About me (brag sheet)

Hello and welcome to my website.

By trade I am, or rather was, a radio station engineer. I have a general class license from the FCC and have been an amateur radio operator since 1974. I sort of retired in 2015 but I still work about 20 hours a week. I have been an engineer for the best part of 30 years and as a result I have had the chance to work on a great number of different kinds of equipment. I have also gotten to clean gutters, repair roofs on dog houses, dig ditches for transmission lines, climb towers and do a lot of other jobs that don’t quite fit into electronics and electronics repair. The job does make for a broadening of ones abilities. Oh yeah, I had to learn programming and computer repair and building and networking too since almost all of radio is now on a computer somehow.

The thing about radio engineering is that everything is either rushed, important or mission critical. When a transmitter goes down at 2:00 AM you have to jump out of bed and try to clear the sleep out of your head before you get to the transmitter site. It is important that you are awake since 8000 volts with a good bit of current coursing through your sleep addled brain can cause a very bad night. If a piece of equipment at the studio goes down and takes you off the air on Christmas morning while the kids are opening their gifts you must go, no excuses. “I am sick and can not go.” is not an excuse either. Things have gotten a bit better in the last bunch of years. First, equipment, from transmitters to processing has become much more reliable. Secondly, thanks to the internet a lot of what used to require a trip to the studios or transmitter can now be done on line. But there are still things that require in person attention.

I have decided to put some of my experience to work by means of a YouTube channel called AERVBlog. My videos mostly revolve around equipment used in a radio station. Some of it is quite old. One of my stations has been operating since 1963 and I still have some equipment in daily use that harkens from that time. It can get challenging but thanks to eBay at least I can usually get the parts I need. The site also has reviews on various kinds of equipment as well as hints and tips on fixing the stuff.

That is enough about me. Again, welcome to my site and enjoy your stay. Don’t forget to check out my YouTube site, AERVBlog