What is a broadcast engineer?

Should we be licensed? Can we have had other professions during our
lives?

  I have a degree in Industrial Design from the University
of Cincinnati School of Design, Architecture, Art, and
Planning, which is still the second-best design school after
Parsons. I am three years older than the transistor and 10
years older than rock 'n' roll. I have built a hundred
Heath kits and a great many goodies from scratch.

  So can I be a broadcast engineer? License no longer
required. Jim Wagner told me a few years ago that the only
thing that matters is if you can fix everything. And that is
the crux. A love and talent for this work is the thing.

  Why be licensed? By whom? The owner of the station license
has the most to lose, so it should be up to that owner to
determine whom to trust with his assets. We cannot affect
public safety that much. Towers still need structural
engineers. Shock hazards are only to us, beyond basic
electrical code considerations. The responsibilities of
compliance mostly are clerical in nature. I should know,
being the designated chief operator of our eight stations.

  Importance in the organization? At our station and
network, our department has executive committee rank. Our
chief engineer, Jay Crawford, sits on the four person high
pow-wow. Dr. Jim King, director of radio for Xavier
University, has been able to build our network due to his
first-rate leadership abilities and Jay's "world class"
talent a chief engineer. Jay literally built everything,
with Doc, and holds the highest esteem in the organization.
I was invited to join the team in part on the strength of my
EAS work as former chair of the local area in which two of
our stations are located. Jay does the bulk of the work at
the network stations, and I do a good deal of the logs,
record keeping, network technical communication, and studio
equipment maintenance (DATS cause blindness). I am also the
person insured to climb the towers, and am the oldest guy
around the place.

  Money? Sure computer network skills would pay better, but
how boring. Job security? Job pleasure? Who knows how to fix
everything anymore? I've replaced the compressor in the pop
machine, oiled squeaky air chair casters, hung on various
towers for the view, prayed on my knees in front of the
FieldFone for line quality to hold up long enough to get
through another hockey broadcast, (FieldFone's line quality
gauge is a great feature), left banners behind at a remote,
am on call day and night, have at-will access to NPR/PRI
brain food, and talk cats with our administrator, Vickie.
After a long day and night fighting Zeus and Thor (the
FM-40K system I stroked in the past), driving 125 miles home
listening to your handiwork ain't bad. Whatmoredayawant?

  I'd say we can call ourselves "engineers" because we are
better at more things than any profession I can think of.
And we love doing it.

  The author is network engineer for the X-Star Radio
Network, owned by Xavier University in Cincinnati; its
flagship station is WVXU(FM).

  This article first appeared as part of a discussion in the
"Broadcast" mailing list on Broadcast.net. We reprint it
with permission. Reach the author via e-mail at:
Jeff.Johnson@goodnews.net
WVXU/Cincinnati/X-Star Radio Network

EDITOR'S NOTE: The above article also appeared in Radio World Magazine
and is reprinted here by permission of both the author and Radio World.