Career Advice

Well, I may be hiring an engineer in a few months if all goes well. I'll definately be looking for a very wide ranging generalist. Namely, an EE who can write s/w, use a lathe and generally learn anything s/he doesn't know by getting a book and reading it.

OTOH, if I had top choose a career now it wouldn't be in engineering. That's had its day in the West. Parasites rule.

--
Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millenium
http://www.theconsensus.org

I read in sci.electronics.design that Joerg wrote (in ) about 'Career Advice', on Tue, 8 Nov 2005:

I'm not sure I follow you. Class D got a bad name in UK through Clive Sinclair selling Class D amplifier kits that didn't work.

Yes; although not for ultrasound but X-rays my colleagues developed a

1000-line triple-interlace CCTV system in 1956. That pushed the envelope a little.

--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
If everything has been designed, a god designed evolution by natural selection.
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk

I read in sci.electronics.design that Dirk Bruere at Neopax wrote (in ) about 'Career Advice', on Tue, 8 Nov 2005:

Actually, the Parasites, or some of them, are revolting at present. (;-)

--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
If everything has been designed, a god designed evolution by natural selection.
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk

Hello John,

Maybe he didn't have those kits engineered out well enough. Class D works. A friend even built an RF linear amp that way, in the days of tubes (!). That was in the 70's when the consumer guys were sound asleep in terms of PWM.

Wow, that was pushing it. Probably he had to keep a little fire extinguisher next to it in case the flyback transformer goes up in flames.

Regards, Joerg

I read in sci.electronics.design that Joerg wrote (in ) about 'Career Advice', on Tue, 8 Nov 2005:

Oh, sure, it works. Sinclair's original design also worked, but 'equivalent' transistors were substituted and those didn't.

An early reference to PWM amplifiers is 'Modulated Pulse A.F. Amplifiers' by David R Burt, in Wireless World February 1963. But he cites a UK Patent by B D Bedford, 389855, of 25 September 1931! This used thyratrons as the switching devices.

However, trying to switch germanium power transistors even at 50 kHz seems a bit ambitious. And consumer audio amplifiers had to work in AM radios with ferrite rod antennas. So 50 kHz switching wasn't really an option. 2 MHz, perhaps, would have worked, but that was even less likely with the devices available.

--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
If everything has been designed, a god designed evolution by natural selection.
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk

Parisites?

martin

This manager is looking for consumable disposable employees rather than stafffing for even intermediate term. If you're desparate for a job, then ya try to look like what they're looking for, knowing it'll be a temporary billet.

I always was more interested in a person's ability to learn and adapt, once I'd determined that they had usable skills to become productive immediately.

It's necessary to be somewhat of a generalist but it's not good marketing to bill yourself as a generalist -- because those who can't do anything well also fall back on saying that they're generalists.

It's better to respond by saying something like "tell me what you need done, and I'll tell you how I would approach getting it done." Assuming that your response is responsive, competent and credible, any manager that doesn't find that appealing would probably drive you nuts by limiting your scope so severely that it would be difficult to ever make much of a contribution.

Sounds like you're a software guy.

Not sure why you're asking the hardware crew.

FWIW I reckon that understanding how the hardware works would make your skills vastly more saleable. But I'm biased.

Graham

recently

But quite accurate.

Maybe shelf stacker at Safeway ?

Graham

Sinclair never could engineer anything for toffee.

His later audio amps used not to have emitter resistors and were constantly being returned for warranty repair ! I even wrote to them to explain how daft they were being. Eventually they spouted some emitter Rs.

His kit pre-amp used *presets* as pots with a piece of thin steel bar linking

2 of them for stereo !

Of course he was a great self-publicist and got a knighthood.

Graham

I read in sci.electronics.design that Pooh Bear wrote (in ) about 'Career Advice', on Wed, 9 Nov

2005:

He didn't design the X-10; a real designer did, from a well-known design consultancy.

--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
If everything has been designed, a god designed evolution by natural selection.
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk

My schoolfriend's Sinclair amplifier did work. But it got smoking hot, and the parents couldn't watch TV while he was listening to music.

Paul Burke

Hello John,

But why on earth did he pick that dreaded AM on/off protocol? It is and always was a recipe for unreliable operation.

Regards, Joerg

Hello John,

With a whole battery of AF126 it could have been done. Of course, not many people could have afforded it.

But a friend of mine did it with tubes. He cranked huge amounts of power out of ordinary H-final TV tubes. Because they were literally operated as switches. The limit weren't the tubes anymore, the output power was limited by the circuit breaker size in the mains panel.

Regards, Joerg