastened to the top of a twelve-foot wooden pole. It had taken
me three hours to put it together. Several cups of tea had helped.
So far so good. Now we had to get it onto the roof. Problem number
one, we hadn't got a ladder. I knew where there was a ladder so
I went off to see if I could borrow it. I brought it back to the
shop across the handlebars and the seat of my pushbike. It was
a pole ladder and far too heavy to carry. Because I had fixed
brackets round a chimney before there was no problem this time,
and the aerial was soon up. We spent a good part of Sunday turning
the aerial to try to get a picture but no luck. In the end the
set was sent back to the factory. For the record it was a nine
inch Vtronic console.
Over
the next few weeks and months Sid got some more sets in his shop,
'Cossors' and 'Ultras'. These did get a picture from the aerial
and soon Sid began to sell the odd television. I agreed to fix
the aerials at one pound a time. He would take the set to the
house in his car then I would go with the pole ladder and a roof
ladder I had made, on the handlebars of my bike. The tools would
be in a bag on the carrier, and I would walk to the house pushing
the heavily laden bike. At first these jobs were always done on
a Saturday because they would take all the afternoon. As I had
no test equipment the procedure was to line up the aerial up by
guesswork, plug in the cable, and then turn the aerial to get
the best picture. The pictures were, of course, in black and white.
Traffic interference was a serious problem near main roads.
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