Through the ages mechanisms have been setup so that newcomers to an industry can ‘learn the ropes’ in order to be proficient in their intended career.   Apprenticeship and other methods of hands-on or on-the-job training under the supervision of an experienced person has long been proven worthwhile.

In some industries, such newcomer training is handled in a lower paying related field which ultimately feeds those with moderate experience into a higher paying position.

Just like major league baseball, the broadcasting business has historically followed the ‘Farm Team’ approach for bringing novice broadcasters into the ranks of the experienced professionals.

My background, having spent most of my adult life in the broadcast engineering field, has followed this path.   For engineering and technical types, the career path typically would commence in a small local radio station.   In time, the person would migrate to a larger radio station and either ultimately end up in a very large radio station or making the jump over to television.

As with many industries, the fast progress of technological improvements and efficiencies has caused changes in staffing requirements in the past twenty years or so.  Sadly for broadcast engineering, this has led to the demise of the ‘Farm Team’ as a source of experienced and qualified staff for the larger broadcasters.

Before the mid 1980’s, even small radio stations had their own full time engineer who worked only for that station and kept a close eye on even the smallest detail.  In the 1970’s and earlier, such a ‘one engineer per station’ policy was federal law!  Back then, such people were required to pass a test and be licensed too.

Since the mid 1980’s this has dramatically changed.  Except for the very largest radio stations, the station engineer is shared with many other stations.   This has had an interesting effect on the career path prospects for people wishing to enter the broadcast engineering field.

With one engineer per station, that engineer usually earned a pretty lousy salary unless he was at a larger radio station.   This lower pay was a motivational force for the person to graduate to larger radio stations or eventually to jump to television where salaries were even higher.   Along the way he would become familiar with a wide range of systems and the techniques used to make them function properly and optimally.

Since each station had an engineer, there were plenty of people in the field, and the flow of engineers from broadcast station to another was adequate to provide the larger broadcasters (radio or TV) with prospective people to hire when they needed to add to their staff.

Since the mid 80’s, many radio stations started to share their engineer and now you find that in most areas there is one engineer taking care of 10-20 stations.  With the larger number of stations paying the engineers salary, the engineer was happy to be benefiting from a salary that often was larger than that paid by the largest radio or TV stations.  This cut off the motivation for the radio engineer to migrate to a larger broadcaster who typically paid the same or less.  Thus the ‘Farm Team’ career path for newcomers to enter the broadcast engineering field was effectively dead.

Of course, a newcomer found that there were very few if any entry level opportunities in any particular region.  If they did find an opportunity, it often paid little more than the local fast food restaurant, nowhere near enough to live on.

With todays complex systems in both radio and television it is all the more difficult for someone to become instantly proficient at the broadcast engineering trade without having some hands on experience under the tutelage of a seasoned pro.  This is especially the case with modern day digital television.

Without a clear and reasonably attainable path of entry into the business it’s hard for those wishing to join the field to get that ‘first break’.  Add to this the sad reality that even for those who have attained the lofty position of ‘old hand’ in broadcasting, the pay-to-hassle-ratio for the field is miserable compared to many others.  This is leading to a dearth of fresh blood in broadcasting, which can only be problematic as time passes.  It is also leading to many experienced broadcasters leaving for ‘greener pastures’.

One bright hope, however, comes from the emerging alternative media of podcasting.  While podcasters will not have the RF (transmitter) background that is unique to broadcasters, they must learn the workings of good audio and video.  Since broadcast facilities have become primarily a custom offshoot of IT systems, there is very little need for the new recruits to know component level electronics any more.  Knowledge of compression methods, IT systems, and what it takes to make great video and audio are the skills in demand for todays broadcasters and mirror the skills needed to produce a high quality podcast.  Even so, it is only a small group of podcasters who take the time to learn what’s going on behind the virtual sliders and buttons.

Sadly, I do not see any good source for trained RF technicians to tend to the microwave and high power transmission systems broadcasters use.  This is a serious and looming problem for the industry that will somehow have to find a solution.   Broadcast RF gear is radically different from that used in the commercial two-way field, or used by radio hobbyists. Transmission systems are highly expensive and due to the power levels involved, dangerous to work on.

It will be interesting to see how the broadcast engineering field changes in the next few years.  Radio station engineering has already consolidated with radical changes.  Broadcast television engineering is just now embarking on similar and perhaps even more dramatic changes.

As the pendulum swings to squeeze harder against the broadcast engineers the time will surely come when it naturally must relent and find equilibrium.  Sadly, for those engaged in the field, or wishing to join, the next few years may be a bit rough.

Harumph.

73
John

Greetings!

Well, I suppose the time has come to actually start writing my rambles on this blog.  I suppose I’ve got a few keys on the keyboard that still have the letters showing on the keytops and I need to fix that (so they all are worn off).

This post will be unnervingly short and sweet– just enough to get some text onto the page.  I’ve spent a few minutes configuring the Wordpress blog innards and the allotted time at the moment has been used up.  I must now get back to the iPhone/iPodTouch application development learning curve so that I can mesmerize the world with my creative feats.

What am I conjuring up for the iPhone you ask?  The first application will use the accelerometer and measure the impact the device receives when you drop it from various altitudes.  The idea is to find the maximum amount of impact the device can sustain and still remain functional.  You’d be surprised how resilient the iPhones are– development has been a smashing success.  I will not divulge how many devices I’ve found the ultimate impact limits of.  Needless to say, Apple has a pretty good quality control as the G force limits of the device have been holding fairly uniform.

As I said, back to the application development.  More to come later on.

73

John