Courses and training in electrinics 'UK'

[MARSHALL BUSTER]

Hey guys.

Does anyone in the United kingdom know the best place to train to be an electronic repair technician? Iv been in touch with my local college and all they seem to do is train you to wire up houses and anything to do with construction industry!! They don't have any courses available to cater for the component/repair side of things.

I am between jobs now and I would love to retrain and I want gain some real qualifications in electronic repair, but im really confused where to go.

Are all these online courses any good??

Im in the Manchester area and im finding it very hard to locate a course any where close to where I live.

If you have done your training or course work please let me know who with and if it has proved worth while or not and any tips you may have to help me get going.

Thanks. MB

[Enzo]

I can't speak for the UK or your area of it, but look at the help wanted ads in your media, and for that matter think about the places near you that would ever hire electronic repair technicians. How many are there? Colleges usually train people for jobs that exist, so home construction is a real industry. COmponent level repair, not so much. I was hoping to teach electronics at the local community college, instead, as I watched, the electronics program shrank until they no longer even offered a degree in it. They only have enough electronics now to fill the needs of other industries. Like computer maintenance. Those guys generally can barely use a meter, they don;t have to. Automotive is now full of computers, but they don;t fix those at component level. Our area here is something close to half a million people. We are the state capital, we have several large General Motors manufacturing plants, and we have not only some community colleges, but also Michigan State University, a very large place. 45,000 students. MSU even has a world class superconducting cyclotron lab and are in the process of constructing FRIB (facility for rare isotope beams - or something like that ) SO a lot of engineering and a lot of high tech, and yet, the Lansing area is an electronics desert.

As to music electronics, there is one guy full time at a music store. There is another music store with a full time guy, but they have him at their pawn shop repair facility working on consumer stuff at least a day a week. And there is me, who is looking to close the shop and retire. There are a few part time guys doing basement repair. SO really, in this whole area, pretty much there are two jobs, and they are filled.

I am not really trying to discourage you, more asking you to look at why colleges don't offer much in the subject. And look at what opportunities you might have. You have guitar amps, and I have no idea what the market is for another shop in your area. You have computer repair, and you have consumer electronics - which is TVs and stereos.


Now here is the real discouraging word. I have over the years had to hire repair techs. In fact it used to be my job to fly into a city and set up a shop and hire a staff. And I have to admit a fresh shiny new diploma was about the least interesting thing a guy could show me. A diploma means a guy probably knows how to figure out a color code, and can quote Ohm's Law. He also probably does not know which end of a screwdriver to use or the difference between Torx and Allen screws. A guy who had been working in his basement for a year or two on his own probably can READ a color code, and likely knows how to disassemble an amplifier. Find me a guy who has been working on stuff with little formal learning over the book fed guy every time. I can make him useful from day one. I can tell him to take the chassis from the cabs on a row of amps. The diploma guy may mean well, but if I tell him to check out that new Fender, he'll be looking for a car.


Don't get me wrong, coursework is great stuff, but not in and of itself a ticket to a job.

[olddawg]

I earned an AS Degree in Electronics back in 1978. Even then they taught nothing about tube technology. It was all discrete transistors, op amps and some very primitive digital stuff. I did component level repair on audio and video equipment for 25 years. Got out of it professionally 10 years ago. The writing was on the wall. Back in the day a unit was fairly expensive and people kept stuff 10 years or more. Nowadays, it is cheap, disposable, and obsolete in 6 months. I still repair stuff. People are amazed that I can repair to the component level. I don't think the community colleges even offer my degree anymore. I'm still pretty weak on tube theory, lol.

[pdf64]

See Electrical/Electronic Engineering | BTEC Nationals from 2010 | Qualifications : Edexcel
I did the TEC (technical education council) HNC in electrical / electronics 30 years ago, as an apprentice on day release to the local poly (now they're all universities!).
It was very tough, especially the electromagnetic modules but really set me up well. I subsequently studied EE at uni and didn't learn much more.
Whether the course content (assuming that the modules you want are taught locally) is still worth its salt is another matter - the academic level kids are able to get into uni with these days seem to be appallingly low.
Pete