Re: Intern for hire

[unitron]

Minga > wrote in message >...
---snip---
> Radio stations need engineers
---snip---
Don't those engineers need FCC commercial radio-telephone licenses
(the modern ewuivalent of the old first class ticket)? I doubt that a
"local recording school" covered electronics in sufficient depth to
prepare the OP to pass the FCC's test and any radio station looking
for an engineer is looking for someone qualified to work on their
entire audio and RF chain, from microphone to transmitter.

[Dale Farmer]

unitron wrote:

> Minga > wrote in message >...
> ---snip---
> > Radio stations need engineers
> ---snip---
> Don't those engineers need FCC commercial radio-telephone licenses
> (the modern ewuivalent of the old first class ticket)? I doubt that a
> "local recording school" covered electronics in sufficient depth to
> prepare the OP to pass the FCC's test and any radio station looking
> for an engineer is looking for someone qualified to work on their
> entire audio and RF chain, from microphone to transmitter.

Radio stations have to have a FCC licensed engineer on staff or on
call. But in today's conglomeration environment, one company will own
half a dozen radio stations in a town, and have one or two licensed
engineers who only take care of the transmitters and so on for the whole
group of stations. The rest of the engineering staff just do the audio stuff.
The better ones are studying for their FCC licenses.

--Dale

[Scott Dorsey]

unitron > wrote:
>Don't those engineers need FCC commercial radio-telephone licenses
>(the modern ewuivalent of the old first class ticket)? I doubt that a
>"local recording school" covered electronics in sufficient depth to
>prepare the OP to pass the FCC's test and any radio station looking
>for an engineer is looking for someone qualified to work on their
>entire audio and RF chain, from microphone to transmitter.

First class hasn't been around for more than a decade. These days, any
clueless idiot can take a job as a broadcast engineer, and sadly many of
them do. Radio stations don't need to have an engineer on staff, they
don't need to do any proof of performance measurements (unless they are
running an AM directional antenna array), they don't even need to keep
an hourly check on the transmitter readings.

Stations don't want to hire someone qualified to work on their entire
audio and RF chain, because they'd charge way too much. Stations want
to hire someone cheap.

Welcome to the Post-Reagan era of broadcasting.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Henry C-G]

"Scott Dorsey" > wrote in message
...
> unitron > wrote:


> they don't even need to keep
> an hourly check on the transmitter readings.
>
> --scott

Are you saying the readings are taken automatically, or there aren't any
readings at all?

-Henry C-G

[Scott Dorsey]

unitron > wrote:
>"Henry C-G" > wrote:
>> "Scott Dorsey" > wrote:
>> > unitron > wrote:
>>
>>
>> > they don't even need to keep
>> > an hourly check on the transmitter readings.
>> >
>> > --scott
>>
>> Are you saying the readings are taken automatically, or there aren't any
>> readings at all?
>
>Your snip implies that I said something about the hourly meter
>readings. I didn't, someone else did.

No, it implied that I said something about that since the last quote line
had a > in front.

For a while, the readings had to be taken, but they could be taken by a
machine and nobody ever had to review them. Today they don't need to be
taken at all and a lot of stations don't bother. You could be off the
air for hours and not notice it (since there's no DJ in the booth anyway
at most stations... that's done by a machine too).

>(Of course back when I had to take them I had a lot to say about them,
>usually in words I never used when the mic was open)
>Also I'm not the one who said that stations need engineers, I replied
>to someone who did and pointed out that if a station is looking for
>one they are looking for a real broadcast engineer with a ticket that
>"recording schools" aren't the right place to study for.

There are no first class tickets any more. The closest we come is the
SBE certification, but that's not required. All you need to maintain
transmitters today is faith.

>As to your question (see, I do know where the "q" key is, or at least
>its ewuivalent), automated logging of the transmitter's state has been
>around for a while now, but I doubt that the FCC has forgotten its
>real mission so much as to do away with all requirements for tracking
>transmitter compliance.

The station is basically responsible for keeping the system in compliance
and the FCC no longer cares how they do it. They can still be fined for
violating technical specifications, but most of the requirements that
assured they kept to those specifications are no longer in place.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."