FCC GROL Education Options (and career tips)

[mmckenna]

All of the glamour of a radio or TV station engineer, with none of their usual perks like working with pretty people, right?

Usually NO people. Or if there are people, you gotta ask "What the hell are you doing up here?!?"

 

[mmckenna]

I have to agree, but at least where I was, modify a few things. The tower climbing and buddy rescue was important where I was, also (where I was) you can combine power, generators, battery systems, while adding UPS's (both understanding specs, how they work, and common maintenance), and the (very popular with this site) GROUNDING part of everything. I looked at the qualifications for the career I was in previously, and they added Project Planning into the mix of things they would like you to be able to do, or at least understand exactly what is going on.

Thanks
Joel

Yeah, I have the tower climber/rescuer certification. Just not sure who the hell I was going to rescue, or who was going to rescue me.

Grounding is a good one. So much bad info, so much good info, trying to figure out which is which.

Project management. Yeah, they keep running me through PM courses, then when I have a big project, they assign a project manager to me. And they keep changing the methods.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

Another career course might be in the field of repairing and maintaining biomedical equipment for a major hospital. I had the opportunity to see such a shop at a major military hospital in California. There is plenty of RF and IT in that field.

 

[ladn]

For me at work, it's mostly about having a proof of knowledge and adds some "street cred". My employer doesn't require it, but they do require a certain amount of training per year and will fund it, so I was able to get it fully paid for.

Always the best kind of training--on the clock and on the employer's dime! Even better when there's a little off-site travel/adventure involved!

 

[MUTNAV]

Yeah, I have the tower climber/rescuer certification. Just not sure who the hell I was going to rescue, or who was going to rescue me.

Grounding is a good one. So much bad info, so much good info, trying to figure out which is which.

Project management. Yeah, they keep running me through PM courses, then when I have a big project, they assign a project manager to me. And they keep changing the methods.

They would have us in serious trouble for working on a tower alone. Just like you never have one person working at an open manhole (maybe that would be a great way of getting a new person involved in the field, safety observer/tech/ haul the equipment person).


I hadn't thought about it, but when I initially moved to NJ I got a job offer (I'm assuming because I had a GROL and was "new" to the area) to work on the NYC area railroads, climbing involved, for $60,000 a year.

Well, the railroad part that I probably would have had to work on would likely be the old, grimey, giant trestles hundreds of feet in the air. (old and grimey I can handle, but the whole place just didn't look safe, imagine working on top of the George Washington Bridge), and at $60,000 a year I (and my family) would have had to live in a car in that area.

With a short job market, It's possible that just getting the legal qualifications might have some effect.

Thanks
Joel

 

[mmckenna]

They would have us in serious trouble for working on a tower alone. Just like you never have one person working at an open manhole (maybe that would be a great way of getting a new person involved in the field, safety observer/tech/ haul the equipment person).

I would always have a ground person, but I no longer have any other trained climbers.

Well, the railroad part that I probably would have had to work on would likely be the old, grimey, giant trestles hundreds of feet in the air. (old and grimey I can handle, but the whole place just didn't look safe, imagine working on top of the George Washington Bridge), and at $60,000 a year I (and my family) would have had to live in a car in that area.

I don't blame you.

 

[a417]

Yeah, the &#!* that's NOT radio that I have to deal with:
HVAC
Power
More HVAC
dealing with locks/access (Breaking and Entering should be in my job description)
Generators
Battery systems
Even moar HVAC!
Light carpentry
<snip>. You'll also need to be able to take complex technical info and make it easy for non radio people to understand.

Should we not tell you the toaster isn't working again?

 

[mmckenna]

Should we not tell you the toaster isn't working again?

Many years ago I had to install a wall mounted manual can opener on the wall of the lunch room. It went around and around in meetings about who would install it. Finally I did it just so we could move on.

Same thing happened with mail sorting. They laid off the admin assistant that did that stuff and they spent 45 minutes in a meeting discussing who should take over the duties, wether they should hire a replacement, etc.
Again, to maintain sanity and get on with our lives, I still put the mail in the boxes to this day.
I'm probably the highest paid mailman in the world.

Government jobs are awesome!

 

[tweiss3]

Government jobs are awesome!

Gotta love scheduled meetings for the sole purpose to decide when and where to schedule the next set of meetings.

 

[mmckenna]

Gotta love scheduled meetings for the sole purpose to decide when and where to schedule the next set of meetings.

And everyone knows all the real decisions are made in the hallway or over a beer on Friday afternoon.

 

[MUTNAV]

And everyone knows all the real decisions are made in the hallway or over a beer on Friday afternoon.

There is more truth to that than some people may think...

"Leadership" was having a hard time deciding the next assignment for person of close acquaintance, an eventual decision was made while they were playing golf.

As a relevant human relations story, there was a young person in my work-center that was having some sort of issue that they didn't really want to talk about, for some reason there was an old tennis ball on my desk, so while this person and I were standing in the middle of the office trying to communicate, I picked the ball up and bounced it over to her, then signaled she should bounce it back. we kept at it and within 30 seconds she was spilling her guts about everything that was bothering her.

