Archive for January 11th, 2007
The blue screen stares back at me, blankly.
Blue screens and technology do not mix. Especially when you are relocating your old not-particularly-big LCD TV to your bedroom to make way for your new frankly-massive LCD TV.
I have invested in a wireless transmitter to allow me to watch TV in my bedroom, even though the main digital receiver is downstairs. Weekends may come where I literally never leave my bed.
But it didn’t work. Scart leads were plugged in. Receivers and transmitters were powered up. Magical TV waves made their way mysteriously about my flat. Yet still my old TV showed nothing more than the blue screen of death.
So I went downstairs and swapped a few scart leads.
I went back upstairs to check for improvements in the signal. Still a blue screen.
I went downstairs and swapped a few more scart leads. This time Sky stopped working downstairs.
I went back upstairs to check for improvements in the signal. Still a blue screen.
I went downstairs and swapped a few scart leads around again.
I went back upstairs to check for improvements in the signal. Still a blue screen.
I went back downstairs and calculated that there were approximately four billion different potential Scart configurations, and then I proceeded to work my way through them. One by one. Upstairs to check, downstairs to reconfigure, upstairs to check, downstairs to reconfigure. This went on for about three days and ten thousand calories, until finally, I gave up.
I was unplugging the transmitter from the Sky box when I noticed that underneath, it had the word ‘Receiver’ written upon it. Now, this is a misleading word to write underneath a transmitter. It could lead to numerous wasted hours and potentially fatal levels of frustration. Stupid wireless transmitter makers.
I then went upstairs again, this time to pack the receiver, when I noticed that it had the word ‘Transmitter’ written on it underneath. This just compounded their initial mistake, and illustrates quite clearly, that in the world of wireless TV transmission and reception, the makers of these units do not know their recepticals from their transepticals.
It is lucky that I am so good with technology, and that I was able to venture off-piste with this equipment, and in a blinding flash of inspiration I swapped over the two units.
The TV worked first time.
I wonder how many other people out there are suffering due to the mislabelling of the identical transmitter and receiver units?
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