Audio Banter - View Single Post - 10 metres audio cable going into PC = too long?

**Stewart Pinkerton**

On Tue, 02 May 2006 03:59:31 -0800, (Floyd L.
Davidson) wrote:

tony sayer wrote:
In article , Floyd L. Davidson
writes
tony sayer wrote:

I don't have a great deal of confidence in someone who is
getting their information from "cable jointers" alongside the
road.

Not quite so. One of these guys was quite old and very experienced, and
could recall the days of lead covered cable where they had to do wiped
joints etc. So don't despise the benefit of experience. Those guys have
probably seem more cable close up than you'll ever likely too!.

Given another 10 or 20 years, they will no doubt catch up. :-)

Course they don't specify it, but some old BT "Poles and holes" staff do
know a lot more that you'd give 'em credit for!..

How would you judge whether that is true or not?

It's likely that we are looking at a culture difference here. I used
to work for Hughes Aircraft at the Tucson AZ plant, and I was
staggered at the detail in the training manuals for basic electronic
assembly workers. Then I got into conversations in the staff canteens,
and I understood the reason for difference. In the US, many 'skilled'
workers are virtually illiterate by UK standards, but have excellent
and highly detailed training which allows them to perform very
specific tasks competently. In the UK, we tend to have a broader
educational system (we consider the term 'high school graduate' to be
hilarious), with not far off 50% of school leavers going to University
or similar tertiary education.

As a result, the general level of education in 'low-grade' technicians
is significantly higher in the UK than in the US, and they have much
more capability when things go a little 'outside the box'. It's
perfectly reasonable to suppose that a 'pole and hole' man over here
would be perfectly familiar with the technology he was installing, and
that one over there would not. Indeed, I had an interesting chat with
the guy who changed our electricity meter while he was doing the work
a couple of years ago, and he was fully aware of the operating
principles both of the old 'spinning disc' eddy current meter he was
remnoving, and the new Hall Effect meter he was installing. I
seriously doubt that would be the case in Arizona!
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

Posted Via Usenet.com Premium Usenet Newsgroup Services
----------------------------------------------------------
** SPEED ** RETENTION ** COMPLETION ** ANONYMITY **
----------------------------------------------------------
http://www.usenet.com