Your Future in Microwave
May 1966 Radio-Electronics

May 1966 Radio-Electronics [Table of Contents] Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics. See articles from Radio-Electronics, published 1930-1988. All copyrights hereby acknowledged.

In this 1966 Radio-Electronics magazine article, Ray Thrower highlights the booming demand for microwave communication technicians and engineers due to population growth and industrial expansion. With only 36,000 licensed technicians available nationwide, the field faces a severe shortage - microwave alone requires 24,000 workers. Companies prefer microwave over vulnerable cable systems for its reliability, cost efficiency, and ability to handle high-capacity voice, video, and data circuits. The article profiles Jim Reeve, a technician trained via military service, and Don Shaffer, an engineer designing microwave paths, emphasizing hands-on experience and continuous learning. Entry-level opportunities exist for trainees, with advancement tied to skill development. Trade journals like Telephony and Microwave Journal are recommended for job seekers. The future envisions satellite-based global communication networks, creating even more technical roles. The field offers stability, growth, and competitive pay for those willing to invest in training.

Your Future in Microwave

Career Opportunities - Fifth of a series

Read about a field begging for qualified technicians and engineers ... learn how you can break into it

By Ray D. Thrower

The population explosion is creating a job for you! Increased demands for goods and services has created a need for more and more private communication systems for video, data and voice.

Just how does this mean a job for you? In the 17 years or so since the first commercial microwave systems began operation, the demand for more systems has resulted in more openings for skilled technicians and engineers than there are men to fill them.

The Federal Communication Commission's latest annual report shows slightly more than 60,000 Second Class Radio Telephone licenses issued. Of this class license (needed for working on "on the air" transmitters), estimates indicate that approximately one-fifth, or 12,000, are "non-practicing" in communications. Of the remaining 48,000, it is estimated that roughly 25% are non-practicing because they are in supervisory positions. This still leaves a pool of about 36,000 practicing licensed technicians to service all categories of transmitting and receiving equipment (excluding broadcast radio and TV, for which a First-Class license is required). Current estimates show that microwave alone needs 24,000 technicians!

Why is microwave becoming so popular? With it, companies can do away with open-wire and aerial cable facilities exposed to storm and ice breakage. They can forget about buried cable systems that are frequently cut by construction crews and farmers' plows. Relatively inexpensive mountain-top repeater sites and small plots of land in more expensive areas are very appealing to businesses when compared to the costs for hundreds of miles of open wire and buried-cable right-of-way. Just think of all those property owners that have to be dealt with for cable and wire systems!

One of the more important technical reasons for using microwave is that it can carry a larger number of voice channels, wideband video or high-speed data circuits with less distortion and fewer repeater stations than its cable-carrier counterparts. The FCC has aided the development and use of microwave and has made special provisions for tying in with educational TV systems.

A private microwave system can provide up to 960 simultaneous voice circuits on one transmitter and receiver, without interference. Developments promise thousands of circuits on one transmitter/receiver. Fig. 1 shows how 600 circuits can be stacked.

Frequencies above the usual 30 GHz are not far off, either. A recent issue of Microwaves reported successful propagation studies of equipment operating at 90,500 MHz.

Some systems are small and relatively inexpensive ($40,000 or so), while others are large and complex and may run $5,000,000 to $20,000,000 or more. In the last year and a half, Western Union began service between New York and the West Coast on its new $80,000,000 transcontinental microwave system. Links to other eastern cities are being built.

With new systems being added daily, communication companies are pressed to find qualified technicians. As the need for technicians and engineers grows, so grows the need for able supervisors. So, the chance for advancement in an advancing field is limited only by your ability.

If you have little electronics background, some companies will hire you as a trainee, giving you on-the-job training and sending you to company-sponsored schools. The pay may be low at first, but the training you'll get will payoff in later years. And, while you're working, don't pass up the chance to take some night-school courses. More and more employers are giving first consideration to the guy who has shown his spirit by trying to learn just a little more. Of course, if you're a real glutton for self-punishment, you can get a full-time job on a night maintenance shift and go to school full time during the day. And don't forget correspondence courses.

