On Mon, 2008-04-07 at 12:53 -0400, Gene Heskett wrote: > On Monday 07 April 2008, Tim wrote: > >On Mon, 2008-04-07 at 02:04 -0400, Gene Heskett wrote: > >> That test was pretty close to the SB in terms of rating a child's IQ. We > >> had several who took it the same year I did that went on to do some > >> unusual things, and we topped the list, not in grades earned in school > >> because most of us were bored silly by school but 4 of that class made > >> scores in the middle 140's, with me at the top with 147. Had I known then > >> what an influence they would have, I would have quit doing electronics > >> service and wiggled into that door somehow. OTOH, electronics in general > >> has been good to me. I can't complain, and at 73, its too late to buy a > >> new horse. > > > >When I formally studied electronics it was in a technical college as a > >teenager. Most of the other students were older than me, there were at > >least a couple I think had retired. They weren't the only ones doing it > >for their own interest's sake. Later on, I only continued doing the > >course for interest's sake - I was interested in engineering but was > >conned into a servicing course, instead. > > > >On the whole, I think things would have been better if I'd studied both > >areas, they're not the same, but they do dovetail. I see plenty of > >equipment that's badly engineered, that someone who had to repair it > >would have designed differently. And plenty of repairs that were done > >by someone who should have known a lot more about how to build things. > > > >You're probably better of working in electronics. I'm damn sure that I > >am. At least you know how things work, are supposed to work, and can > >make them obey. There's something very satisfying at seeing something > >you fixed twenty years ago, still going strong. I doubt we'd be able to > >say the same sort of thing about computing, at least these days... > >Integrity and reliability went out the window decades ago, so did > >knowing how it works. > > So it seems, Tim. One of the basic tenets of how I work is that I will fix it > according to the factory drawings, once. If I have to do it again, then it > gets my attention and I'm actively looking for whats not right. When the > third failure occurs, that piece gets redesigned according to me. I can > count the 4th failures on one hand in 60 years of this. Not counting > customer PEBKAC of course. The world keeps inventing ever more ingenious > idiots... > > My educational background is almost zilch, I've taught more tech classes than > I have attended. An 8th grade education & a G.E.D. My start? I had an > alcoholic uncle who, during WW-II, worked as a postal delivery type in > downtown Des Moines, and he usually had a radio in the bottom of his mailbag, > either going back to a customer after repairs, or given to him to be repaired > while he walked his route. I think I was about 8, maybe 9 when I asked him > as he was changing the filter capacitor in one of those 'all american 5 > tubers', what was actually wrong with the part he was taking out, and he > couldn't tell me! He was going by a recipe on the inside of the cupboard > door that said to change them if the radio had a hum. > > So I set out to find out what the part was, and how it could fail. > Fortunately, my mother knew where the library was, and one of the things they > taught me early on was how to read at 500 or so with good comprehension. The > net result was that by the time I was in the 6th grade, I actually had a > better physics/electronic education than a high school graduate of the day. > > Having a health problem that turned out to be a food allergy when we found it > several years later, school was both difficult and painful, so when they quit > taking my Dr's excuses for my absences, I said to hell with it, and started to > do some service work for cig money. By the time I was 16, I was doing the > service bench at the zenith wholesaler in Des Moines for all of Iowa and the > northern half of Missouri, where I learned just how educational the > oscilloscope can be, and I've never been without one since. Being able to > watch a circuit do its thing, in real time, is worth 100x what all the math > is when its time to see why its not working as planned, although there is a > place for the math too at times. What algebra I know, a TI SR-51 calculator > taught me. However, I'm not too sure all the dealers at the annual show for > the new models in the fall of '51, were convinced this 16 year old behind the > podium knew what he was talking about! There were a couple of them that > called my bluff and went away chagrined. > > The rest as they say, is now history, although I quit the cig habit cold > turkey about 19 years ago this month, and I've spent the last 44 years as a > broadcast engineer, the last 24 as the Chief at WDTV and I'm still doing some > of that one or two nights a week as we get ready for digital. Ok, if I may go OT a little- what's your opinion of digital? Is it hard to maintain, because its certainly appears worth it? Also what is the difference in equipment for digital?
