I don’t like house calls in apartment buildings – especially if there are lots of stairs. I didn’t mind once but not now.

I guessed that Mrs Machon’s telly sensed this as I climbed up to her unit on the top floor and knocked quietly on the door (in order not to wake the 2-year old, as per instructions). Well, of course she didn’t hear me until I turned the knocking level up to "waking-child level", which then woke mum up. She then angrily answered the door, asking "why didn’t you knock quietly like I asked?"

I ignored her question and bit my tongue. "And just where is madam’s set?", I replied rather sarcastically.

She had previously told me that her Teac CTM686SR had no sound or picture. In fact, the sound was fine; it was just the picture that had failed. I began by removing the trillion back-cover screws and about three hours later, the back was finally off (I exaggerate just a tiny bit).

Quickly connecting a crocodile clip-lead between one of the CRT cathodes and ground momentarily flashed a brightly-coloured horizontal line on the screen. Yep, just as I thought – no vertical deflection.

Now the universal story with smaller Teacs of this age group (early nineties) is that two electros dry out in the switchmode power supply, causing the voltage to go high. This in turn pops electros right through the set, also taking out a few zener diodes, fusible resistors and possibly the vertical output IC in the process. However, this problem rarely occurs in the 68cm version.

Anyway, considering the logistics of the set, the 2-year old and his mother’s disposition, I decided to take just the chassis back to the workshop. It would be much easier to work there, even if I was taking a chance that I could fix everything without testing.

Items Covered This Month Teac CTM686SR TV set Teac EU-68ST TV set Philips A10A chassis TV set Sony KV-EH36M31 FD Series Trinitron TV set (AE-5A chassis) LG MT42PZ41V TV set LG RT23LZ40 TV set