[BC] The wrong way to deal with tech budgets

[Alex Hartman]

I have an "IT" background myself. I quote IT because IT gets such a stigma attached to it, something that i myself don't fall into. When people say IT, they think of the SNL skit of the guy asking to save your game of minesweeper. :)

While i have been known to do that, i like tinkering more than anything. If Disney wouldn't sue me, I'd have imagineer on my business cards. I seem to have this uncanny ability to take something deisgned for technology and apply it quite uniquely to radio. (Using not quite carrier class wifi as a high speed STL comes to mind, or using a USB adapter designed for video games as relay inputs into a PC to control automation systems...)

Things like that, things that a normal IT monkey wouldn't quite grasp. IT guys fix email, reload PCs, and while i do those things, i do them in such a way that makes my life easier for the next time (recovery image anyone?)

Case and point, IT guys designed the first HD importer/exporter system. Standard rackmount PCs... shoved into a transmitter?! Oops. IT guys have no idea what high RF will do to a computer, let alone the environment of which they're typically installed in! That's where the innovation has to come in.

To speak about myself mostly, i think the next generation engineer has to be more like me. Throw the logic out the window and just ask "so, why wouldn't this work?" instead of saying it won't because it doesn't make sense that it would! :)

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Alex Hartman

On Sat, Nov 20, 2010 at 5:26 PM, Kevin Trueblood <kevin at neptuneradio.net> wrote:
>I am the ripe old age of 29.  Been doing engineering full time for three years now.

>I know personally three other Engineers under 30.  They do exist.

>I think part of the problem why you are not seeing more is because a large portion of the responsibilities in a modern facility belong to IT.  Well, what motivation does a young person well-versed in IT have to work at a radio station when they can work for any other company and often make more money and better benefits?

>The answer comes from finding up and coming people in other departments with an interest in the tech side.  Find people who love radio and mentor them.  That's how I did it.

>Kevin