If you want to be a lineman, your going to have to grunt, it pays a check, just not a big one. Be willing to do the grunt work and watch, learn, ask questions at the right time, Ie dont stand there holding up the lasher and crew to ask how does that wire wrap around like that.
In time after proving your worthy of the linemans time he will teach you all you need to know. But nothing is free, Pay your dues and make it worth his effort to teach you.
If you want to be a splicer, you really need some experience in cable and already have an understanding about how rf works. Usually you will work with a real splicer and again ask questions at the right time( usually at night while your sitting with him building his parts for the next day). Once he sees that your dependable enough he will start letting you cut in a few taps, before you know it you will be doing his taps all day, once you have mastered that and proven you understand all the rules and show that you have some pride in how your locations look and work he will start letting you splice in line extenders. Before you know it you will be getting your own runs and while he is splicing in the power supplies, node and the trunk you will be banging out feeder, once the trunk is in and activated he will prob let you set up your line extenders, and test the eols. (never let the eols slide, no matter how sure you are its good. One splicer skipping his eols can make the whole group look like hacks) when splicing remember a sweep tech will sweep through every location you splice. you can do 500 locations perfect in a node and do 6 bad ones and in the shop all they will talk about is whoever spliced this node is a hack. Never let the mso tech be called out to your node.
I always get to know the mso on call techs. Go out of your way to help them. If you see them stop, give them a hand, whatever it takes. Your fault or not, if the mso has to go out to your node for any reason you look bad. Very many times and your gone. Contracting is not for the lazy tech, if you want to be lazy go inhouse where its expected.
After you have troubleshot some shorts, bad equipment, suck outs, etc you will be learning what happens when its not done correctly, over time you will develop skills that last a lifetime. Nothing teaches you faster than climbing that pole a second(third) time to resplice the output connector of the tap because you assumed it was good the first time you were there.
To ask how long it takes, well each person is different and each mentor is different. But it is all on you. I know I cant tell you how many times I starved when I started. I had a family and at times didnt have a home but I never gave up. I refuse to ever let anything in this business beat me.
Now it comes to sweep and system maintenance. In order to be able to properly and in a timely manner troubleshoot during a system sweep you need to have already mastered splicing as 80 % of the issues you have to troubleshoot are splice related.
As with all other fields you really should start just like you did when splicing or being a lineman and start at the bottom, for little pay. Sucks but again nothing in life is free. Usually you find a good sweep tech and start flagging for him, he will let you start by doing eols.
The skills you develop doing eols are invaluable. Dont run to the sweep tech when you have a bad trace, figure it out. hit those poles.
Resplice those passives. replace those connectors. Nothing more satisfying than chasing out your first suckout finding a bad connector and then hitting your eol to find a 2.8 ptv. And the levels within 2 db of design. Take pride, dont let your mind worry about how much your making. Your working on your future right now not your bank account.
Once you bang out a few hundred eols for the sweep tech and show him 15 locations you respliced and you have had to empty your meter at lunch because it was to full of traces to finish the day he will see you have what it takes. If you make it to this point he will then start showing you the les. it will be slow and confusing and you prob wont be able to complete it in record time but be satisfied that your learning. All thoughout the day the sweep tech will be calling you telling you that power inserter, splitter, dc, tap, etc needs respliced. Dont let your head start thinking why dont he do it himself. He is teaching you, do all you can for the guy. Remember he had to do somebody elses splicing to get where he is. Always, I repeat Always hook your meter up and see what it is that makes him say you have to resplice. Then when your done look again and see if its gone. In this business you need to have initiative. If your the kind of guy who always looks for the easiest way out you should not have got into this in the first place.
One day it will all fit together and then before you know it you will get your own print, start out with refining your quality skills. Speed is important but at first you need to make sure your doing it right, repetitive doing it right is what develops speed. That is where most go wrong. They see the experienced sweep tech banging out 10000 feet and they only got 4000. that makes a tech start cutting corners.
The worst thing you can ever do it let something slip that you think wont get caught, usually its that easement run that you think nobody would go check. its just a little out of spec as the suckout aint that bad. If you ever get to that point and you let the difficulty beat you its time to go back to installs.
I will tell you when qcing sweepers, splicers etc. that is what I look for, the toughest runs, the worst poles. And that is where I go first.
Dont ever let anything beat you or take away that pride you developed way back when when you fixed your first suck out.
Remember if it isnt in spec it can be fixed. No matter what it is.
If it takes 2 days to troubleshoot something then, that is your fault and you should take that as a challenge. Don take the easy way out. And dont ever ever cover it up. That is a habit that is like smoking, almost impossible to quit.
Money is important to us all, but dont let the quality of your work ever be compromised by the need for money. If your not making the money you need to it is always your fault. Either you didnt negotiate properly or your skill level is not perfect, either way never never throw away your ethics. If you cant get the footage because the plant is eat up, renegotiate or walk away. If you cant get the footage because your slow then suck it up, learn from your mistakes. Stay out there well into the dark, get up early, do whatever it takes. I have found if you just get your head set that nothing can beat you you will prosper. All along the way know that this business is a competition, everybody wants to do it, alot of guys are doing it. Strive to do it better than they do. You have the advantage because for every tech that sets his 1st priority to quality there are a hundred that just care about the money they make today. The ones who last, the ones who get called to the next job are the ones who proved they are dependable and deserve that 5000 a week paycheck. You will always see hacks banging out more footage, but in 2 years when your on the next gig they will be looking for work. You will see them on here looking for work.
Good splicers and sweep techs hardly ever have to look for work.
Ok I will quit ranting here, I hope that this helps.
It isnt rocket science but a rocket scientist would have a heck of a time trying to do what we do. Remember if you could learn to do it in a week then it prob aint worth learning.
My best advice would be strive to be the best you can be, never let anything beat you. And dont do yourself long term harm by letting yourself be lazy. Good luck bro.
