Hello DVi. Someone asked me how long I'd been recording sound and to my horror, after some head scratching, I had to say "over 40 years." Started in the BBC, went freelance to do commercials, doccos and features, joined ITV as staff, made redundant thanks to Thatcher and have been freelance again for 15 years or so. The great thing about this line of work is you never know it all and there is always some new problem to exercise your ingenuity. The other great thing is the travel...how else could I have got to places like Russia, Iceland, the Azores, most of Europe and the USA as well as some of the strangest parts of home, the UK?
Another good thing is that while the poor camera guys have to pay a king's ransom for a camera that will be out-dated by the time he takes delivery, we just plug in the XLRs from our old faithful mixer and say "Sound's ready!"

Ha ha -- a great introductory post. Welcome aboard, Nick!

Welcome aboard Nick.

"Old Guys Rule"

'nuff said.

Many thanks for the welcome. Don't know how relevant my contributions can be, but I certainly hope to pick up some tips on new gear as it comes out. And to find out some answers to old questions....like what is the story behind the NTSC frame rate, which is something like 29.??? I believe. Why did it change from 30? It's faster than our PAL 25, so the flicker must be reduced and I suppose that machines don't care about exact numbers, but I'd be interested to know.