Little Question:
After scoping and board-swapping, I finally gave up on an instrument
with no high-band or low-band receive and called in factory service.
The problem was solved by replacing these little SMB cables that
route a lot of the RF pathway on this instrument, but neither the
first nor the second service rep who arrived accomplished the repair
- I did it myself.
Now, low-band receive is out again (neither X-nucleus or H2 gradient
shimming works, which rules out the probe) and I suspect these mini
SMB cables are again the culprit. Any idea why they go out and where
is a good place to go to stock up?
Bigger Question:
When I was young in this business, the best NMR repair technicians
were trained in electronics by the Navy. Why not Army or Air Force? I
was told (by a Navy electronics tech) that the Army has lots of
e-techs but that each one knows only a particular job. Because Navy
e-techs have a tendency to be ship-bound, they are limited in number
and must have a much broader skill set.
Fast forward several years and I am talking to Al Gauthier (hope I
spelled that right), head of North American service for Bruker if I
recall correctly. He tells me that now NMR service organizations do
not necessarily want electronics experts who can be taught some NMR
and a smidgen of chemistry; they want chemists who know NMR and can
be taught some electronic diagnostic procedures. Complete reversal.
In this year of 2007, I have clients who once knew how to lock and
shim but who no longer know it. They rely completely on automation.
When I was an undergrad, I was taught that it was important to
understand how chemical instrumentation worked. This concept has been
abandoned, at least at my university. It is so bad that, even though
most users want proton only, they consider the crippled instrument
unusable because they cannot lock or shim manually.
Now that the ready availability of automated spectrometers has made
NMR operation possible even for lesser(?) primates, where are the
knowledgeable, skilled NMR field repair techs going to come from? I
have seen astounding incompetence lately (my being asked, after 8
hours of labor, what the proton frequency of the instrument is).
I request that the Steering Committee of AMMRL (of which I am a
member) discuss off-list whether we should invite NMR service
supervisors to respond to the question of whether universities should
provide opportunities for chemistry students to learn what they need
to know to be trained to service our NMR instruments and to replace
us when our time comes to step down. I have proposed this since Linda
Lohr's 2001 presentation to AMMRL at ENC (see
http://opie.nmr.siu.edu/certification.html ). My offerings have not
been acknowledged.
Sorry to go on so long.
Bill
William C. Stevens, Ph.D. Director
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Facility
Southern Illinois University
Carbondale, IL 62901
618-453-6498 voice / -6408 fax / 521-9892 cell
http://opie.nmr.siu.edu
Received on Fri Jul 20 2007 - 12:07:14 MST