"Well," you might ask, "exactly what kind of job is there for me in microwave? This must take years of experience and education." Let's meet a few people who have worked with it.

Jim Reeve is 26, has been with Lenkurt Electric Co., Inc. for over 4 years since he got out of the Air Force and has been in electronics generally since 1957. Jim is a Senior Technician in Lenkurt's System Test Microwave Group. After the microwave equipment has been built on the production line, Jim and his associates completely align the systems before they are shipped out for installation. This involves actually operating the equipment as it will operate in the system when it is installed. The only difference is that instead of using antennas to radiate the signal and having some 30 miles between transmitter and receiver, Jim has to work on the equipment "back-to-back", that is, with transmitter and receiver a few feet apart. To weaken the signal in that close-by setup, Jim uses special microwave attenuators to simulate the "path loss" the system is designed for.

In his 4 years with Lenkurt, the leading supplier of microwave and carrier system equipment to the US independent telephone industry, Jim has worked on a lot of equipment for telephone, oil and utility companies, railroads and others.

I asked Jim what had been the most interesting microwave project he had worked on.

"Oh, that's easy! It was the educational TV system equipment Lenkurt built for Nebraska's educational system" (Fig. 2).

"Why was this one more interesting than the others?" "Well, I graduated from Omaha Tech High School and Nebraska is my home country." He smiled nostalgically. "And with all the familiar names tagged on the equipment scheduled for each repeater site, I felt right at home with that gear. I could just see that old microwave beam going right across the country around the North Platte River."

I asked if he had taken any science courses in high school that helped him get into electronics.

"Sure did! I had three years of high school electronics at Omaha Tech. It's a great school," Jim said enthusiastically. "Actually, we didn't realize how lucky we were there. I always thought every school system had a technical program. I found out how wrong I was when I got to tech school in the Air Force. Most of the guys had never heard of Ohm's law!"

"What schools did you go to in the service, Jim?" I asked. He laughed. "A lot of them." With a grin, he added. "And sometimes we thought they would never end, the way the instructors pounded information into our heads. One thing about it, though. Those service schools will teach it to you. Any guy that really wants a technical education should see what kind of programs are available through military service schools.

"The one I learned the most about microwave in was Radar Tech School at Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi. I was down there for about a year and then they sent me to Scott AFB, Illinois, for 6 months to Communications School. I learned a lot about radio there."

All together, Jim says he spent over 2 years of his 4-year hitch going to school. Did his military training have anything to do with his getting on with Lenkurt Electric?

"You bet your boots it did! I probably wouldn't have been able to get on if I hadn't had my training in the service. I figure I got a pretty expensive education that I never could have afforded on my own."

Jim, his wife Diana and their new daughter Lynda enjoy living on the San Francisco peninsula, where Jim's company is located. They appreciate the ease of living in California, the facilities available for entertainment and education in and around the peninsula. And Jim thinks working for Lenkurt, a prestige company in communications, is a wonderful opportunity for him professionally.

When overtime schedules permit, Jim attends Foothill College in Los Altos, Calif. He has completed about 2 years of full college work by going to night school for 3 1/2 years. He hopes to get his degree in a few more years, majoring either in electrical engineering or physics, so he can get into some of the more complex work with microwave and communication.

"Breadboarding and testing are interesting", acknowledges Jim, who builds much of his own hi-fi equipment, "but I like microwave work the best. We've always being razzed in here about when we're going to get our plumber's card, working on the waveguides and all. It's called 'plumbing' in the electronics trade, and I guess anybody that works with it gets ribbed."

His advice to anyone thinking of entering microwaves or electronics generally is to get plenty of science and math background in high school if there is no electronics vocational program in your school.

