Hi all,

It is with great delight that I'm here posting this message. In short, member of this site 'docs' (Dave) has shown his great skill, patience and generosity by repairing my General Electric 3-5259A (Blockbuster). If you're interested in what's been going on, please read on. If not, you might want to scroll down and view the pics of my fully working Blockbuster.

Over a year ago I traded my Hitachi TRK-8600E for member LAV LOO (now SUPERFLYGUY)'s Blockbuster. When I got the box, it had a problem with the cassette deck, where it was 'alive' but the auto-stop feature was clicking the deck off, preventing it from playing a cassette. I tried to fix this, by attempting to 'free-up' the deck, and failed. While attempting this, I accidentally touched part of the circuit board with my screwdriver. There was a 'POP' and a flash. Hoping I hadn't blown the main fuse, I powered the box up, and all seemed fine. Until I put the box back together. FM Stereo had stopped working.

I got in contact with a local radio repairer, who was willing to look at the box for me. He managed to adjust the deck so it played cassettes again. But he wasn't able to fix the FM Stereo issue. He kept asking me for a schematic - but, being a box sold in the USA, schematics for the Blockbuster aren't easy to get hold of in the UK. I tried and tried, but couldn't get one. I looked on the internet, and I could only find one site that had the schematic I needed. The frustrating thing was, there was a message on there saying that they only post within the US. I gave up, and the Blockbuster stayed with the repair man for almost a year.

Then last month or so, Dave asked me about the Blockbuster, and said that if it hadn't been repaired, he would be willing to look at it for me. It was not long after this, that I retrieved the box from the repair man and took it to Dave, who lives about 45 minutes drive from me. I must say that he and his family are some of the most accomodating and friendly people I've met. While at his house, I was treated to a very exciting demonstration of some of his boomboxes, including his JVC RC-M90 and Toshiba RT-S932 (with wireless remote). Within a few days, Dave contacted me to inform me that he had fixed the FM Stereo issue. It had taken a lot of diagnosis, as he had replaced a number of capacitors before discovering the faulty part - a tiny resistor, which I have kept "as a memory".

I'm overjoyed with my repaired Blockbuster, and really can't thank Dave enough for all he has done for me.

A very big thank-you for all your hard work Dave, I owe you one.

Here's some pics...

The cats came over for a look!

I hope you liked the pics. (Pics appear better on Boomboxery)

big thumbs up to docs then..................................watch them cats dont piss on your boxes R A ....its a nightmare to get the smell off

You Have experience with cats pissing on YOUR boxes?  Oh My....

Many thanks RA. and I must say that RA (Luke) is areally nice guy.  Was a pleasure to meet and share our passion together (for stereos ) and will deal with Luke again any time.

So glad the GE is now working again, hope you are now able to enjoy it.

What a great story Retro Addict, and the exterior appears to be in excellent condition. docs!!!

nice 1 retro addict glad you finally got it fixed ide agree with you about docs/dave and his family, very friendly indeed

Thank you everyone. And thanks ever so much for fixing it Dave.