This part of my widely varied life started as I moved to a state where I had never lived and had no viable job prospects.
While out riding my motorcycle looking for a job I saw a job placement agency and went in to wee what this was all about as I had never been to one before. As luck would have it this one didn't charge for temporary job placement and I talked with an advisor and was informed of a listing for 'wire puller'. This was for a person to help contractors with installing wires in a new cell phone system being build all over this state. I applied and the very next day was called to go in and talk with the subcontractor and see if it was something I could do. After convincing him I could do just about anything he needed I was hired on a temporary basis.
I was then introduced to some one that to this day is a close friend. He also injured fishing and we soon where checking out prime fishing spots while on our way to remote cell sights all over the beautiful state of Idaho. One trip while fishing a shallow stream we where blessed with a family of moose crossing the stream very close to us, the baby was only 4ft tall and still a little awkward. Just after this while loading our gear back in the company S.U.V. one of the supervising engineers drove by, stopped and backed up and asked if we where on the clock. "No", my supervisor and friend said "of course not we are on our lunch break!". This was around 9AM, early lunch that day! The next day at the progress meeting the engineer that caught us fishing asked my friend sarcastically for a fishing report in front of the whole room. My buddy being a man of excellent humor stood up and gave a very detailed report, including the moose, much to the delight of most of the room. Seems there were many fisherman present. Over the next several months we would be asked for a fish report often.
I have an inquisitive mind always seeking knowledge and understanding. I read every technical manual for every piece of hardware I could find in our warehouse full of telicom equipment and found I understood how it all worked and how it integrated together to make a system. I asked questions of every engineer and technician that would talk to me, gaining myself a reputation that would serve me well for years to come. Needless to say I was quickly promoted to a field tech with a speciality for radio systems that linked the cell base stations to the main switch that integrated the wireless system this the land line based phone system and the internet. I got to know the switch techs to learn how that part worked also, and ended up wiring in over 700 patch lines to link the wireless backbone to the switch hardlines.
I found out from the main supervisor of construction that the company that made the microwave radios, Harris Microwave, that there was to be a class to teach the technicians that where to maintain the system after we turned it over to them. I practically begged to go to this class! He told me he wished he could but it was for advanced communications technicians only and a part time sub-contractor couldn't go. I went to the local college and enrolled in a class on radio communications. Then I went back to the supervisor and told him that I would learn it with or without his help! I used to be kind of a snot that way! He soon found out that one spot was opening in the Harris class because someone quit the company! God once more intervened on my behalf.
The first week of the class was brutal! I was constantly teased and ridiculed by the techs and drilled by the teacher. I was impassioned to learn this subject and most are not used to someone grasping the abstract the way I can. I ate,slept and dreamed not just microwave com I learned what happens from the time you pressed send on your phone, remember when you had to do that, to when you pressed end! I vividly remember the last week when the teacher asked me to get in front of the class and show in the chalkboard how "a cell phone system works". I asked him if this was to be a 'space diversity' or not and if it was to have L.A.Ns or just a W.A.N. I was so nervous I was sweating so bad I am sure I stunk to high heaven! in just under an hour I used every chalk board in the room and showed what happens in the cell phone hand set when you dial a call through every system in the handset, how it incodes the signal, how the signal is picked up by the B.T.S. how it goes through the base station how it would go into a hard line and how it would go into the microwave system into the backbone and down the line to the switch so as to show the difference in the 3 ways to get it to the land based phone lines. I showed way more than was required by this course and with detail that confirmed I understood the entire process of a cell phone system. I did this 4 months after applying for the wire puller job! The teacher never interrupted me even though I could hear groans from the techs, a few even got up and left. After I completed my task the teacher corrected 2 small details I got wrong.Then he told the remaining techs that if they had all taken the time to learn the way I had he would have had a much easier time at teaching! Within a week I was offered my own contract with the supervising engineering company, a large well know company! this was the beginning of a career that lasted a couple of years and led me to installing 3g all over California a couple of years later.
more to come....
