National Technical Schools?

Buckaroo · Post by **Buckaroo** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 10:43 pm

Hi,

What happened to National Technical Schools?

I recently went through back issues of different Electronic magainzes before I threw them out and it brought back many memories. It was kind of scary. I've got issues dating back to 1981. Anyhow, I completed a microcomputer course through National Technical Schools and I tried to find them on the internet.

I have discovered that they went out of business sometime in the 90's.

Anyone have any information on what happened. Did NTS get bought out by another school?

JPKNHTP · Post by **JPKNHTP** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 1:29 am

-JPKNHTP

Buckaroo · Post by **Buckaroo** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 1:39 am

Well, I haven't thrown them out yet. I've got them stacked up in a box ready to take out to the dumpster tomorrow.

I've been carrying these things back and forth across the country too many times over the past 20 some years. I am tearing out several interesting articles out of some of them.

Dean Huster · Post by **Dean Huster** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 2:28 pm

I've got issues dating back to 1981.

Those are recent issues! Most of mine go back into the early 1960s and some into the mid-1950s and I have duplicates of many issues. I also have been hauling around those boxes and boxes of magazines (man, clay-coated paper is heavy!), but throw them out? Even in this day of PICs and PLLs, there are a lot of projects in those old magazines that were fun to build and still would be. Projects from the 1960s-era Popular Electronics and Electronics Illustrated were classics. Many of those older projects could still be very useful if adapted to today's components. I have enough "old" components that I could build most of the stuff from back then.

Dean

Robert Reed · Post by **Robert Reed** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 5:00 pm

Dean
Just curious-- in your archive of old electronics magazines, do you still have the Radio-Electronics copy of March, 1968. There is a construction project in it titled "A Modulation Oscilloscope".
This was the very first article I authored. I had just started working in an R&D lab fulltime and had a partime bussiness I was running at the same time in Ship to Shore Radiotelephone service( the big hi-power AM rigs which preceded the FM rigs a few years later). Shortly after that article, I redesigned the 'Scope to solid state and half the size, however I was so busy at the time and for the next 15 years runnig this part time bussiness, I never had time to publish it.

Buckaroo · Post by **Buckaroo** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 5:39 pm

Robert Reed wrote:Dean
Just curious-- in your archive of old electronics magazines, do you still have the Radio-Electronics copy of March, 1968. There is a construction project in it titled "A Modulation Oscilloscope".
This was the very first article I authored. I had just started working in an R&D lab fulltime and had a partime bussiness I was running at the same time in Ship to Shore Radiotelephone service( the big hi-power AM rigs which preceded the FM rigs a few years later). Shortly after that article, I redesigned the 'Scope to solid state and half the size, however I was so busy at the time and for the next 15 years runnig this part time bussiness, I never had time to publish it.

Hurry up and get it published so you can share it with the rest of us (through whatever magazine that publishes it).

Buckaroo · Post by **Buckaroo** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 7:26 pm

Does anyone have the May 2000 issue of Poptronics? I have heard that there is some information about National Technical Schools demise.

Timothy Rasch · Post by **Timothy Rasch** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 8:44 pm

Hi I have the Poptronics May 2000 intact ,I looked through the pages for the School but there is no mention of it anywhere. I have the same type of nostalgic thing with a Company called J.C.DEAGAN Company in Chicago. I worked on the 6th floor of that building from Aug-Dec 1974 for a firm called Flexible Lighting [RF lighting]. The Deagan Company was a Familly Owned xylophone,etc. old Company now taken over by Yamaha. I went to Devry while working part time for Flexible Lighting.The memories are hard to let go . I really enjoyed working at Flexible Lighting during that short time. My School days ended around December 1974.
Tim Rasch [email protected]

Buckaroo · Post by **Buckaroo** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 9:19 pm

Is there any mention in the Letters section, usually around page 12.

My Poptronics subscription ran out on April 2000.

