Sound Engineer For Live Sound, just want to bounce questions off you. Options

[soon2be]

I'm very interested in making music but right now live sound is more important for me to know. And even though Im learning the baby of basics when it comes to making music and sounds on the computer I want to be able to focus more on live performances. So I need to be able to bounce some simple questions and have them anwered in simple terms.

What (to you, the answerer) is the most important quality in a live sound engineer? What is the first thing I need to focus on?

I know things here and there from listening and watching but I dont have a starting point, so therefor I dont know which way is up. I dont know if there is a way up really because the more you know the better huh?

[tunetwister]

I do not know of one book that will tell you every thing. I went to collage for electronics and that helped me with the hardware side.
The biggest thing is to learn are the paths for your signal, this way you will know where to look. Test the signal path to see where the signal stops or becomes a problem. Also make sure you understand your gain structure. Basicaly you do not want to turn one thing way up to have to turn another thing down. If you can run everything at norminal that is best, you will get the most headroom and the cleanest signal path this way. Some times adjustments have to be made allthough. Most distortion comes from bad gain structure or eq.ing.
Chasing down ground faults is a bit of a job, if you use ballenced outs and ins it cuts them down alot. You have to try to isolate the offending component to find it. some times the fix is as easy as turning a power plug around in the outlet. Good power conditioners can help also.