[SBE] Certification

[Carl Sundberg]

I've been copying the mail about all this "who should do it" certification stuff... After nearly 50 years in this business, I've seen it all and some of it wasn't pretty. In the 60's, I was jocking at a tiny station that had a screw driver jambed in a plate relay in the interlock disabled transmitter. To turn the transmitter on, the operator hung a broken toilet seat on the screw driver and that closed the plate relay. It was the seat of power. At sign off, the shut down instructions told the operator to put the seat on the nail on the wall next to the transmitter.  The owner didn't want me to fix it to save money...  The morning man at that station was the local city electrical inspector in his day job... He was also the station contract Chief... So much for CERTIFICATION!

I liked the old days when you passed a test at the FCC office and your certification meant something. SBE is cool and wonderful because it causes all of us to get together and we all learn from each other and from the great training sessions our groups put on, but even their certification doesn't seem to carry the same weight as an FCC license.  As for all the low voltage stuff, I like the old method of certification, the old "either - or". In one Florida county I lived in once, I was applying for a license to open up a two-way radio repair shop. They wouldn't give me a business license because I hadn't passed some State or County test. When I produced my FCC 1st phone ticket, the clerk took it to her supervisor and she came back with my business license. Whether that was legal or not, that license trumped the need for passing some other test. We all know how important an SBE certification is, but I'll bet that wouldn't have gotten me the same wickedly
 fast result the FCC ticket did.

When and where will it all end? Well it won't. Someday we'll be praying for the good old days when gas was only $5 a gallon and when we didn't need a PE certification to change the cord to our wireless phone box. Get used to it gang. If there is money to be made certifying people, someone will find a way to require us all to suck up to someone else who has their hand in the palm up mode. Nobody ever got the real message in the Wizard of OZ. Dorothy was always home, the straw man always had a brain, the lion always had courage and the tin man was welded shut from so much heart he was raining tears. The person we should all watch out for is the man behind the curtain. While America is busy jumping through his silly mandated hoops in search for a piece of paper,  somebody else will be building the equipment we have to keep working... AND THE BUILDERS (WHO ARE STEALING ALL OUR JOBS) ARE NOT CERTIFIED IN ANY SHAPE, FASHION OR FORM! Welcome to the all new and
 improved United States of America. 

 Carl Sundberg

Proud holder of an FCC license since the 60's