[BC] HAMS & where to fine good help these days

[Larry Bloomfield]

Ron:

I owned a 2-way radio shop in Canyon Country, CA 
for over 20 years.This is while I worked in the 
broadcast industry in Hollywood.  Most of the 
techs I hired were hams. I had a very careful 
screening process they all went through. Making a 
blanket statement that all hams tend to go off in 
directions besides what they were hired for would 
also apply to everyone on just about any subject 
you'd care to mention. I was not an Motorola 
Service Station, but was certified by just about 
all the 2-way radio manufacturers in the 2-way 
business including GE. I found that, for the most 
part, the hams I hired were more reliable when it 
came to finding solutions to various installation 
problems we had. Some of my techs were 
self-trained, some had college degrees. Each 
brought his own talents, experiences and 
abilities (which included inventiveness) to the 
job. As their supervisor, boss, or whatever you 
wanted to call my position, it was up to me to 
use their abilities to my company's benefits. If 
I couldn't have done that well, I'd probably have 
only been in business a few weeks.

As for hams being trained; there are many places 
that do crash courses just so people can just get 
their "license."  I'm an ARRL certified 
instructor. I conduct ham classes here along the 
central coast of Oregon about once a year when 
I'm not on the Taste of NAB road show. My classes 
are once a week and run about 10 weeks long. When 
a person finishes my class, they know 
considerably more than question 15 is answer C. 
Most of my grads not only take and pass the Tech 
license, but also take and pass the general 
license test. All of my material is on my 
website: 
<http://www.bloomfield.tv>www.bloomfield.tv. 
It's posted there so any can use the material. 
I'm in the process of developing an Amateur Extra 
class and hope to have it done and posted by this 
fall.  People who study and take the Extra class 
license and pass it, are reasonably well rounded 
techs. Like any other group of people, in any 
other discipline, how they retain that 
information and are able to apply it, is all over 
the spectrum (excuse the pun).

I have that particular episode of 60 minutes I 
was referring to saved on my DVR. I recall a 
different 60 minutes, the one you are referring  to.

I'd like to continue, but I'm leaving tomorrow 
for Portland and my first presentation on this 
year's Taste of NAB Road Show (Tuesday), which I 
tried to post here, but never saw it. 
<http://www.tech-notes.tv/Taste_of_NAB.html>www.tech-notes.tv/Taste_of_NAB.html. 


I believe this topic is very important - where to 
find qualified help in this day and age. 
Vocations into our industry are very lacking and 
we need to find good qualified people or develop 
them in one kind of way or another.

Larry Bloomfield, KA6UTC
1980 25th St., Florence, OR 97439
(541) 902-2424 – Everything
WWW.TECH-NOTES.TV

Ronald J. Dot'o Sr. wrote:
>If you're referring to the program I saw it was 
>about a ham ( who was also an engineer) that was 
>looking for a cure but instead found a way to 
>burn salt water in an RF field and may have discovered a new fuel source.
>
>As for your comment about history...my employer 
>was running a business and not a laboratory for 
>inventions.  He needed people who could repair 
>'60's technology in a profitable manner and not 
>try to "improve" things.  His reasoning was that 
>for the most part Hams that were self schooled 
>didn't know how to troubleshoot effectively and 
>used a hit or miss method whereas schooled techs 
>were taught that skill.  His opinion came from past experience.