By Dean Abbott
Correspondent

There are guts everywhere. They litter the back rooms of Doug Miner's Hooksett shop, along with various beeping, blinking machines. Monitors and scopes and such crowd the tiny halls. In the farthest rooms, the bodies of giants with their innards removed for examination sit silent and dark, waiting to get them back.

SPECIAL SKILLS – Doug Miner sits among the machines and parts that help him fix television sets. His shop in Hooksett is one of just a handful left in the Manchester area. Most people simply trade up instead of repairing old electronics, but Miner manages to keep his shelves full of items needing repair, and even makes house calls. (Gerry Descouteaux Photo)

Miner is a busy television repairman and one of a dwindling number such technicians in New Hampshire. TV repair shops used to be plentiful in the area, there was one on every corner, Miner said. A check of the Manchester area yellow pages today yields fewer than 10 remaining privately owned service shops.

Miner has owned and, with the help of wife Marie and son Ken, operated Chestnut County Electronics in Hooksett's Supreme Plaza since 1996.

What started out as a hobby tinkering with electronics blossomed into business for Miner in the '80s when friends and friends of friends started seeking him out when a TV, stereo or VCR hit the skids.

Miner worked out of his garage as word got around, even accepting work on a contract basis from other service shops.

That was more than 20 years ago and business is still going strong.

"My shelves are never empty," Miner said. He stays busy enough. Customers sometimes have to wait for his services and, once in a while, he turns jobs down.

One factor contributing to the flood of business Miner sees could be the lack of competition.

"The death of the 'TV guy,'" Miner said, making those little air quotation marks beside his head, "came about for several reasons.

"First, the technology behind the screen started changing rapidly. In the mid-'90s everything started going high tech. Where there used to be transistors, suddenly there were microchips and one chip would incorporate thousands of transistors," Miner said. "That scared away some of the older technicians."

New technology in the sets also meant service technicians needed new equipment to diagnose and repair problems, an expense some could not afford and a burden some did not want to shoulder.

The availability of training withered too.

"The manufacturers used to provide training for service centers, but they started taking that away from us. We had to start paying," Miner said. "No more free information."

Miner said there is nowhere to be trained to repair televisions and other household entertainment gadgets.

"There are no schools for people who want to go into this industry. You have to learn it on your own."

The increasing complexity of television technology and the dearth of professional training combined with an interest in a more fashionable electronic device to diminish the number of people entering the industry, Marie Miner said. Few new TV repair shops opened in the last 10 years because the new people were all going into computers.

Being busy doesn't mean Miner sits in his shop all day. He does something even your family doctor won't do - he makes house calls. Miner said traveling to customer's homes makes up a significant portion of his business.

"I like doing it. I get to see everything under the sun," Miner said. "I went to a service call out on an old dirt road for a late model Sony."

The homeowner had been unable to get his television out because of snow and then mud on his unpaved road.

"My next job might be out on Governor's Island."

Miner said his house call rates vary depending on distance, and the make and model of the "patient."

The Miners expect to be in the TV game for a while to come. Doug's son Ken is just coming into the business. Ken's going to be in charge of diversifying the business by bringing in clients whose businesses require the use of audio-visual equipment.

Still, the individual customer is what will keep the shop afloat. "It's the old-fashioned way of doing things," Miner said, "to see face to face the person who's going to be doing the work for you."

"People trust us," Marie Miner said, "to give them the biggest bang for their buck. It's not going to die."