Hi everyone,

I am a technician/service advisor at an independent shop located near Cincinnati, Ohio. I graduated from Sinclair Community College with an associate degree in automotive technology, and proceeded to knock out ASE tests A1-A9 and L1 to make myself more marketable and learn along the way. I've been in it professionally for a meager ~2.5 years. That said, I very carefully chose where to start my career so as not to be stuck doing lube and tires. Obviously, at a small independent, those things have to be done - but I have also been able to work closely with an owner/lead technician who strives to learn, understand, and fix cars and I gain something and get closer to the level I want to be at every day.

Mechanical repairs are work; electrical, engine performance, and diagnostics are the fun that made me start this journey. I spend a good amount of my free time studying, watching the now abundant YouTube channels of highly skilled mechanics/diagnosticians, playing around with my family's cars, and reading things like the new Diagnostic Network forums.

I was a little apprehensive about spending the money I did on the Magnum kit I just received this early in my career. I kind of felt like I hadn't reached some milestone that would afford me the right to make a Picoscope my first scope purchase. Then I thought about how much more carefully I've spent my tool money than many I know. And I thought about how many people in this industry (or at least in my area) with more experience than me are complete hacks. A big reason I started working on cars was my desire to provide people with an honest, skilled alternative. After much consideration, and getting the support I have thus far from Autonerdz (just in the purchasing process), I decided it would be well worth it in the long run to start playing with my own 4-channel oscilloscope and get the supplemental training I need NOW. And those benefits will lead to realizing its amazing potential when it goes to the shop with me. I couldn't afford NOT to dive into this now. It also compliments my Autel and 87V well!
;D

I am ecstatic to be a part of this community, so I figured I would take the time to give some background on myself. I plan to spend a good portion of this weekend taking advantage of the resources in my kit and poking at wires and such.

Thanks everyone for being here,

Clay

Welcome Clay.  You are the kind of guy that will do very well here with that attitude.  We are glad to have you and look forward to your contributions.

let us know when you are ready for that personal session.  We often do this with new users once they have had a little quality time with the tool.

Be careful with some of that YouTube stuff.  Been noticing some newer PicoScope training there lately that is not a very good use of time.  One was on basic triggering where the presenter didn't know how PicoScope triggers work and another was about opening files and such where the presenter apparently didn't know how to properly open a PicoScope file.  Pretty basic stuff really. 

PicoScope is an excellent 'starter scope':

http://www.autonerdz.com/cgi/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1284850067/9

Anyway, we are here for you when you have questions.  And, we will actually give you the correct answers or tell you we don't know and try to find out.   :o

Thank you, Tom!

Worry not - I am always wary. Not verifying information and taking things for granted is a big problem in our industry; logical fallacies are abound. A healthy dose of skepticism keeps us sharp. I think that's why a lot of us are here.

Thanks for the link, and I appreciate the honesty as much as the help!