Comments on: Proposed Training For Green Installers

By: Amy Gilroy

Amy Gilroy — Fri, 28 Aug 2020 16:11:27 +0000

In reply to Andy Wexehimerwisenhoffer. Thank you Andy. I hope someone or group takes you up on the offer!

By: bobbg

bobbg — Fri, 28 Aug 2020 16:07:48 +0000

I also went sort of the same path, but I serviced used car dealers lots for sevral years on my own.
Were talking old cars with 2 knob radios stuffed in the dash you had to tear 1/2 the dash apart just to get the factory radio out of. I did this for years.
Then finally a distributor gave me a chance doing car lots for them, I’d never done alarms, and I was not good with them and were just talking 3 wire units.
That job didn’t last long but a retail store hired me and it was a very busy shop, with a lot of installers.
I learned some from them, learned some on my own and figured things out as I went along.
There is no reason you can’t set this up like an apprenticeship program. I also do not belive MECP delivers all of what it should have, sure you can read the books and take a test but do you really understand the content. This became very clear to me when I kept seeing cars come into our shop with 2 12″ @4 ohms in a comon chamber box wired in stereo on an amp.
And the chain stores sales person who had mecp certification kept selling this to people then they would try to hook it up as a mono block amp but its 2 ohm stereo stable 4 ohm mono stable. They just did not understand the concept. JL AUDIO KIND OF FIXED this problem with the slash series amp, but the national chain did not sell JL Audio and still don’t.
A store is only as good as its weakest link.
And sometimes that’s on the showroom floor.
A salesman should know both ends of the business not just product knologe. Every installer should also know both ends as well.
Yes I had mecp certification from 25 years ago near when it started, I knew the people who started this
I’d been in that store sevral times before they sold it.
I’d even tried years before mecp started to get hired by them. Insted I worked for 2 of there competors for 17 years. Now at my age I don’t care to crawl under someone’s dash. If the outlook for mobile electronics wasn’t in the shape it is now, I’d probably open a store.
But its bleak where will it be in 5 years? 10 years?
Do you really want to pull out the factory system, and is the aftermarket stuff any better?
Why pull out a system made by Alpine to install a karco? Sadly I’ve seen it done. Well maybe not kraco but some of you older guys know what I’m talking about. The whole reason to do any aftermarket is to make it sound better or play a different format media.
And some cars you might as well forget it on.
The cost and or problems pily up way beyond the outcome.

By: Andy Wexehimerwisenhoffer

Andy Wexehimerwisenhoffer — Fri, 28 Aug 2020 16:07:40 +0000

I don’t have a lot of extra time, but I’d be willing to make some for this project. I have lots of questions, though and they aren’t easy ones.

By: Todd Ramsey

Todd Ramsey — Fri, 28 Aug 2020 15:25:54 +0000

Tony has some great ideas there. One thing he mentions is “To build this is more than a one person job. It will take a team of people and a reasonable amount of financial resources……”

Who then is that group or collective who makes the investment to lean into this kind of effort?

By: Jason Sayen

Jason Sayen — Fri, 28 Aug 2020 14:57:10 +0000

Tony is on to something with this. It’s is a great idea and very much needed. When I started in this industry, I was a hobbyist and no one would hire me because I had no experience. I went to Installer Institute and got my MECP certification but that didn’t seem to hold the weight that I had hoped. Through persistence I was able to get a company to hire me and I fell on my face a few times because I had knowledge but no experience and they didn’t have a training program. It’s the common chicken vs egg scenario.

Some sort of hands on program or apprenticeship program would be great. Electricians have apprenticeship programs that work well. I’m working on something like this for the CEDIA channel as we have the same program.

Now is the time, there are a lot of people out of work with lots of growth opportunity for the CE industry for both home and car.