Fix

I'm having one of those "I can't believe that actually worked!" moments.

I have several wireless transmitters and receivers designed to send a TV signal over a short range (to avoid the clutter of cables) that I've been using for close to ten years. Each unit has a flat, square adjustable antenna on top, the plastic connectors to which have become damaged over time (as a result of the adjusting), which has affected the quality of the signal. (My theory has always been that the broken joints were somehow leaving the units vulnerable to interference, though I've had no way to know if that were true.)

I also have a few non-functioning units, which were never thrown away for some reason. I think I've been vaguely hopeful that if I examined them, they might be easy to fix — despite the fact that I have no practical understanding of how the components work.

This afternoon, I had the bright idea that I would try and repair the broken bits with non-broken bits from the non-functioning units. It seemed simple enough, though it actually took several hours of disassembling to sort out how everything works, and a small amount of soldering (I'm no better at that now than I ever was). But it worked! It actually worked. Even better, the two units I repaired seem to be free of the annoying interference that's plagued them for the past several years.

It actually worked!