Timothy Rasch · Post by **Timothy Rasch** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 10:09 pm

Hi I really searched Poptronics May 2000 and found the article on page 54. It says : Sadly ,after a long and distinguished history[1905],NTS went bankrupt and ceased operations around 1992, according to Los Angeles Times. It goes on to say :Old institutions seem to die off fastest when the economy is strong---- one of the few disadvantages of prosperity. I wonder what My School Devry is doing yet? It seems the technical Colleges of today[ITT included] are all teaching Networking ,Criminal Justice and no more hands on electronic servicing or Electronics Engineering as I know it. Everything is Computer CRAP now to keep Bill Gates going !!! Something has to be done about this trend !! ,I would like the Schools to teach more practical things as mentioned before and with students inventive ideas and with computer aided design . As you know ,not every circuit can be simulated properly : it must be built[prototyped] ,tested , Debugged,improved.
Also a person has to have a real good job to support the greedy schools $40000 for two years . I could keep going on but I think I made my point pretty clear. I am retired now >30 years of servicing consumerElectronics.
I do some servicing yet as my own side jobs,not much money in this anymore. Tim Rasch [email protected]

Buckaroo · Post by **Buckaroo** » Sat Sep 02, 2006 10:20 am

It would really suck for those in the middle of taking a course. All of a sudden their investment is gone. I wonder what the government and companies did when the student could not prove completion at the end where they would normally get reimbursed.

Dean Huster · Post by **Dean Huster** » Sat Sep 02, 2006 12:55 pm

Yep, Robert, my inventory sheet says that I have a copy of the March 1968 issue of Radio-Electronics, but it's in storage all boxed up at this time, so I can't get it out and check out the article.

Everyone's subscription to Poptronics (and my job with them) ran out with the January 2003 issue and many had new subscriptions or renewals to Nuts & Volts about that same time!

Electronics schools all over the nation, especially those public-funded vo-techs, are dying or totally gone. The program I used to teach was replaced by "computer repair". No one is interested in pure electronics anymore as evidenced by the lack of schools and hobbyist magazines as compared to what we had in the 1960s and 1970s. Electronics as a hobby is slowly being moved into a similar category as black powder weaponry or antique furniture repair.

Dean

Buckaroo · Post by **Buckaroo** » Sat Sep 02, 2006 4:44 pm

Dean Huster wrote:Yep, Robert, my inventory sheet says that I have a copy of the March 1968 issue of Radio-Electronics, but it's in storage all boxed up at this time, so I can't get it out and check out the article.

Everyone's subscription to Poptronics (and my job with them) ran out with the January 2003 issue and many had new subscriptions or renewals to Nuts & Volts about that same time!

Electronics schools all over the nation, especially those public-funded vo-techs, are dying or totally gone. The program I used to teach was replaced by "computer repair". No one is interested in pure electronics anymore as evidenced by the lack of schools and hobbyist magazines as compared to what we had in the 1960s and 1970s. Electronics as a hobby is slowly being moved into a similar category as black powder weaponry or antique furniture repair.

Dean

I believe you are right. It's a shame, not everything can be created with a software program. I get the impression most people are interested in Information Technology. I've asked a few with IT degrees and they were taught how to use a bunch of computer software, i.e. excel, web development, maybe virtual basic, etc.

Robert Reed · Post by **Robert Reed** » Sat Sep 02, 2006 5:15 pm

Dean
I was going to ask you for a copy of that article since I thought I had lost that issue forever. That is until yesterday when my wife directed me to a couple of boxes hidden by some of here artwork back in a dark corner of the attic. Voila! and there they were and this time will be stored in an accessible place.Thanks for the reply anyway.
As to your last post -
"No one is interested in pure electronics anymore as evidenced by the lack of schools and hobbyist magazines as compared to what we had in the 1960s and 1970s."
I don't think kids are interested in anything any more other than cellphones,MP3 & Ipod. I have not met a person under 30 in recent years that even has a hobby, and flopped on the couch watching 20 channels of sport programs does not qualify.[/i]

LA_Cruiser · Post by **LA_Cruiser** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 10:12 pm

What happened to National Technical Schools?

I 've been asking the same Q around here (LA) and no one seems to know.

I used to work for them as an automotive instructor in about 1971.

Can't understand why it wasn't bought-out instead of being closed down.

Some of my best memories still roam that particular location (Figueroa and Santa Barbara, -I DON'T understand the name change from Santa Barbara to martian-something, -Yuk!).

THX 4 the info Mr. Timothy Rasch

THX Buckaroo 4 starting this thread.

I was 'googleing' and landed here.

Had 2 register 2 reply to this post.

God Bless all

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