"If he is charging money for these lectures, someone
should run his ass in for fraud, and if he isn't, well you will get
exactly what you paid for it......"

Cool down. Give this guy some slack. The money is not going in his
pocket, it is a benefit lecture. He may not have all your
qualifications but you don't really know what he can do and cannot do.

I grew up in commercial fishing. I fished in many areas including
between Midway Island and Japan which is pretty isolated. We'd go
weeks without seeing anbother vessel sometimes. When your life
depends on radio comms you learn how to do mission critical technical
things even without licenses and degrees. I know some fishermen who
did not even finish high school who can do a very good job at
installing an HF SSB. They understand antenna theory, grounding, DC
power sag, all the tricks. In the old days before autocouplers these
same guys knew how to move coil taps and adjust variable caps to get a
good match on any freq. They replace magnetrons in radars and do some
board level repairs on autopilots, especially the older types like
Sperry model 8T and all the Wood Freemans. They unsolder components
and test them with a multimeter and mine parts from less critical gear
if they dont have spares. it's usually a bad electrolytic cap, If you
are out for a month or more you NEED a working autopilot and will
spend a lot of time to fix a broken one. You sometimes don't have the
money to hire experts so you just improvise. At sea, you HAVE to do
the stuff yourself, there are no other options.

I have an EE degree with honors from UC Berkeley and an extra class
ham license which was my first license. I don't look down my nose at
anyone unless they are obviously selling BS. I truly respect you
licenses and experience, but you should realize that there are people
without them who actually are competent.

73,
Mark