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Darryl and Phillipa Adams have notched up half a century serving the people of Mudgee and the neighbouring towns.
The couple, owners of Home and Office Electronics, have seen many changes during their five decades in business.
Harry Milton, a pioneer in the early days of radio and a founder of Mudgee’s 2MG began the business in the 1920s, operating as a repairer of radio receivers.
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Darryl and Phillipa became the fourth owners of the small electronics business when they took the reins in 1967.
A skilled electronic technician, Darryl began installing and repairing radios, stereograms and black and white televisions.
In days gone by, Phillipa explains, purchasing a television was not as easy as walking into a store, picking one out, loading it into your car and plugging it in in your living room.
“Many people outside the town of Mudgee still couldn’t pick up the black and white signal,” she said. “So, there wasn’t a point in buying a television.
“It was almost a day’s work to take out the aerial, and all the associated equipment, to people’s homes and test to see whether a signal was available before people considered purchasing one.”
Always a man at the “forefront of introducing electronic products to the district”, Darryl went to great lengths to ensure he was best positioned to provide service and expertise to his customers.
“He strives to be on the front foot with technology,” Phillipa said.
With the introduction of coloured television on the horizon, Darryl undertook a course so that he would be qualified to install and repair the lastest coloured boxes.
The only problem was, there were no sets available with which he could practice.
“Darryl imported a coloured television so he could play with it and practice!” Phillipa said.
These new television sets were “proper pieces of furniture” and often dominated the lounge room. And, they took some setting up.
“We had to adjust the controls around the picture tube to compensate for the effect of the earth’s magnetic field,” Darryl said. “If you wanted to move your set from one corner of the room to the other, adjustments had to be made to the magnets and coils because shifting the television corrupted the purity of colour and the image you saw on screen.”
And while technology has come along in leaps and bounds in the past 50 years, so, too, have Darryl and Phillipa.
The couple has seen it all. Black and white telly and stereograms. The introduction of personal computers and mobile phones. The musical journey from radio to turntables, cassette players, boom boxes and CDs.
And everything electronic in between!