Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Radio technicians and our changing industry

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 07 May 2004 09:22:35 -0400

-------- Original Message --------
From: "ianmillr43" <[email-masked].>
Subject: Radio technicians and our changing industry

I am new member of your group so a little information about myself
first. I have been invovled in the two-way radio industry in
Australia for around 30 years, working for several different
company's during that time and predominantly in a sales role,
although back in the days of 'Steam radio' I did my training as a
radio technician with Telecom, our monopoly Telco in those days. For
the past five years I have been a partner/Director of a typical two-
way radio sales and service dealership in Melbourne Australia.

As an employer of radio technicians in the industry, we have become
aware (like several of our competitors) that there are now virtually
no radio technicians being trained any more. As the industry has
changed over recent years the major suppliers like Motorola have
moved more towards being a warehouse operation for the general
product lines so they have cut back on technician numbers, likewise
the other supplier/manufacturers have reduced technician numbers.
Most of our Government agencies are being pressured by Governments to
get back to core business so they no longer run their own technical
areas but 'Outsource' these functions, Defence are still training but
their training is now very 'application specific', in other words
they do not give broad training, our Telcos are exactly the same,
train only when they need to and then only for what they specifically
require.

This means that the general two-way radio market, I guess that
equates with the 'Private Wireless' market in your terms, has
virtually no new technicians coming through to replace the 'baby
boomers' who are all getting old and tired. The situation is
compounded by the fact that the educational institutions are now in
the hands of the 'economic rationalists' who determine government
funding on the basis of the number of people that can be catered for
in the 'perfect class size' and so funds are payed on a 'Bums on
seats' philosophy. Therefore, if we dont have 25 people wanting to do
the radio technicians course the funding goes to another course (I
wont give examples as my cynicism and political incorrectness may
upset) and no technicians are trained. This presents a very real
threat as the skills needed to teach the technology will be lost to
the educators and we wont be able to train at all in the future.

The physical size of Australia counts against us as well, our country
is similar in size to mainland USA, but with a population less than
New York City. We have two major cities of around 4.5 million and 4.0
million people, from there it goes down very quickly. A very large
percentage of our radio applications and radio dealers are located in
provincial cities of 25,000 to 100,000 population. For a young person
in a city of that size to do Radio Technician training they would
need to move to a major city, perhaps up to 1000 miles away, a
significant disincentive to someone entering the industry.

During the past year we have got together as a working group to try
and sound out what the present status is and where we may be heading.
There is general acceptance right across our industry that the
problem is real and that we have to find a way around it, in
addition, there is a need for continuing education for present radio
technicians to keep them up to date with new technologies in order
that they can promote the newer technologies and so keep enhancing
and expanding our markets. We have also become acutely aware that the
suppliers/manufacturers have always shied away from any form of
promotion of the industry because of their own selfish needs, but now
the industry must work as a group to stay alive. Radio communications
is an expanding industry and if we arent careful there will be no
technicians to support and service all of the new equipment.

Our industry here in Australia does not have any really effective
Industry Association so that will be one of our major thrusts, so
that we can then lobby goverments on behalf of the tens of thousands
of mobile radio users and also on behalf of the Radio Broadcasters
who pay huge licence fees but also have a paucity of technicians
(where each radio station used to have a couple of technicians, now
one technician probably looks after ten or fifteen transmitters
hundreds of miles apart, as well as replacing the light globes in the
office and being responsible for getting the company cars serviced).
The same Industry Association can then sit with the educators and
work out how we can then make Electronics - and in particular radio
electronics - an attractive course to the students at 13 to 16 years
of age, then start them into good training courses that can be
properly funded and provided. It may mean that we have to try to use
the 'Electronic Age' as part of the training, a course based on a CD-
ROM with practical training from the business owner who hires the
student and theoretical training with set lessons emailed to the
training provider reghularly. Then it may only mean a two or three
week session on-site at the training campus for ratification of the
progress and acceptability of standards.

We are well aware that we are embarking on a long and tortuous
journey, however, we are committed to giving it a damn good try and
have armed ourselves with copious amounts of energy and cynicism. At
this stage it appears that the driving force for this change is going
to come from two-way radio dealers that will typically have around 8
to 15 employees, that means a very big committment in time out of the
normal day, but we do believe that if we want to be able to sell out
businesses when the time comes to finally succumb to 'She who must be
obeyed' and retire, then we have to make sure the industry is in
better shape then when we entered it.

Radio communications is alive and well, and all of those mobile phone
users who say two-way radio is dead - well, perhaps they need to be
educated that the thing glued to the side of their head doesnt have
any wires on it...it transmits and recieves on two-way
radio...hey...what the!!!!

I look forward to any constructive comments that may follow on from
this, to us it is a very real concern and I guess it may be a common
thread in other countries too. Thank you for taking the time to read
this, in the future I may get brave enough to give some outline on
other areas within our market, the threats and successes we have had.

Yours sincerely,
Ian Miller
AA Radio Services Pty Ltd
Melbourne - Australia
www.aaradio.com.au

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