[BC] Radio engineering not a profession - 50 kW Vs. 2 Watts

[Rich Wood]

------ At 03:10 AM 5/4/2008, nakayle at gmail.com wrote: -------

>Rich, I'm sorry you've never had good experience with radio station 
>managers. I worked for three different stations between '62-'86 and 
>I always had very good relations with my managers. They routinely 
>sought and valued my advice and always took seriously any issues I 
>brought to them.

On the contrary, I've had wonderful relationships with managers. I 
wuz one. However, I'm not an engineer. I've been extremely lucky. My 
comment was about others who complained both to me and on various 
lists about their treatment by management. I have friends who are 
engineers of widely dispersed clusters who are chastized for not 
being present in the office after spending days and nights on the 
road, often without much sleep. I know one who was fired for not 
being willing to risk his life during a natural disaster.

>You may knock the first class ticket, but I think it did add respect 
>to the profession and the much more stringent requirements the FCC 
>had on station operations- numerous logs, inspections, proofs, etc 
>made engineers much more essential and important to a station than today.

Yes. I believe the first class ticket was often just a piece of 
paper. I now many engineers today who are far more competent than the 
90 day wonders cranked out by diploma mills so the letter, but not 
the spirit, of the regulations could be met. I think the issue of 
competence isn't the paper. It was the FCC's enforcement of rules 
beyond fleeting expletives. If those rules were reinstated operators 
would have to find competent people to make sure they were obeyed. 
They're out there and they have knowledge and experience far beyond 
the scope of the First Ticket.

I find it very much like the Extra Class Hams who vow never to 
communicate with no-code licensees, even though those no-code folks 
might be far more competent as engineers than those who studied the 
ARRL books and passed the beeping test. Several I know work for NASA 
and have advanced degrees in electronics. They've designed devices 
far more complicated than anything used in broadcasting. Because they 
felt it to be a waste of time to learn code they waited until the 
code requirement was dropped. They're far more competent and 
disciplined operators than those who embarrass us on 75 meters.

>I sometimes regretted not being born earlier so I could have been a 
>part of the real pioneering days of radio, but at least my time in 
>it was a whole lot better than now. Why anyone would want to be a 
>radio "engineer" today I don't know.

I would love to have been a part of early radio. I spent time in my 
local library as a kid reading about radio and how early programming 
was produced. It caused me to be a pain in the butt (a charming 
quality that's continued) to get me my first radio job at 13 years old.

Performance, not paper is what's important.

Rich