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Hello again… my name is Rusty Norman and I am the owner of Norman TV & Video Systems. I am so glad you’re visiting the site today and I am here to tell you I have some exciting things planned over the coming weeks, months and, yes, even years and I can’t wait to get started. In fact, I am working on several new aspects for the near and distant future and hope you will become a regular visitor to my site.
Before I move on to other things, I guess you would like to know more about my company (and me), especially if you are not familiar with Norman TV and Video Systems.
We have actually been around since early1973. That’s when we were simply called, Norman TV and located on Fort Myers Beach. That is the year my dad bought the business from the man he worked for about 10 years. Before that time it was known as, Chase TV. At that time I was going to college at FSU in Tallahassee, FL. My dad and my mom had a couple of employees and pretty much ran the business in that way for the next 12 years.
During that span of time, before and after I departed FSU, I was head mechanic at an AMF bowling establishment in Fort Myers, FL known as Miracle Lanes. Even though it is no longer in business and has been torn down, I started working there in 1969 and worked there until 1985 when I went to work for my dad at the store on Fort Myers Beach. Unfortunately, my dad died in January of 1990 and I had a big decision to make over the next few months.
Simply because of the way times change, our sales and service business on the Beach had become much too seasonal and suffered a little because of that. This had been going on for five or six years. Add to that the fact that the owner of the property we were on (and the building we were in) decided to increase our rent by almost double. That was bad enough but, they also wanted to cut the building in half and rent out the other side. To me, that meant they had just increased our rent almost 4 fold. There was no way we could justify that expense to stay in our storefront so my mom and I decided to close the store front and I took over the business from my mom in July of 1990. (Honestly, she didn’t want to continue in the business any longer – her heart just wasn’t in it any more especially since the death of my dad.)
At that time, it was hard to find an affordable storefront, good help and be able to afford to pay them year round so I decided to become a mobile repair company and try to service our regular customers, both residential and commercial, in that way. It was a busy time for me and I worked many hours since I was by myself. I used to get up early in the morning and work on TV’s that I had to bring in for repairs, by 9-10am I was out on service calls and deliveries and back generally somewhere between 6-8 pm. Then I would work on the things I had either brought in earlier or from that day, eat supper with my family go to bed and start all over again early the next morning.
That worked for a while but I admit it did wear me out, particularly during the busy season. After a time of a few years, once again the changing business climate caused me to re-evaluate where my strengths were. Even though I remained as a mobile service TV and electronics repair company, I slowly switched over to mostly signal delivery and maintenance of distribution systems for properties like hotels, motels, private schools, residences both large and small, which I had already been doing along with the other parts of the business. In 1997 I started branching out into the smaller satellite services like Dish Network and DirecTV, in particular maintaining the previous MATV (Master Antenna TeleVision) systems my dad had previously installed and updated some of those systems to SMATV (Satellite Master Antenna TeleVision.) I also worked with other types of properties as well and installed many satellite, antenna and satellite/antenna head end systems for commercial and residential customers and others.
Since most of what I did and do is on property, I used to recommend a couple of friends of mine for TV service. Unfortunately, they closed their doors in July of this year (2014) and I really do not recommend other repair services locally because I don’t know them well enough. I can still diagnose TV problems but since most repairs on the newer sets are relatively expensive and generally require shop time, I do not make a habit of recommending all that many repairs anymore. With my friends out of the service business, I don’t make recommendations for other repair places but that doesn’t mean there are no other servicers available but I am not familiar enough with them and cannot comfortably make recommendations so I don’t.
Just because I don’t service that many TV’s these days doesn’t mean I have lost touch with the newer technology. I do try my level best to stay up to date on the new technology and still do preliminary diagnostics on many TVs especially in the places where I perform the services I offer with people and companies I have dealt with for years.
So what do I mean when I say I have switched over mostly to signal delivery and maintenance? Well, I mean I work with and on systems that deliver programming to your TV, Radios and “other types” of reception equipment. To clarify, that means satellite, antenna and streaming media products, some of which I will go into more detail in articles in the future, hopefully a minimum of once a month and sometimes more often. I even work with and on that type of equipment in RV’s although I do put certain limitations on the work I will perform.
What are some of those “other types” of equipment? Well, to get the best answer to that question you will need to visit this site often. I know you will find things of interest here on a regular basis when you do…
See ya next time…
All views expressed are strictly the opinion of the writer
© October 9, 2014 – all rights reserved
Rusty Norman, The Norman TV Vantage, Norman-TV.com
All audio productions by www.podcastnorm.com and PodCastNorm Productions