Oldest electrical thing

Years and years ago I bought Warren a clock radio alarm and TV, all in one. Cant remember how much it cost but probably a fair amount mainly because of the TV. He was going away a lot at the time for work and staying in transit lines on Army bases. Very basic things in those rooms, bed and wardrobe maybe a chair if lucky. I thought that it would be good for him to have and take with him.

I think it would be about twenty five or a bit more years old. Definitely the oldest electrical piece of equipment that we own. It didn't get packed and taken on many of his jaunts mainly because of the size and weight, he had other stuff that had to go first.

Anyway that was his choice at least he had the opportunity to take a little personal TV with clock,radio and alarm. It has always taken up residence on his bedside table and used as clock radio and alarm. It has been used as a second TV at times and we did used to take it camping with us for a TV in the camper van.

The open novel on top gives some idea of the size, the TV is four inches squares (about 10 cms).

Often we use the radio as we are going to sleep, it has a one hour or a continuous option. 

Last weekend when I was on my own, it was quiet and I thought I would put the radio on to go to sleep. Pressed a button which I thought was the radio button and yes, I got radio but I also got the buzzer alarm sound. I pressed a few more buttons, thinking how hard can this be? I just want music! I gave up after a while and decided to go without.

I was rudely wakened at six o'clock the next morning with the alarm going off and the TV screen lit up with a bright light! What the? Slid a couple of slides and thankfully it shut down and I did manage to go back to sleep.

Getting into bed on Sunday night I said to Warren "You probably need to adjust the clock and radio." He laughed when I told him what I had done. A couple of clicks and we had nice music to send us to sleep, the following morning at six am, woke up to music. Bugger why couldn't I do that!

Shake,rattle and roll

On our caravan trip, we used some secondary roads, all bitumen but there were a couple that were narrow and a few holes on the edges. Warren always makes a point of pulling off the road where possible when a couple or more vehicles are behind us. Our first stop on the first day for lunch was about an hour, ten minutes up the road. We have topped there several times before and it is a free camp with a power box and a toilet block.

Everything was fine in the van and we enjoyed sitting inside eating lunch. Next stop was our stop for the next two nights. Parked the van and opened the door to be greeted with the TV upside down on the floor and a few tins rolling around the floor as well. Apparently one of us had not secured the bottom latch of the pantry. Not damage there though.

TV was a different story. We take it off the arm and place it upside on the bed to travel, never a problem before. However we realized that each time we have done it before the bed had been made up with a doona. This time the bed had only been made up to a sheet and the doona had travelled inside the car due to having been washed and put inside the house instead of the van. The sheet had acted as a slide and I guess with some movement and braking etc, The TV had slid down the bed and straight on to the floor.

My thought was "How much is a new TV and DVD player?"We gingerly picked it and turned it over, the screen was intact so we slotted it into the arm on the wall and turned it on. It fired up but no picture so we attached the aerial, but still no picture. Warren tested lots of things and found it wasn't the TV it was the connection for the aerial!

This is after its slide to the ground, a couple of rub marks and that's all.

We had some reinforcements done on the outside of the van and it seems the guys when fixing some chequerplate, drilled through the wires for the aerial.

This is how we solved that problem in the short term. Warren has since threaded the wires through the pantry and back outside to the pole that is our aerial pole.

One other stop we had and a light shade had fallen from the ceiling, again no damage was done, didn't even break! Our mattress moves forward on the base each time so a small shelf it going to put at the end to stop it going forward. We come home after each shake down trip with either some repairs or improvements to be made.

We are considering replacing the seats as they are okay in the short term but after a couple of hours of sitting they become quite flat (I guess as the caravan is over thirty years old, they have had a lot of bums sitting on them). A trip to Clark Rubber is in order to see if we can get thicker/denser foam rubber.