[SBE] Industry retirement situation

[Bob Reite]

John Freberg wrote:
[snip]


> Perhaps we should be more politically involved as an engineering community. 

> My advice to the engineering community is to prepare yourself to work in 

> another field. Even if you are 'only' 5 years from retirement, you may 

> find yourself facing a career change tomorrow. SBE should be developing 

> programs for its membership with this in mind.

> 


[other replies snipped]

I started my own business in 1973 in the Los Angeles area.  It was not 
in broadcasting, well, it was, but at the receiving end. I started out 
by repairing TV receivers.  Back then there were still a lot of tube 
sets in service and TV receivers were expensive enough that repair was 
worth while until the CRT finally gave out.  They also needed repair 
more often than today's receivers.   By 1980, Solid state TV sets were 
the majority of sets in service and once the infant mortality issues 
were taken care of, the sets were more reliable and that part of my 
business declined.  However, the BetaMax, and then the VHS machines were 
coming off of warranty and at nearly $800 each, they got repaired, not 
junked.

I got into radio broadcasting in 1984 by more or less of a fluke.  A 
neighbor worked for the local automated class A and he was complaining 
about nothing getting fixed there.  I asked him what about the station 
engineer, and he said they had a contract engineer with his fingers in 
too many pies.  I don't like to take people's jobs away, so I arranged 
to talk with him.  He was more than happy to get rid of the 
responsibility and have me take over the station.  I then picked up two 
other contracts for non commercial stations.  I stuck with that until 
around 1990, when the Internet bug bit and I started my own little ISP, 
which actually was an outgrowth of a dialup BBS (remember those?).  I 
moved to Pennsylvania for personal reasons in 1993, dropping the LA 
contract work, but keeping the ISP, operated by remote control, with a 
part time assistant in LA in case something happened that could not be 
death with remotely.

When AOL went flat rate, my ISP could not compete and I shut it down in 
1998.  I survived on a bit of desk top publishing for that year. In 
early 1999 it so happened that a college station in town lost it's 
contract engineer and I was able to take over the position.  They had 
been operating with a damaged antenna and transmitter, you could barely 
hear it in the city of license running off the exciter into a temporary 
antenna.  I got the station working again at full licensed power, and 
that was sort of my resume, word got around and I picked up more 
stations.  At my peak I had 6 clients, but two of those went away due to 
the big boys buying up the stand alone stations. I now have 4 clients 
with 5 transmitters (one is an AM/FM combo) and I do AM NRSC 
measurements for another station.

My computer experience running the ISP has been a big help in the 
transition from cart machines and electromechanical automation systems 
to todays computer based systems.

My point is, as a friend pointed out, my company re invents itself every 
5 years as things change.  I'm certain that trend will continue, 5 years 
from now I'm sure that I'll be working on stuff that hasn't been 
invented yet.