An @nhs.net email doesn't mean "this person/organisation is a part of the NHS", it means they provide services to the NHS and need to deal with patient data.

A lot of NHS traffic goes through a few large networks like THIS [https://www.this.nhs.uk/home/] which don't have especially large IP allocations.

Of course it isn't. I live in the UK.

(I don't know if this is addressed in the article - the site seems to have fallen over.)

It's not a great situation, having everything so centralised on London, but it's a small enough country that it doesn't have a huge effect on latency. It would make no sense for AWS to locate in a non-London region when everything would then have to be backhauled to London.

It's more a case of treat others how you want to be treated - I hate being on the receiving end of neighbour noise so I take care not to be the cause of it myself.

It's not a field that's totally unknown to me, otherwise I wouldn't be considering it. I've had an amateur radio licence and been active since I was a teenager - a full UK licence, not the Foundation ones that they hand out now. I've designed my own antennas, built and repaired my own kit, organised DXpeditions, I'm experimenting with SDR. It's something I have a genuine interest in.

I'm not the sort of person who considers any kind of work 'beneath me' otherwise I wouldn't be doing this in the first place. Work is work, a means to an end. I just don't feel like insecure, non-technical, paper-shuffling public sector administrative work is really the best use of my skill set and aptitudes.

RF engineering seems like a field with a future and a bit more security. I mean, there's very little these days that doesn't have a radio of some kind inside it. I'm just not sure how to get into it as a professional career, what qualifications I'd need, that sort of thing. I have A-levels even though I have no degree, but my A-levels aren't in the sciences because at 16 I was convinced I wanted to be a journalist. Is it something you need to go to university and get a degree to do, or are there more vocational qualifications or apprenticeships you can do instead? As far as I can tell, the degree route would require a three-year BSc in electrical engineering or similar, followed by an MSc to specialise in the radio side of things.

Is this a path anyone else here has taken? What routes are there into this kind of career? It really feels like the thing I want to do to feel more challenged, more fulfilled, in order to get out of being everyone's assistant and into a role where I actually am something. Thanks all so much in advance for your help!

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12404027

Points: 5

# Comments: 3

I bin them, but I suspect there are at least a few people who will go "hey, I can wing that" and respond depending on their level of desperation.

I used to write blog posts in WordGrinder in a terminal over SSH (so it looked like work) then post them when I got home. It kept me sane until I'd saved up enough money to quit and find something a bit more rewarding.