My dad waited for the television repair guy yesterday while I was at the day job (EDJ). I’ve been having an issue with sound on all the channels except for the 4 local ones that the cable company left on their original station. My dad said the guy came first thing in the morning (yea!) and tested everything. He couldn’t figure out what was wrong so he got on the phone to RCA, and for half an hour, they ran through all kinds of stuff. Nothing worked. Finally, the TV guy said he was going to try one more thing.
He unplugged the television, let it sit for a minute and plugged it back in.
It worked perfectly.
The guy told my dad that RCA is having problems with compatibility with some cable systems and that weird stuff like this happens because of it. He said if the sound goes out again, to do the unplug thing, and if that didn’t work, that we should call again.
I just have to laugh. For more than 2 weeks, if I’ve wanted to watch television, I’ve had to do it in my bedroom. I’ve even watched the movies I reviewed here on my smaller TV. The cable company has been out. Now TV repair. And all this time, all I needed to do was unplug it and plug it back in again. Amazing. 
And also in the amazing column. I started to subscribe to Smithsonian Magazine (although I’m running into the problem I feared: no time to read it). They spelled my last name wrong, so I corrected that and sent it back. Yesterday, my next issue arrived with my last name spelled exactly right. The problem? My first name is wrong. It wasn’t before. Just call me Oattu. Sigh.
Tags: and-the-beat-goes-on, TV
*giggles* When all else fails, unplug. I actually did the very same thing this weekend. Our DirecTV/Tivo box sometimes goes wonky and the TV color goes wavy and bad. You would think this is a TV problem, but it’s not. If I unplug the satellite box, wait a few minutes, plug it back in, and allow it to go through its setup process, the color is fixed. Too bad there’s not an easy way to unplug my brain for a refresh.
Oattu. Why, it almost sounds Polynesian, don’t you think, Oattu? LOL!
Joely,
I always went with: If all else fails, reboot it. I just didn’t realize there was a similar rule for other electronics.
Now I know.
And I’m with you. I’d love to have my brain unplugged at times myself.
Patti
Carolyn,
LOL! Maybe my Polynesian heroine secretly wants that name and arranged things so that my Smithsonian would come with Oattu on it.
Patti