Jim Reeve is an example of the thousands of technicians that will be needed in the next few years. People like Jim will be moving up in a few years to engineering and administrative positions, which means even more technicians will be needed.

In addition to the technicians, thousands of engineers are going to be needed. According to a report prepared by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the National Science Foundation, demands for new engineering personnel will exceed 700,000 by 1970. With only about 450,000 to be available, there will be a deficit of more than 250,000. Of these, about 10,000 will be needed to fill engineering gaps, principally in the telecommunications field associated with microwave. What will these engineers do? Let's choose an example, and get an idea of what it takes to be "an engineer".

Don Shaffer is a displaced Missourian who came to Lenkurt Electric Co., Inc., by way of Arizona, where he worked as an engineer for a power company.

At Lenkurt, Don is a transmission engineer. The title belies what Don and his fellow transmission engineers do. They do the microwave path surveys for the microwave systems that Lenkurt engineers. Whenever a customer comes to Lenkurt for a microwave system, Don or one of the other transmission engineers goes to the customer's area, locates suitable sites for microwave repeaters, determines the path loss, the size and type of antennas required, tower heights to get away from things such as Fresnel-zone interference, and designs the system path.

Once Don has gathered his background data and photo-raphs (the camera seems to be the engineer's best friend on field surveys), he returns to Lenkurt's offices in San Carlos, California, where he formalizes his report, prepares graphs and charts from the field data, and selects the best photographs for publication. Then, the entire report is sent to" Lenkurt's printing plant where it is reproduced and bound in book form, and copies sent to the customer. Don says this is a rewarding type of engineering in that he sees his end product all neatly prepared in book form.

Don, who is a registered professional engineer, says, "We sure have to be accurate. A difference of just a few feet can make the difference between a microwave path working or not working. And if it doesn't work, our figures are right there in black and white, and it doesn't take long to figure out who goofed where. But with all the computer help we have now, errors just hardly exist any more."

Don enjoys his work, even though it takes him away from home frequently, and that is the only bad feature about it. "It's a great chance to see a lot of country and travel", he says, "and it's almost a vacation every time we go out. This way, I get to scan a lot of country and pick the places where I want to take my vacation.

"Our favorite time is the fall of the year", he laughed when being interviewed. "That's when each of the hunters in our crowd hopes to be the one selected to do the path study that inevitably comes from the hunting country. It's all business during the week, but when the weekend comes, we all want a try for some of that venison!"

Don, a licensed ham operator (W6BLO), likes to work 80-meter CW. He enjoys building his equipment, but says, "If I did any building now, with all my traveling, I'd never get to do any operating." So, he contents himself with commercial equipment and tinkering on small projects.

Dan's background includes graduation from the University of Missouri with a bachelor of science in electrical engineering in 1959. He was graduated from Memphis High School in Memphis, Mo. in 1949 and has been interested in radio since he was 16 in 1947. He was originally licensed as a ham in Missouri with the call W0YYE. Besides his ham ticket, Dan's licenses include an FCC First Class Radiotelephone license. "I guess the first-class license is about one of the hardest to get", he admits. "It took only one try for my second-class ticket, but I had to go back for two additional tries before I got the first." He looked with pride at the blue license hanging on his wall. "It was worth it, though."

"The most difficult thing about microwave", according to Don, "is keeping up with advances in the state of the art. New developments in equipment and new discoveries in theory and application of old knowledge to new areas make it pretty difficult to keep ahead - or even keep up with what's going on."

Advice to newcomers in the field? Don says, "Learn your basics very well, because even the most complicated electronic circuits are derived from a few basic principles."

With three years in microwave work behind him, Don's only comment about the future of microwave is "Unlimited!"

Now you'll ask, "How and where can I get into microwave work?" Finding the right job, of course, is a personal venture and requires a lot of leg-work. One of the best helps when looking for a job is to have a short resume of your background. Make several copies (but not carbons), and be prepared to hand or send one to every man who interviews you.

