Despite my never ending bad experiences with sets over 10 years old, I never seem to learn my lesson. Is it because one is reluctant not to use the knowledge learned over the decade or is it because I play down the inherent problems of equipment that’s generally past its use by date?

Which ever it is, I find it hard to go past a Philips KT3-A3 (CH285) as I know it so well and it is a "technician-friendly" chassis. However, I find it hard to admit that, 15 years later, the sort of faults I am now encountering are often new, as all the most likely faults have already been fixed – it is only now that other unusual parts are breaking down.

I was in just this frame of mind when I was faced with a challenge from young Tim, a field technician for a large opposition service organisation. He had encountered a set – covered by one of their service contracts – which lived not far from the ocean.

Items Covered This Month Philips KT3-A3 TV Set. NEC JC-2002VM 5D Monitor. Brionvega TVC 9203 Stratos 2 TV Set. Sanyo VHRD-7770M VCR.

The fault was no sound or picture and the set was pulsating. They hadn’t been able to solve the problem and he asked if I would "take a look at it". Not wishing to show I was over the hill to a young upstart, I foolishly accepted the challenge.

Fortunately Tim had agreed to deliver the set to my workshop and leave it with me – not that I minded, as I was full of confidence in what I considered to be an old faithful and was sure it would be all over in about 15 minutes. Actually, I was so confident I really wanted him to hang around so that I could show off but he had other calls to attend to and was away before I had the back off.

The thing that was most obvious immediately was that it was very corroded and, in the EHT section, the tripler and the horizontal output transformer had both been replaced and silicone had been generously applied everywhere. Despite this, the first thing I did was unsolder the tripler and switch on. Immediately, the sound came on and I could hear the horizontal timebase whistle. The main HT was spot on at 129V.