ABLEMAN TV & ELECTRONIC SERVICE

It went very well. Fast repair.

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Great!

First Class

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see above

It went great! Just as he promised, he fixed it for $50 and we were out the door in 20 minutes. Thank you for being so honest and reliable; it's very refreshing especially for television repair folks. It was a pleasure doing business with you.

Excellent! First, Tom found my house which is not marked, with only my general directions. He had all the necessary equipment for troubleshooting my specific problem. There was no wasted time. He knew how to use the TiVo system tools to get signal strength readings. I had multiple root causes to my problem, and he methodically resolved each one until both TVs received clear signals on all "free" over the air network broadcast stations. He even crawled under my house without any complaint. I really appreciate that he never suggested, as so many had, that I cut down 100+ year old trees or "just subscribe to DirectTV". (Cable is not available in my area.) "I WANT MY FREE TV" had become my mantra. I had been looking for someone to perform this service since the digital conversion in June. I thought I was well prepared, but I wasn't. I had many conversations with the digital conversion help line, TV repair people, TV retailers, anyone I could think of who might know someone who could help. The only helpful person was at OPB via the help line. Everybody else sent me to another dead end of companies that "don't do that" and "don't know anybody who does", "aren't licensed in Oregon", or simply never even returned my phone call (the vast majority). This was an extremely painful experience. Along the way I identified a number of companies I will NEVER patronize. If only I'd checked Angie's List first . . . I know that in the scheme of things watching TV is quite trivial, but it means a lot to me. I just started working after 16 months of unemployment, so it was important for me to resolve this problem without a monthly payment forever and ever. I am really looking forward to watching Two And A Half Men tonight! I am extremely grateful to Abelman TV and Angie's List. Now I have a few more projects . . .

Tom installed the new antenna and then checked strength at 3 TV's. The strength was less at TV's than on roof, so he decided to install a new distributor box in the attic which fixed that problem. After he retested strength and reception of all channels for all three TV's, he decided to replace cable to one TV. Tom had also connected the two converter boxes we had purchased with our government coupons for the two older TV's that needed those. When he was all done, he gave us a tutorial on how to rescan the channels after the digital change in June for the 2 old TV's and the new one.

I was not sure how to proceed between now (2/09) and the digital conversion in June, since the pictures I am now getting with my converter box are less than ideal. Was it a problem of needing a different indoor antenna, or did I need a roof top antenna. This was a situation where a less than scrupulous merchant could have pushed something on me I didn't need. Instead, he explained very clearly some of the nuances of the conversion to me, and advised me to just wait and see what my reception was after the conversion. For sure, if I do end up needing an outdoor antenna, I'll call them back.

I connected a digital converter box to my existing analog television. The analog broadcast signal had been excellent with the attic mounted TV antenna, but once I began receiving digital broadcasts, the signal would frequently drop out. Rex Ableman diagnosed the likely problem by email as lack of a UHF antenna since most of the local TV stations are broadcasting their digital signals at UHF frequencies. One of his staff made a house call within two hours of my telephone call for service. By the time the technician arrived, I had set up a ladder to access the attic. He inspected the signal to my converter box, checked out the TV antenna, which indeed was only VHF, and tested an indoor antenna. I was willing to pay more for a UHF antenna installed in the attic with the VHF antenna rather than have an indoor antenna on top of the TV, so he did the installation. Before leaving, he again checked the signal, which is now excellent, and adjusted the TV brightness and contrast for me. I was very pleased with the prompt service and the technician came with everything needed for the job in his truck. The whole experience took about an hour.