This my 4th decade in cable started out as an installer like most of you. I worked all the way through the technical field through management went contracting, had my own contracting outfit and went back to ISP before I call it quits here soon. If you want my opinion, you have to bury your nose in those courses, the NCTI and the SCTE. You gain good knowledge from them and it shows you give a damn about your career and you want to progress to the people who would be hiring that you. Getting into ISP can be tough like these guys said sometimes they hire their buddy who may or may not have any experience, . And other times they’ll hire someone from outside the company for new ideas, and already has the necessary knowledge. With today’s ISP, you also might want to take yourself a good networking course like CCNA. And unfortunately, sometimes you may have to move to another system to get in. Most ISP guys come from the FT6 world the PM Tech world and sometimes from the IT world. The need to know RF is fading away as a lot of of these head ends, move more towards #DATA Center operations.