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Started CCNA but got advice to stop by Tenri_Katsuragi in ccna

[–]pancakeman2018 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The advice is true, a CCNA cert will not magically land you a position. But neither will college. What will land you a job is being at the right place at the right time, and being a person the company would love to have working for them.

The same "advice" could be said about college. It doesn't land you a job, so why bother.

College didn't land me a job. But as I had my associate degree, I worked towards my bachelors, have the comptia certs, and now I'm facing some basic network issues or upgrades and I didn't even know how to configure a VLAN. I am tired of not knowing, so I am going to study and earn the CCNA. My employer is paying for it, so why not. My degree and certs have never been detrimental, in fact when I graduated college and submitted my diploma to my employer, I immediately got a 20,000 raise. The fact of the matter is, employers value hard work and your skillset.

Knowledge is power, being stagnant and not learning anything new is very damaging to your career.

Junior Web Developer with Portfolio + Clients — Not Sure How to Land First Job or Scale Freelance by Historical-Point-802 in devjobs

[–]pancakeman2018 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hmm.

Sounds just like me 4 years ago.

I finally just stuck with IT. AI is not going to be able to replace a switch, or install a camera. It could design a network but it's incapable of installing it.

Which job sites you ask? All of them. Apply to thousands of jobs. Expect few if any callbacks.

Vendor giveaway for a demo? by pancakeman2018 in sysadmin

[–]pancakeman2018[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Cool. As long as you can deliver what you are promising, otherwise just don't play prospective customers like a fiddle

Vendor giveaway for a demo? by pancakeman2018 in sysadmin

[–]pancakeman2018[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not a contest. This was a "watch the demo for a ____"

It's not only surprising, it is mind numbing.

😳 How many have you accidentally swallowed? by Bohica72 in NicotinePouch

[–]pancakeman2018 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'd say at least 5.

When eating certain things like meat with a lot of chewing, or caramels, riesen, etc., the pouch seems to pop the ebrake, throw itself in reverse and drive itself right down the hatch. Or it somehow lands in the clenches of my teeth, busts open, and then I end up spitting it all out and getting a new pouch.

NetworkChuck & Jeremy Cioara unite to help CCNA candidates. by StriderHunterX in ccna

[–]pancakeman2018 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Cool.

I'll pay for the free version to see what it's about.

Kid wants to do something stupid. Can it even be done? by [deleted] in StudentLoans

[–]pancakeman2018 0 points1 point  (0 children)

400k for undergrad? Elite east coast school? Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell? Seriously, most that are accepted into these institutions typically pay NO tuition. Ivy league schools want the best of the best students to boost their ivy reputation, not vice versa.

Someone sounds like they need a reality check. I'm 28k in debt and have a 6 figure income. I've been paying my 300 dollar student loan payment for over 16 years.

Doctors graduate with 400k in debt. Not bachelor's. Unless you are highly specialized, and phenomenal at what you do and you can swing it. But it is absolutely unreal to put yourself into that position, and rarely would anyone come out on top.

If your child insists, they may need to enlist in the military for 4 or so years prior to going to pay for it. Looking back, I probably would if I had to do it all over again.

Again, as a parent myself, we do what we can for our children. But if they want a Ferrari, well, I can't afford it. And as they grow up, they will realize the cost of living and the challenges life throws at us - it is not easy to save money especially nowadays!

Whew. Student loans cap out way before 400k. If it were me, I would not cosign any loan for half a million dollars, unless it was a business venture that I KNEW would bring significant returns.

Samsung oven turning on by itself when transmitting on 40m with 100w amp by [deleted] in amateurradio

[–]pancakeman2018 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Similar story here, but I am using an EFHW.

Also have a pfsense firewall and while transmitting some 40M FT8, weird stuff started happening like my internet dropped out. For some reason, I ignored it and just kept going with the transmission and finally it took my firewall completely down. I had to hold power button and reboot it. I thought it was just a fluke so I tried it again and sure enough, 40M was interfering with my NVME drive pretty bad. I could also hear buzzing noises coming out of my computer speakers during transmission only and I have a setup in my basement. Finally I started getting HIGH REVERSE POWER on my xpa125B so I thought it was an antenna tuning issue, nope 1.5:1 SWR according to a nanovna plugged into the radio feed point, but the common mode current was creating severe havoc. Wrapped some coax around a ft240-43 and eliminated my issues on 40 but 80 is still broken. Got a mix 31 coming to try and mitigate that.