It also used to be something (mandatory) that was mentioned on military performance reports about whether the person "supported" the club (enlisted, officers), a person that wasn't a member obviously didn't want to communicate.

I guess the tough things to talk about are during "personel" time (lunch, drinks, games etc..)

Thanks
Joel

 

[WRQS621]

As a life long project manager, you guys sound like the folks l “love“ working with. The OP asked a great question and you guys turned it into “female dog“ fest. I worked with and fired these types more times than I can count. A positive team oriented attitude is priceless in today’s economy. My advice to the OP, listen and learn from wise, experienced folks and ignore the complainers.

 

[MUTNAV]

As a life long project manager, you guys sound like the folks l “love“ working with. The OP asked a great question and you guys turned it into “female dog“ fest. I worked with and fired these types more times than I can count. A positive team oriented attitude is priceless in today’s economy. My advice to the OP, listen and learn from wise, experienced folks and ignore the complainers.

Sounded like nothing but good advice and related life experiences on here to me.

Thanks
Joel

 

[WRQS621]

Sounded like nothing but good advice and related life experiences on here to me.

Thanks
Joel

People disagreeing with my opinion are almost standard on this forum. No worries.

 

[BMDaug]

People disagreeing with my opinion are almost standard on this forum. No worries.

I can see exactly where you are going for sure, but there’s a thin line between a ***** and a story. Sometimes, to stay positive at work, you need an outlet to vent about frustrating people and situations.

If you think that everyone you manage with an amazing, positive attitude is that way about everything all of the time, you may want to reconsider that ideology.

Respectfully,
Brian

 

[mmckenna]

I worked with and fired these types more times than I can count. A positive team oriented attitude is priceless in today’s economy. My advice to the OP, listen and learn from wise, experienced folks and ignore the complainers.

Fortunate for me, I don't work for the PM's. Technically, I outrank them, and they are not in any sort of position to fire me.

Anyway, they are project managers, not people managers/supervisors. If there's a problem we work it out like adults, and not resort to firing people that we don't agree with.

As for the *****/moan sessions…. I manage a team of 4 engineers, and I encourage them to vent frequently. It's a stress relief. Once the stress is blown off, the really good stuff happens, problems get solved. Thankfully I don't fire them for that. They are too good at what they do, and it costs way too much and takes way too long to train up new ones.

In fact, I'm taking them all out tomorrow evening, I'm picking up the tab, and I'm going to encourage them to vent over a couple of beers.
That sort of stuff builds a team.

 

[WRQS621]

Fortunate for me, I don't work for the PM's. Technically, I outrank them, and they are not in any sort of position to fire me.

Anyway, they are project managers, not people managers/supervisors. If there's a problem we work it out like adults, and not resort to firing people that we don't agree with.

As for the *****/moan sessions…. I manage a team of 4 engineers, and I encourage them to vent frequently. It's a stress relief. Once the stress is blown off, the really good stuff happens, problems get solved. Thankfully I don't fire them for that. They are too good at what they do, and it costs way too much and takes way too long to train up new ones.

In fact, I'm taking them all out tomorrow evening, I'm picking up the tab, and I'm going to encourage them to vent over a couple of beers.
That sort of stuff builds a team.

Hence, why I never work for the government. I actually like my job and my co-workers. We work hard and we make a lot of money. Back on topic, GROL is a good goal. I like that the OP wants to learn and not memorize questions. I am seeing a lot of younger HAMs (sorry, I know scanner folks hate HAMs) due to SDR and digital modes. I look forward to MW and SW digital as it will breath new life into the coolest bands in radio. 73

 

[Echo4Thirty]

What other creds do you reccomend?

If you are going to do ANYTHING related to marine, you might want to get your GMDSS and maybe even Radar endorsements to your GROL.

 

[mmckenna]

If you are going to do ANYTHING related to marine, you might want to get your GMDSS and maybe even Radar endorsements to your GROL.

The Elkins training I linked to in the 2nd reply includes GROL + Radar Endorsement. I have radar endorsement on mine, but will likely never use it. It's just taught as a package.
Elkins does GMDSS right after the GROL/Radar endorsement class. For an additional fee, I could have stayed and received the GMDSS endorsement on the GROL, but I didn't have funding from work for that, and didn't really need it.

But it is valuable if you are going to be working on large ship radio systems.

 

[N4DES]

Government jobs are awesome!

34.4 years and counting with must depart date in just over 10 months for me. Been an awesome government career in County Public Safety and Radio overseeing the rollout of two (2) county-wide trunked/simulcast systems with two independent microwave networks in 2000 and 2017, the drama of Rebanding, and a database of about 30K ID's that are spread across over 70 separate agencies, just to mention the high level items.

I have no control when it becomes available in 2023 if it will be an internal only or external posting, but here is the job description:

https://secure.co.palm-beach.fl.us/onlineapplication/Asps/Records/ShowJobTitleDesc.aspx?JobTitleDescSeq=123&JobTitleSeq=41&SpecNo=264

And the job will be posted here - PBC Jobs (palm-beach.fl.us)