The places to look are unlimited. Practically every community of any size now has at least one microwave facility. There are some in some pretty remote areas as well. If the station in your area is an unattended one, chances are there will be a small sign on the building or fence that will tell you who it belongs to. One thing about job hunting of any kind: don't be bashful. If there is no way of finding out who operates a particular microwave station, try taping a note with your name, address and intention, to the door of the station.

A good percentage of state and county governments are now using or planning microwave systems for administration and enforcement. For instance, Nevada is planning a microwave system (Fig. 3) to run from Reno in the north to Las Vegas in the south and from Reno east to Elko and from Elko south to around Las Vegas where it will tie in with the Reno-Las Vegas leg of the system. When completed, the system will handle two ETV circuits for the University of Nevada as well as approximately 120 voice communication channels.

Nevada is only one of many state governments supplementing their commercial telephone circuits with their own microwave systems. To find if your state has or plans similar programs, contact your state director of communications or state civil service commission. Usually, these jobs have no training programs. They normally require experienced people with at least a second-class license. Some states have on-the-job training programs in many vocational areas. These programs are open to high school students part-time during school and full-time during the summer. These part-time ventures often work into full-time jobs with excellent futures for the high school graduate. Again, check with your state civil service commission, state director of communications or high-school vocational training director.

You can find out who is putting in microwave systems by subscribing to trade journals. These magazines usually tell of the issuance of FCC construction permits ("CP's") as well as other pertinent information in the communication industry. Two side advantages to subscribing to the trade journals: you can pick up a lot of technical education just by reading the ads, and you might even find that job waiting for you in the classified "help wanted" section of the magazines. One good source for the independent telephone industry is Telephony, published weekly at 608 Dearborn St., Chicago, Ill. Subscription rate is $4.50 per year. Another trade magazine is the Microwave Journal, published monthly at 610 Washington St., Dedham Plaza, Dedham, Mass. Subscription rate is $1 per year. Microwave Journal deals mostly with industrial and military application of microwave. Between the two, you should be able to get a pretty good cross-section of the industry. You can subscribe to only one if you already know the area you wish to explore.

Time was, in the communication industry, when there was little turnover; few jobs were available to the newcomer. The expansion of microwave communications has made many jobs available. There is still stability, but it is no longer static stability. After a few years in one place, if you feel you have progressed as far as you can, professionally, you can find more rewarding work elsewhere. In fact, many technicians and engineers recommend two or three changes during the first 10 years to get a broad knowledge of the communication industry. A broad background will be profitable for yourself and your ultimate employer. Remember, the requirements for getting into microwave vary all the way from a high-school education to an advanced college degree with 15 or 20 years experience. But, there are engineers without degrees as well as maintenance men with master's degrees in engineering. It all depends on what you want and how much effort you are willing to put forth. Formal education, though important, is not the main consideration to every microwave employer. You will always be more valuable, though, with as much training and experience as you can get, so don't turn down any opportunities. Get that second-class radio license, if possible. It can open many doors and pave the way for professional advancement.

We've talked a bit about the past and some of the present of microwave. What's in store for the future? Communication experts see the day not too far distant when a series of stationary satellites above the earth will beam thousands of messages and supply dozens of video and data circuits to all points on the globe. Special remote pickups will be available on a moment's notice via satellite microwave. Already, scheduled satellite communication is a reality across continents. And one day, say the experts, it will be cheaper and a lot less trouble to have maintenance personnel stationed for 3-, 6- or 12- month tours of duty on a centrally located satellite. If a malfunction occurs on one of the relay satellites, special bypass circuits will be put into operation while a maintenance man hops into a special shuttle craft, punches the button for the preprogrammed coordinates of the station in trouble and gets there in a matter of minutes, across thousands of miles. After maintenance, he shoots back to the mother satellite.

Who will he be? Maybe you?