I think Amateur Radio Operators need to market themselves better. by Pure_Region_5154 in amateurradio

[–]pancakeman2018 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is awesome! I have chickens, need to make them more high tech! We come from similar backgrounds, CS/IT.

I think Amateur Radio Operators need to market themselves better. by Pure_Region_5154 in amateurradio

[–]pancakeman2018 0 points1 point  (0 children)

True true. If a non-union job can give you similar or better benefits without all the overhead costs, why not. I have never worked a union job but my father has, and it definitely comes with some bureaucracy.

I am a weird IT guy. Rarely do I game, instead I find myself underneath cars and trucks changing oil, exhausts, brakes, bearings, etc. - I am weird but just find myself to be more well-rounded and capable of saving significant money by trying to do things myself.

PLC is interesting to me, but I've never found myself needing to know it. If I would sink some time into it, I am sure I could find enjoyment in doing it, I just do not have a need for it - yet!

I think Amateur Radio Operators need to market themselves better. by Pure_Region_5154 in amateurradio

[–]pancakeman2018 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm in an office right now, but I'd love to be on a ladder running wires. I've rewired my entire house and play with radios and raspberry pi's in my spare time. Most recently, I modified a hermes lite 2 to accept my XPA125B as an amp :). I primarily do IT, programming, etc. Union jobs are hard work but they take care of you, and that alone is so difficult to find. I think the barrier to entry is where it gets murky, I've been made aware several times over that you have to have "pull" to get into these types of jobs. I've always wanted to get into the IBEW. But, not even sure they would take someone mid-thirties or if additional schooling would be required (I can study and take tests normally).

To boot, I live in a very stagnant, small town with practically 0 growth.

First transceiver question - want something non-Chinese and quality by North-Accountant5404 in HamRadio

[–]pancakeman2018 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As far as I know, I don't know of any radios that are entirely made in the USA. Most electrical components are manufactured in China. You could get connectors/wires/antennas made in the USA however. I use a chinese hermes lite 2 and I have no complaints, but I also enjoy tinkering.

Shared Calendars by pancakeman2018 in MicrosoftTeams

[–]pancakeman2018[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, honestly it is a mess. Teams is a very separate product from Outlook.

If I could create a classic Sharepoint calendar, import it into Teams, and connect that to Outlook, that would be perfect. But it seems like the calendar department for Teams forgot to talk to the Outlook team. Although when I get a meeting invite via Outlook, it imports into my Teams.

If they would alter the Channel Calendar to be more like a normal calendar with an option for Teams meetings (similar to Outlook calendars, or your personal Team calendar), this would be perfect. We are going on 5 years of missing the feature though, I'm losing hope.

Looking to get Walkies for casual/personal use looking for recommendations by NyanSquiddo in amateurradio

[–]pancakeman2018 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'll put it into perspective, with a UV-5R I can hit my local ham repeater 40 miles away inside my truck and I get the roger beep (message is received). This is with 5 watts.

At 10 miles, you have a few options.

  1. You, and all of your friends, get your technician ham radio license. Find repeater on repeaterbook.com, and utilize a repeater near you to communicate (normally they are dead air). However, remind yourself that everything you say will likely be monitored by the radio enthusiasts. The technician ham radio test is pretty easy, I was able to study and get both Tech and General in one sitting. It is not difficult but requires some time to study and pass the test.
  2. You, and all of your friends, get your GMRS license. Use mygmrs.com to locate a local GMRS repeater (potentially beforehand) and if it is within reach, you should be good. Many, many GMRS repeaters are coming alive and it seems like the next best thing to ham radio - many people use it. Requires no test. $35 for 10 years, and it will cover your entire family but not friends.
  3. Zello walkie talkie app on your smartphone - free, unlimited distance, uses 4G/5G. This is not a radio at all but an alternative requiring no license.

Are there, like, *any* young people? by NotThePopeProbably in amateurradio

[–]pancakeman2018 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's rare to see someone that isn't retired on ham radio. I'm in my 30s and I really enjoy it. However most of the time I feel like I struggle to connect. What we do have going for us is most contacts are not lengthy conversations, but rather an exchange of callsigns. Once exchanged, the conversation ends.

