It has been a few weeks since we had a most unwelcome visit from Hurricane Irene in the New Bern area. Most of us are getting back to near normality, but the curbsides are still piled with trees and branches brought down by the storm.
It was not that the winds were as high as some of the hurricanes in the past, but this one was spread over a wide area and seemed to stall along the coast, driving the water further and further upriver. The land is pretty flat around eastern North Carolina, so a few feet of flood water goes a long way.
On Sunday when the waters had subsided, we found ourselves without power, phone or internet service, even the cell phone towers were out in many areas. We headed out to the iNARTE office fearing the worst for our 120 year old building, and dreading the mess that we would find in the basement file cabinets. But there it stood, unscathed, with a dry basement, porch lights lit, telephones working and the internet up and running. We were “business as usual” on Monday and, in fact, our office became almost home for a week where we could charge our phones and keep in contact with the world.
Yes, that really is a mail box sticking out of the water.
ESDA SYMPOSIUM 2011
Unfortunately, we were still clearing up the mess at our house when it was time to leave for the ESDA symposium in Anaheim. It was a difficult decision, but this year we had to miss the ESDA event. Our thanks go to the ESDA members and symposium organizers who set up our booth, displayed the literature, registered candidates for examination, and proctored our certification exams.
As usual we offered certification examinations at both Engineer and Technician levels, and, for the first time, this year a new short-form examination specifically for people who already hold the ESDA Program Manager Certification. Several ESDA certificate holders took advantage of this new exam, which concentrates on subject matter not generally well covered in the Program Manager training syllabus. Passing the short form-exam will result in the candidate being awarded full iNARTE certification together with a special endorsement as an “ESD Control Program Manager”.
MASTER EMC DESIGN ENGINEER CERTIFICATION
Grandfather applications are being received now for certification as a Master EMC Design Engineer. The grandfather period will end on December 31, 2011, after which time all applicants will need to be examined, regardless of seniority and experience. Even today, more than 20 years after the original iNARTE EMC certification was introduced, we meet engineers who tell us they regret having missed out on grandfathering back
then and have never had the time to bone up and schedule the examination since. Don’t let this happen to you, get your application in now from www.narte.org/d/emcdegrfapp.pdf.
If you are just starting your career as an EMC Design Engineer, then the examination papers that we have ready now are exactly tailored to the knowledge base that industry expects of you, and validating your knowledge with this credential would be a valuable asset for you.
By year end we will have the next level examination ready for the Senior EMC Design Engineer, so all of you out there with 5 or more years working experience in this field can register for examination starting in January 2012.
Remember, this is a closed book examination and certificates are issued for life with no requirement to renew annually in order to remain current. Certificate holders will be under no obligation to upgrade as they gain experience, but this option will be available.
RABQSA – 6 DOWN, 6 TO GO
We are now at the halfway point of our 12 month honeymoon with RABQSA. In six months from now we expect to be fully merged, thereby creating the world’s largest personnel credentialing association with almost 15,000 certificate holders.
After the merger, iNARTE will continue with its present certification programs and the iNARTE name will continue as a brand of the new organization. With the greater global visibility and presence of RABQSA, iNARTE will be able to identify new opportunities for personal competency certification in a wider range of disciplines, and our current certificate holders will rapidly become part of a much larger and more visible organization.
IEEE PSES SYMPOSIUM 2011
This week iNARTE is exhibiting and promoting the advantages of certification at the annual PSES symposium. This year the event is at the Mission Valley Hilton in San Diego, and after some recent rainy weather, San Diego is back to its usual 70 degrees and sunny. The IEEE PSES is one of the smaller IEEE societies and their symposium fits neatly into a hotel ballroom and conference complex. This year about 125 attendees were registered, together with another 30 or so personnel staffing 16 exhibition booths.
The PSES currently has a dedicated and enthusiastic membership of a little less than 900. iNARTE has a total of 375 certificate holders in this discipline. However, almost 50% of iNARTE members are in Japan, where relatively few are members of the PSES. Both of us will be working hard to improve these statistics in 2012, when it is hoped that a Japanese Chapter of the PSES can be founded and new PSES members will want to validate their knowledge and experience through iNARTE certification.
REGISTER FOR CERTIFICATION EXAMS
There are no more symposiums or workshop events planned for 2011 where iNARTE will proctor certification examination. However, all examination candidates should visit our web site at www.narte.org/h/testcenters.asp to find an Authorized Test Center that is convenient for travel. Then, on the registration page at www.narte.org/h/examregform.asp, just enter that selected test center and we will make the arrangements from that point.
If none of our centers are conveniently located for you, please e-mail or call our office. We can probably arrange one of the following alternatives:
- Find a local Community College that is willing to proctor an exam.
- Set up arrangements with a responsible person from another department in your own company who is willing to proctor the exam.
- Sometimes a local public librarywill provide a quiet room and a proctor.
QUESTION OF THE MONTH
Last month we asked:
A discrete inductor mounted on a printed-circuit board is modeled at low frequencies as a pure inductance. At higher frequencies, the lumped-element model is?
A. A parallel resistance, inductance, and capacitance circuit
B. Still a pure inductance
C. A series resistance, inductance and capacitance circuit
D. A pure resistance
The correct answer is A. A parallel resistance, inductance, and capacitance circuit
This month’s question is from the Product Safety Engineering field:
What is the minimum acceptable insulation thickness for primary windings of a limited power supply transformer of an IT product operated at 120VAC?
A. 1.0 mm
B. 0.4 mm
C. 0.1 mm
D. 0.8 mm
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Brian Lawrence began his career in electro-magnetics at Plessey Research Labs, designing “Stealth” materials for the British armed services. In 1973 he moved to the USA and established a new manufacturing plant for Plessey to provide these materials to the US Navy. In 1980 he joined the “Rayproof” organization to develop an RF Anechoic Test Chamber product line. As a result of acquisitions, Rayproof merged into Lindgren RF Enclosures, and later into ETS-Lindgren. Following a career spanning more than 40 years in the electromagnetic compatibility field, Brian Lawrence retired as Managing Director of ETS-Lindgren UK in 2006. Later that year he assumed the position of Executive Director for the National Association of Radio and Telecommunications Engineers, NARTE. Now renamed iNARTE, the Association has expanded its operations and is today an affiliate of RABQSA under the overall banner of the American Society for Quality, ASQ. |
