Pete’s first job (outside of mowing the family lawn and selling the Boysenberries that grew on the fence of the family house at 308 Canon Drive) was at Thomsen’s TV Service, 3528 State Street, Santa Barbara, CA. 

Stopping there to buy some electronic parts (lots of A and B batteries), on the 5 mile bike ride from La Cumbre Junior High to the La Vista house (mostly up hill), it turned into a paying after school position.

Lou and Paul Thomsen were the owners of a small TV repair shop.  Lou, along with Tony, the Chihuahua, ran the office and Paul, along with various helpers did the repairs.  The ones that are remembered were Don Haller, Jerry Dismuke (that later the Bickerdikes bought Christmas trees from his tree farm on San Marcos Pass), and Johnny Corboni.

Pete’s primary job was removing tubes from their boxes so Paul could test them and then returning them to their boxes if they tested good.  Also cleaning up the shop and organizing the stock was another duty.

This was in the days before Cable TV came to Santa Barbara, so Paul and his crew installed lots of the 50’ antennas on various houses so they could receive channels 2, 4, 5, 7, 9 , 11, and 13 from Los Angeles.

Paul was a ham, his call was K6IU, and Pete received his first exposure to Amateur Radio from Paul and his home built 1,000 watt transmitter.

There were several times that interference to TV reception, TVI, was discovered by Paul going out with a TV antenna that could be rotated from the cab, mounted on his truck to track down the source.  The source was usually a defective bell transformer (that works the residence’s door bells).

The job ended with the minimum wage law preventing Pete from working (he wasn’t worth the minimum at that time). The senior Bickerdikes and Thomsens remained friends for the rest of their lives, many dinners were eaten at the Thomsen’s Cheltenham house while watching roller derby on TV.

Paul H. Thomsen and friend Tony at their house in Santa Barbara