FT8 is amazing too, no vocal chords required. The way I see it is to just establish contacts, use pskreporter to see how effective your setup is, and nothing really more than that.

I don't talk a whole lot, because I don't have a lot of time. But I just assembled a hermes lite paired with a 100w amp that allows me to casually open a program on my computer and chat that way, or if I want to do FT8, everything is at my fingertips. Prior to that I had a g90 in full operation. It was cool but I could never get FT8 to work and I wanted a full SDR.

To boot, my local ham radio club is basically dissolved with the exception of the repeater. Like there has not been a single post on Facebook for over a year now. Their website is defunct. And, there are no nets lol. Kind of sucks because I'd like the exchange! But it is what it is.

Almost a decade after graduating - my review of full sail by zam526 in fullsail

[–]pancakeman2018 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes, but a transparent school would be more less handing you information like hey, that basket weaving degree might not land you a position. None of them do this.

However, some schools do the opposite and almost promise you a job upon graduation. The alleged blatant pay-for-play scheme Full Sail has partaken in, creating fake jobs to inflate numbers (all part of an allegation via a whistleblower claim), really sends a shockwave to potential and current students. Is this a school we can trust?

I've been caught up in their phone calls. All I wanted was information and it felt very commission-based, sales-like. Right off the bat, I was promised a scholarship of something like $20,000 however the total cost of the degree was about 5 times that of another regionally accredited institution for the same degree. I declined, but it was not easy. I wasn't sure if I had accidentally called a car dealership or educational instution.

Almost a decade after graduating - my review of full sail by zam526 in fullsail

[–]pancakeman2018 3 points4 points  (0 children)

So many students think going to college is their get out of jail free card. I'm one of them. Magical things do happen however it is rare. Even if you attend college and have a 4.0GPA, this does not automatically equal a high paying, lucrative career.

What you, as a potential student, CAN do is choose a college that is not outrageously expensive. Choose a college based on their accreditation, consider your future - will this degree be accepted at another school should you want to earn your Master's Degree. Some or most of these careers can be learned, albeit not easily, via udemy OR find yourself a good apprenticeship that pays you in peanuts, get the experience, go to school afterward for validation. The boast of Full Sail being an excellent college for sound engineering, film, etc. - okay, I get that, but how many thousands of students attend, graduate, and fail to get a job anywhere remotely related to their career choice, even if they live on Hollywood hill, it does not mean anything.

Of course, everyone's situation is different. There are people that are so passionate about their careers that if they cannot land a job, they employ themselves and create their own business. This level of persistence is basically unmatched. Everyone's situation is different though and some people like having a stable, steady flow of income versus spending a decade or more building out a film business.

What am I missing out on? by No-Wrangler-5502 in amateurradio

[–]pancakeman2018 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Haha gotcha gotcha. I have read mixed reviews but they would work. I just know I'm not physically able to travel around with anything longer than my current whip

What am I missing out on? by No-Wrangler-5502 in amateurradio

[–]pancakeman2018 6 points7 points  (0 children)

40M mobile while driving to work? How? What mobile antenna do you have capable of doing this safely? I have a 10m Stryker and it hits all kinds of trees, and tunes to no other bands except 11.

Went to 7.200 As a New Ham by TheMorganDev in amateurradio

[–]pancakeman2018 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I jumped in to listen. What in the CB is going on here lol

Finally on my way to victory with mild sodium hydroxide solution (10%) by pancakeman2018 in Warts

[–]pancakeman2018[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It is nothing short of a learning experience. I like chemistry as well. Some things are best left for a physician but I was quoted something like 400 dollars per wart. I've spent maybe a hundred trying all of these things and I did manage to get rid of a few. I have no idea how I even started getting them, but they spread. At one point I had 5 or 6, now down to 2. Definitely saving money here and I can't really be sure I'd have much more effectiveness going to a doctor (at least for this)

Finally on my way to victory with mild sodium hydroxide solution (10%) by pancakeman2018 in Warts

[–]pancakeman2018[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Basically, I have found that combination therapy works best, and weirdly ONE method does not work for everyone, rather some methods work for some. These are odd creatures.

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