[time-nuts] Downsizing dilemma, HP 3335A

Thu Nov 12 02:05:33 UTC 2015

I find it difficult in NJ to find  seasoned RF engineers...Ulrich

In a message dated 11/11/2015 9:02:03 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
kb8tq at n1k.org writes:

Hi

Well, if you sit down with a bunch of these people and  talk to them, you 
find out some interesting things:

1) When the job  postings go up, there aren’t many that ask about resistors 
and capacitors.  They all ask about
firmware and processors.  The ratio is at least  10:1.

2) If you hold out for that job and go on the interview trip …  surprise … 
it’s a sales job *selling* resistors or 
capacitors or something  similar.That’s about a 4:1.

3) You hold out and keep on looking for  that job. You land one. You start 
out all excited. A year later you  look
around. Everybody else got a bump in pay at the end of the year. You  ask 
and the answer is “they work on 
important stuff, you just do the easy  stuff”.  I’ve heard that about 100% 
of the time (from both 
sides of  the divide).  

Hmmmm …. so what choice would *you* make in that  job market?  And yes, 
this is a (possibly biased) sample
across  several dozen people a year over the last ten or so years. Some of 
them have  kept in touch and I’ve
been able to follow their up’s and downs. Some work  for the biggest of the 
big. Some work for the smallest of the
small. All of  them are US based. 

Hmmm … so now how do you feel about “guiding” them  to learn more about 
hardware …I *know* how I feel. 

Bob

> On  Nov 11, 2015, at 6:26 PM, Rob Sherwood. <rob at nc0b.com> wrote:
>  
> The EE department at the University of Colorado has an enlightened  
professor.  
> 
>  http://ecee.colorado.edu/faculty/popovic.html
> 
> Zoya required  her students to not only get a ham license, but to build a 
Norcal 40A.   
> 
>  http://ecee.colorado.edu/~ecen2420/Files/NorCal40A_Manual.pdf
> 
>  
> Most of the EE students had no idea what a resistor really was, let  
alone have any experience in soldering a resistor or capacitor on a PC board.  
One student stuffed the PC board, bent all the leads 90 degrees without  
cutting any of them off, and then in effect flow soldered the whole bottom of  
the PC board!
> 
> One wonders how EE grads today can actually get  a job and be productive 
with so little hands-on experience.
> 
>  Zoya belongs to the Boulder (Colorado) Amateur Radio Club, and our 
monthly  meetings are in the EE department. It is too bad this is likely an 
unusual  example of what happens on campuses today.  
> 
> Rob
>  NC0B  
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From:  time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-bounces at febo.com] On Behalf Of Pete  
Lancashire
> Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 2015 10:01 AM
> To:  Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
> Subject: Re:  [time-nuts] Downsizing dilemma, HP 3335A
> 
> 
> 
> I  can understand the downsizing, someday it will happen to me. And where 
I live  there is pretty much zero interest in anything electronic. The two 
local  schools Portland State and Reed both have EE but the students done 
seem to  have any interest in anything physical. they believe everything they 
need or  have interest in can be simulated on a computer. I helped one of 
the PSU EE's  one day, just finished his 2nd year, had an old Kenwood stereo 
distorted left  output. He pretty much had no idea what to do, and when 'we' 
found the bad  transistor, he didn't really know how to replace it.
> 
> BTW I  know a Comp Sci graduate from PSU that can not write a program in 
any language  that outputs "Hello World"
> 
> -pete Sad
> 
> On Thu,  May 23, 2013 at 5:08 AM, paul swed <paulswedb at gmail.com> wrote:
>  
>> Bill
>> It is unfortunate when the time comes to  downsize. Even worse as time 
>> goes by at least for me each piece  of test equipment from HP seems to 
>> get heavier. Must be dust  building up inside. So as Ed says if you 
>> need that fine grain  resolution you need them.
>> But you are also running into the age  thing in the gear and that there 
>> are failures that creep in that  are really a big problem to figure out.
>> Especially if some form of  programmable logics involved.
>> Lastly sending them to the dumpster  is the worst thing. But then the 
>> ole reality really sets in  selling packing and shipping the stuff.
>> I guess the good news is  that today there is a lot of replacement gear 
>> that will do  reasonably well thats cheap respectively consumes little 
>> power  and can easily be controlled by usb so you don't have to 
>> actually  stop experimenting.
>> Regards
>> Paul
>>  WB8TSL
>> 
>> 
>> On Thu, May 23, 2013 at 2:32 AM,  ed breya <eb at telight.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> You don't  save these kinds of synthesizers for high frequency 
>>> coverage,  but for their 10 to 11 digit frequency resolution. If you 
>>>  anticipate needing that, then of course they should be kept and  
>>> fixed. The long-obsolete telecom standard connectors and  ranges are 
>>> pretty much useless - sacrifice that one first if  you need parts for 
the others.
>>> 
>>> If you need to  justify keeping them, you can use them for practical 
>>> everyday  applications. For example, each one can store a telephone
>> number  -
>>> as long as the power doesn't go out.
>>>  
>>> Ed
>>> 
>>> 
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