"Mike Coslo" wrote in message
...
Jim Hampton wrote:
Hans,
This appears to reflect what is going on in society in general.
snip
If an 8 year old can pass the extra exam (itself pretty much a cakewalk
today), why the necessity of a field promotion for someone that didn't
take
all of the theory elements for a general?
Meanwhile, back in Rochester, NY, I went to one of those fast food
outlets
about a month ago. The cash register operator took my $20.00 (the bill
was
something like $11.83), hit a button, and - the look on her face told me
she
punched a button which told the machine I gave her $11.83. She took a
five
out of the register .... slowly took a single .... then after frowning
for
several seconds, another single .... then she had to get the manager to
make
change. Heck, if she learns to add and subtract, maybe they'll
grandfather
her to a bachelor's degree 
I think Rochester had a one time upgrade of second graders to HS
diplomas a while back, didn't they?
All in all, it is frightening to see newly minted extras asking such
questions as "I have an SWR of 2 to 1. What can I do to lower it?".
I know what you mean. All they have to do is take the face off of the
meter, and manually push the needle down. If their meter uses LED's,
they can put tape over the offending lights.
We'll see more replays of such things as happened on Guam "sparkplug1
this
is sparkplug. You are loud, but garbbled." - hey guys, take out the
antenna
and stick a coat hanger in the antenna jack. Either that, or lower the
rf
gain
) But they were the experts, right?
Were they actually Extra's? The SWR thing I can almost see, if a person
is inexperienced, and considering the religious like pursuit of 1:1 SWR.
But what you describe after that is pretty dum for shure!
- mike KB3EIA -
No, Mike ..
I hate to tell you this, but those were USN radiomen who had "all knobs to
the right". This is usually caused by such things as when I was in RM "a"
school and we were given a printed page stating that a class A amplifier was
50% efficient. One did not question the chief.
Such stuff has propogated into industry where might makes right. The
manager may often be wrong, but never in doubt. It is such stuff that leads
to companies being cleaned out by upper management. Number two in command
must tread carefully against number one (or the CEO) or he/she may be out.
Oh well ... it probably doesn't matter as we've got plenty of cellphones
anyways
73 from Rochester, NY
Jim AA2QA
---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (
http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.669 / Virus Database: 431 - Release Date: 4/26/04