TV repairman one of a dying breed

If there is one thing that makes Wahkiakum County stand out - it's the people. Nowhere else would you find a television repair man willing to drive into the hills of Wahkiakum to find a little hermit living in a blue-tarped shack with a radio controlled plane for sale. He buys the plane, drives home and on his way into the garage, tosses it into the garbage because it was rotten.

"He needed the money," said television repairman Paul Dufek of Puget Island.

That attitude of kindness is often your first impression when meeting Paul. He moves quickly, much like the current running through the televisions he works on. His speech is rapid. Listen closely and you might notice his cosmopolitan accent. He was born and lived in Europe until he was 12.

"We moved to Los Angeles in the 60s,"Paul said, "and I went to tech school in Los Angeles." Paul said he had actually worked with his father repairing electronics as a kid and it was a natural move into the American work force.

From Los Angeles Dufek moved to Kansas where he lived with his wife Elizabeth for eight years while she attended college. The next move was to Cathlamet in 1995 where he started his television repair business. "Until things got going in Cathlamet I commuted to Portland to work in a video repair shop," he said.

Often unnoticed, Dufek's little television repair shop is under the pharmacy on River Street. Sometimes you'll see him standing in the door of his shop looking down river toward Astoria. "I've seen a lot of change in the electronics industry," said Dufek. "There is a lot of waste in the industry. Nowadays electronics get tossed rather than repaired."

Dufek said he doesn't understand the logic people use to determine the value of something. "Someone will go out and buy a $200 pair of shoes, and then turn around and buy a $39 VCR that will last six months." He said it makes better sense to pay the extra for a quality product that will last 10 to 15 years.

Dufek shrugged a little as he talked about the death of VCR technology and the waste involved in its demise. Like Betamax, cassettes and eight-track tapes the VCR format is headed for the dustbin of history.

Dufek isn’t sad to see them go. He says the new digital formats are better. "I think through time we'll discover the digital panel TVs, DVDs and CD players will last longer than the old tape formats," he said.

However Dufek does lament one thing, "My industry is shrinking and I'm part of a dying breed," he said a little wistfully. "There are fewer and fewer TV repairmen, and, I suppose, that makes me 'special', who else around here can fix both analog and digital electronics equipment?"

That brings us back to why Wahkiakum is lucky to have an expert like Dufek. A visit to his shop shows the variety of how many different kinds of equipment he repairs. "I've been to Sony, Mitsubishi, Panasonic and the Toshiba repair schools," he said, "so I can fix almost anything."

Walking into his shop, you get the message. To the left stands a five-foot-tall 62 inch analog, rear projection TV. On the workbench sits a 52 inch Samsung plasma TV and behind him, lined up like little solders, are a half dozen 42 inch plasmas. Beneath his bench are old VCR's and radios in various stages of repair.

Dufek said sometimes people will ask him what the best brands are for TV or DVD players. "First I try and educate them a little on how to pick the best equipment," he said.

The first sign of a quality plasma or liquid crystal display (LCD) is to read how many hours the screen is projected to last. Next, study how the screen renders the colors, especially the blacks in a scene. "If the plasma or LCD screen is a good one, you'll be able to see detail in the blacks of the screen when you look close up."

Dufek said if the detail in the blacks have a blue or purple cast to them, then the screen is probably of inferior quality and won't last as long. "When buying one of the new digital TV's the old saying is true," he said, "you pay for what you get."

In addition to fixing the different television formats, radios, VCR's and DVD players, Dufek said, "I fix other kinds of electronics and I make house calls." He said he can usually tell after talking with a customer on the phone if the set can be fixed in the home. If not? He says, depending on the size of the set, he will load it up and bring it back to his shop for repair.

"I've been doing this for about 55 years," he said. "I love Wahkiakum but there aren't many of us television repair men left. It's a dying art and like the Swiss watchmakers: when we’re gone, we’re gone!"