Dene Bourke has had the same electronics repair business for 33 years

Tucked away om O'Connor place connecting Cinders Lane and Rusden Street, it could be easy to miss, but when you step inside, the first thing you notice is the equipment.

Flat screen TVs, stereos, amplifiers, circuit boards, soldering irons, multimeters, radios, vintage record players stacked wall to wall.

Some of it Dene is in the process of repairing for clients, others he uses for spare parts.

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It's this commitment to the craft that makes the shop so special. In the days of consumer convenience, where it's easier and perhaps cheaper to simply replace an item once it no longer operates as it should, the kind of service that Dene's provides is somewhat an anomaly, a cultural irregularity that is slowly and sadly fading into non-existence.

"I have tried to take on apprentices in the past," explains Dene. "Though I loved the idea of passing on my knowledge, there was a part of me that felt like I was setting them up to fail, I just didn't think it was a good trade to get people into."

Dene himself apprenticed as a 17-year-old with Tableland television service. He studied an electronic trade certificate at Tighes Hill Technical college in the early 80s and completed his training with Max Schultz radio and television service.

"I just sort of was always interested in electronics as a child and used to build crystal radios and play around with cassette players and whatever technology was there at the time," he said.

"I used to just love sound and playing records and just building my own little amplifiers and crystal radios and repairing things that were given to me."

He opened his business, 'Bourkes Video and TV Service' in July of 1990 when Bruce Mackenzie still owned Black Dot music which has since been taken on by Tony Elder.

People still give things to Dene to repair but he says one of the biggest challenges has been adapting to the constant technological changes within the industry.

"The biggest change was probably as far as sound equipment goes at least, would be the move from analogue to digital.

"When CD players came in, that was certainly a big sort of step you know, trying to diagnose the faults in those because, for instance if a record player or a cassette player was running slow, If the motor was dragging you could just hear it slowing down and the pitch would change but with digital It will just bring up an error.

"Learning to recognise what was causing particular faults was a big challenge. With tv's also it was the same thing. When the plasma technology came into being everything changed.

"Circuit boards now, instead of having what you call 'through hole components', where they the components are big, sort of transistors and things that sort of stick up above the circuit board, now it is surface mount technology, which is really tiny components and you solder them with hot air equipment.

Dene says that most of the work he does now is warranty work but every now and again he has someone come in with a vintage hi-fi stereo and he draws off his immense experience and skill to restore the items to their former glory.

Consumer electronics culture is experiencing somewhat of a renaissance according to Dene in the sense that people are going back to the old gear for the richer experience especially when it comes to sound.

"I have inquiries from all over the place now, Glen Innes to Tamworth even, but I feel that is partly due to the fact that there are not many repair techs available any more and partly due to the resurgence in vintage gear."

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