Re: Fwd: RE: [amsat-bb] Symek IFD & the FT-847

[Doug <n7bfs@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Edward R. Cole" wrote:
> 
> Does this give some appreciation for what we "component level" repair
> technicians* go through every day while trying to make a dollar [pound,
> etc]?  I am fortunate to be near sighted and do not need eye-glasses to do
> this work, though I sometimes cheat and use a magnifier.  Stopped drinking
> coffee at work years ago ;-)

You too  Ed ?
Sheesh it seems I am the only one left in our shop that bothers to get out a
service manual or even know how to use an oscilloscope !
Yes! , I still do component level troubleshooting and love it , though lately
the big /\/\ won't give us schematics and board layouts of their junk so
sometimes I  have to get real cleaver ....
And yes I have had to do component replacement on Moto' and Qualcomm cellphones
and pagers of all flavors , but the biggest difficulty I find is getting someone
to sell you repair parts , its just about impossible to get repair parts for
cellphones ( I have a bag of "parts bin" phones and pagers that I scavenge from
)from the OEM's .....

> 
> Ed
> * Apparently component level repair is a dying art...everything now is
> going to throw-away boards [or throw-away radios]!  The new technicians are
> lost without a troubleshooting tree to tell them what to yank out ;-)
> 
> Anti-static wrisp straps are the latest in "nerd" jewlery.
> 

OH man don't get me going about proper static protection , I howled at a new guy
in the shop one day when he just ripped a SCADA board out of its protective bag
without a wrist-strap on and laid it on top of a metal work bench 8^0 , and then
when I asked if he knew what proper protection was he said "hey I wear a condom"
, rrrrr... man I was peeved , but hey this is what we get from ITT tech
institute so oh well ....

Yes I agree Component level repair is a dying art , and I am looking at changing
careers in the future because of that :^{

Hey I can still play at home , now if I could just figure out how to Xacto knife
some pc board for the MGA-82563 PHEMT MMIC's that I picked up , sheesh they have
.026' lead spacing !

Anyway , I hope to fit one of these into one of my Drake converters to improve
its gain , but man its tiny !

anyway I can sympathize with you Ed , we are a dying breed :^{

Way to go Howard !

-- 
Douglas Cole   N7BFS
AMSAT#26182 , K2 # 544
http://www.users.qwest.net/~cdoug3
Registered Linux user # 188922
"never go to bed angry , or on fire "
Gomez : the Addams Family.....
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