I normally do non critical electrical work in my house (restricted electrical licence and radio tech/ electronic tech).

Why do people try and do it themselves? how about;

In my sons house there was a ceiling fan/light which a previous tenant had played with. Called an electrician to fix it and he found 2 wires reversed. Took 12 minutes to fix, $420 thank you very much!

That equates to about $2100/hour, less travel.

Many people just want the fault fixed and end up forgetting to ask the tradesman fo his hourly rate. That said, any electrician charging that to fix a basic fault either fancies himself or has too many business overheads. I would have charged under $100 for that - not that I am on the market as I have a full time job.

If the bloke was a member of Master Electricians Association or the Electrical Contractors Association it would be worth making a complaint. Those associations set hourly rates for their members and whilst it is not mandatory to stick to them those who vastly exceed them would get a slap on the hand for it.

We rent, and had a dodgy wall outlet just recently. I am trained and in a different life had the necessary licence to deal with it, but for liability reasons I just called the property managers. Short story $175 to change a $4 outlet and the dodgy bugger changed it in front of me without even pulling the fuse.
His story was the old fuses in these places might cause trouble if he disturbed them....

His story was the old fuses in these places might cause trouble if he disturbed them....

Although Workcover probably prohibits live working like that, I can appreciate the issue with old fuses. He probably doesn't carry any fuse wire and the porcelain fuse holders and bases are no longer stocked, so he's probably learned the hard way that a quick little earner can easily become a real job.

My house still has a porcelain fuse box and if ever a fuse needs to be pulled -- such as for a water heater replacement -- I pull the fuse myself to avoid any accidental breakage that will lead me down an expensive path. The time will come when I'll upgrade it to breakers, but I don't want to trigger a smart meter installation.

My house still has a porcelain fuse box and if ever a fuse needs to be pulled -- such as for a water heater replacement

If the board is a Federal package board you should be right as far as the fuse blocks go. They are fairly tough. The big problem with those is that the heating and cooling of the fuses over the years anneals the copper wiring that terminates on them and this leads to loose connections which causes the connection to overheat and fail. When this happens there is only one option - replacement of the whole package board with one containing DIN rail circuit breakers.

It's only half a day's work for someone who does that sort of thing often enough.

The time will come when I'll upgrade it to breakers, but I don't want to trigger a smart meter installation.

As far as smart metering goes you don't need to worry too much about it in NSW. They were installed in the last block of flats I lived in and yet the time of use tariffs that we all loathe were never applied, no matter who I was using for my power. At any rate, meter installs is a decision for the supply authority, not the electrical contractor - no reason why they can't just install a nice row of RCDs and leave the current metering in place.

At any rate, meter installs is a decision for the supply authority, not the electrical contractor - no reason why they can't just install a nice row of RCDs and leave the current metering in place.

That ought to be the case, but it appears that NSW sparkies are receiving some from of -- shall we say -- incentive to install smart meters whenever they do meter board upgrades. A mate of mine owns a 1920s weatherboard on the northern beaches, originally built as a holidayer, and the single power circuit just doesn't cut it anymore. The board is not 1920's original (cottage probably had no electricity back then anyway), but more likely 1950s era.

Every sparkie he had quote the job said that the board itself needs to be replaced because it is asbestos and too small to accommodate another circuit, and that they "have" to install a smart meter as part of the job. No way my mate will cop a smart meter, so he kept on chasing quotes. Eventually he found a sparkie, via a builder, who admitted that he did not have to install a smart meter.

Failing that, get him to choose an electrician who doesn't have the accreditation to install metering. Metering is an allied industry and electricians who want to do that part of the work need accreditation and extra insurance as part of the deal, so not all of us have it. I never did enough of my own work to bother with the added expense.

On the rare occasion that I do some work for a relative or mate I just work live as I have the experience to do it safely. On the average domestic board this is usually limited to the SDI cable coming from the meter to the main switch anyway. Yes it is naughty to work live these days but if one is experienced, careful and takes a few precautions prior to doing the work then there's no problems.

Where’s the tuner part?
For ferrotune it should be moving a ferrite in & out of a coil with a rack & pinion.

That's known as permeability tuning.

In that set I guess the tuner is the black rectangular object in the last under-chassis photo.

Yes thats correct GTC. It threw me a bit at first but I tell you what this radio is a real little bottler.

This is for JFB