Rogue Traders

[Geordie Spark]

Do any of you lads know about or remember Redifusion?

It was cable radio and then cable television here in Geordieland in the 1950s & 60s and involved large black cables strung at eaves height between all the houses on estates. The cables then ran down the walls & then through them into the living room where there was a large rotary selector switch which you used to select which radio station you wanted to listen to or which of the two TV channels you wanted to watch. From this selector switch was run a wire into the back of a modified TV set.

Anyway, this bloke wanted his TV at the opposite side of the room and the Redifusion gadgee came to extend and re-route the cable from the switch to the TV in its new location. He did this by clipping the cable straight along the wall about 3 feet from the floor and straight across the French Windows ......

 

[trev]

Aye, I remember them. Me folks rented one of their tellys for years.

 

[Geordie Spark]

Aye, I remember them. Me folks rented one of their tellys for years.

Aye, me Granny did an' all.

When I was working for a builder in the 1990s I took a great delight in ripping down the old disused cables & junction boxes that were still stuck on the flats we were renovating.

It's surprising to see how much of that stuff is still around considering it hasn't been in use since the 70s.

I've often thought that Granada must be kicking themselves. They bought Redifusion and closed it down. Years afterwards, United Artistes (later Telewest and now Virgin Media) arrived on the scene and introduced ........... Cable Television !!!!

Granada had it all on a plate - the infrastructure and customers everything they needed - All they had to do was upgrade it but they let it go.

 

[Earthstore]

View attachment 18463View attachment 18464British Gas had been in a few days earlier fitting a new gas meter and installing this new feed.This customer asked me for a quote for a board change, I suggested she got BG back!!

Would that be the same BG that advertise on the telly for plumbing,wiring,insulation,
Cooking the tea, making the beds, digging the garden, and getting any of your pets in the family way.
Me thinks they should get their own house in order first.
Did make me smile though...

 

[Geordie Spark]

Would that be the same BG that advertise on the telly for plumbing,wiring,insulation,
Cooking the tea, making the beds, digging the garden, and getting any of your pets in the family way.
Me thinks they should get their own house in order first.
Did make me smile though...

Yup ..... the very same.

 

[moggy1968]

Would that be the same BG that advertise on the telly for plumbing,wiring,insulation,
Cooking the tea, making the beds, digging the garden, and getting any of your pets in the family way.
Me thinks they should get their own house in order first.
Did make me smile though...

err, yup, that be the one!! Have you ever actually tried contacting one of these companies though unless your a customer!!

 

[Geordie Spark]

err, yup, that be the one!! Have you ever actually tried contacting one of these companies though unless your a customer!!

Contact them?? ............. I subbed for them for a while installing heating systems - a Combi & 7 radiators.

I packed it in because I wasn't rough enough.

 

[monkeyelectric]

I could give you the name of a guy near me and all you got to do is follow him round and take pictures of all his jobs, you should have enough material for your whole campaign

 

[drew35]

"Solar PV Rogue Traders"

You don't need to write the word rogue when it comes to PV installs, its assumed!

 

[telectrix]

Do any of you lads know about or remember Redifusion?

It was cable radio and then cable television here in Geordieland in the 1950s & 60s and involved large black cables strung at eaves height between all the houses on estates. The cables then ran down the walls & then through them into the living room where there was a large rotary selector switch which you used to select which radio station you wanted to listen to or which of the two TV channels you wanted to watch. From this selector switch was run a wire into the back of a modified TV set.

Anyway, this bloke wanted his TV at the opposite side of the room and the Redifusion gadgee came to extend and re-route the cable from the switch to the TV in its new location. He did this by clipping the cable straight along the wall about 3 feet from the floor and straight across the French Windows ......

remember 'em? i used to work for them. colour TV was just booming.

 

[Toonlad]

I remember it all too well, as a kid, some where coin operated tvs. you could listen to the radio through it too. Then when i got married the house we moved into still had the old cableing in, which at the time B sky B used as cable tv to the house still had to use the selector for the channels. The houses in my street have still got the cable on them under the soffets.

 

[monkeyelectric]

Way before my time all that but i do remember my nan renting a tv from rumbelows

 

[Geordie Spark]

remember 'em? i used to work for them. colour TV was just booming.

After I posted about them yesterday, I did a Google search and was / am amazed at what came up. I never knew they were such a big operation - I thought they were just a Geordie thing - but it seems they were all over the country and abroad.

So that's something else I've learned!!!

 

[telectrix]

yeah. i worked at the stoke branch. we had something like 12 service vans ( mark 1 escorts ) and covered north staffs. average was 18 service calls/day each. all the tellys were modular construction, so most were a case of swapping the faulty board and that went into workshop for repair, then out againas recon. half the time the recon boards were faulty anyway.