Estimate
$35.00
Estimate fee is to be paid in advance, cash. No
estimate will be provided until paid. If the customer approves estimate, the
estimate fee will be applied to the repair bill. Estimate fee is non-refundable,
provided an estimate has been given.
Minor Repair
$38.50
This includes repair of cables, replacement of
batteries, broken wires on battery powered equipment etc.
Major Repair $65.00 Per Hour
This is
considered normal repair. Usually involves a complete tear down of the
equipment, diagnosis, repair, calibration and check out of the device. This
includes cleaning of chassis, controls and any adjustments that are
required.
My repair rate varies depending on nature of repair,
(plus parts and shipping)
Estimates are $35.00 cash
paid in advance, non refundable. When you commit to the repair, the $35.00
estimate fee will be deducted from the repair bill.
After repair,
all equipment will receive a free 24 hour burn in period on the bench and are
again retested.
My turn-around is typically 1-2 weeks I receive
your equipment, unless waiting on parts or manuals. There will be a nominal fee
added if manuals need to be ordered.
I will send you a paypal
invoice after repairs are made for easy and secure payment with your credit or
debit card. Or you may pay when you pick up your equipment. You will still get a
handwritten copy of the repair ticket.
I will also accept cash
or money orders if you prefer. NO PERSONAL CHECKS.
I will keep you
up to date via e-mail or phone, your choice.
I guarantee my
workmanship for 30 days.
Please EMAIL ME at kf5ccn@arrl.net or call (512) 496-9574 to introduce me to yourself
and your sick radio. If you can take a few moments to describe the symptoms, it
will allow me, within a couple of days, to respond with a reasonably accurate
estimate of what it will cost to bring your set back to
life.
Hopefully, this information will allow you to
provide me with the information I need in one visit, so we do not have to spend
days trading correspondence to accomplish the same
end.
HAM/CB EQUIPMENT
HAM AMPLIFIERS
ANTIQUE RADIO
REPAIR (Also applies to tube guitar amps)
Maximize tube
life while providing a strong healthy tone quality, by proper adjustment to
release the optimal tube operating characteristics. Tubes initially drift quite
a bit from their correct bias point. For this reason, it is always suggested
that you re tube with burned-in tubes. This means that a new tube will change
its characteristics quite a bit, and that once a day or two of use is on the
tube, that the characteristics will stabilize to a large extent. This is very
important to understand and use. Over time your tubes will require a different
correct bias voltage in order to run at optimum performance. Failure to keep
tubes properly biased can reduce an otherwise fine tube's life span by
years.
Amp Maintenance
Includes tube amp bias,
cleaning potentiometers, cleaning and re-tensioning tube sockets, diagnose and
advise on general operation, specifications, condition of all tubes, power
supply and failed or missing components.
Due to the fact that
these capacitors are under less stress, they generally outlive their rated life
span of 10 years. Although we recommend replacing these caps no later than the
20 year mark, most players choose to perform this work during the ten year
service for sonic and safety concerns.Since these caps are in the audio circuit,
unlike the power supply caps, you can expect a difference in the tonality of the
amp. Specifically, the amp will sound like it did when it was new. In general
terms, capacitors will drift from their rated value until they are outside the
stated tolerance or fail. When they fail it is usually due to leaking of the
electrolyte in the case of power supply caps, or breakdown of the dielectric in
the case of electrolytic caps in the audio circuit. Depending on where in the
circuit the cap is, the effect on the way an amp sounds can be
varied.
Some probable symptoms of an off-specification cap
would be:
muddy sound - lacking strong clear bass, muffled or
lifeless response;
reduced dynamic range - lacking the ability to
repeatedly give percussive passages without "squashing down" or "loosing it",
the second shot is not as loud as the first;
early distortion - an amp
may otherwise sound fine but become dirtier at lower volumes and or
settings;
bad distortion - awful, broken sounding, non-musical
distortion that gets worse as you turn it up;
no sustain - cutting out
can also be caused by improper bias adjustment;
too much bass - swimming
obnoxious low tones that cant be dialed out;
tinny sound - an
uncharacteristic brightness pervades, while a loss of volume may be
noticed.
loss of volume - caps have a lot to do with apparent
and actual loudness.