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previous: nathan hiltz Im just wondering how all you pro a... -- 10/12/2004 11:22 PM

Re: how did you guys learn electronics?

10/14/2004 12:06 AM
Enzo	Re: how did you guys learn electronics? I am sure you already know we had to walk to school every day and it was uphill both ways and we were barefoot in the snow that was over our heads. Why you kids today don't.... Oh never mind. Somewhere around 1954 or 1955 my dad got me a little crystal radio kit. I built it and was fascinated that I could pick up radio stations on the thing I made. I then tried putting it togethre different ways to find out what parts did and which were not needed. I started out on solid state! Back then, everything was tubes, so tubes is what I learned. I was mainly interested in short wave radio, but I did design stereo amplifiers from paper. DIdn't work bad either. I went behind all the area TV repair places and raided the trash for dead sets. I took them home and took them apart to build a collection of resistors, caps, tubes ,etc. By the time I got to high school electronics, I was pretty well past it. I learned most of my stuff from the RAdio Amateur Handbook from ARRL. That and teh RCA manual. Of course many other influeces came along like Popular Electronics and Radio Electronics and Electronics World. Magazines I got monthly. QST I read a lot too. Nowdays, QST is still here, but all the others have gone. We have Nuts and VOlts now. I was always building receivers, antenna preamps etc, and of course stereos. I took my home made stereo to college with me in 1965. By 1969 or so I was involved in music and joined a band in 1971. There I learned how all this stuff worked, and serviced all our gear. In 1974 I gave up the scene and started making a living doing electronic repairs. I really only had a peripheral understanding of transistors at this point. I knew tubes inside and out, but noy transistors. I learned digital logic and got good at that, but had to sorta go back and really learn transistors. Now I am here. I know a lot of electronics, but there are plenty of guys here who know a lot more theory than I do. I don;t consider myself an electronics expert, what I consider myself is a troubleshooting expert. I solve problems and I am resourceful. That gets things fixed around here. And do you know what really improves my understanding of this stuff? Explaining it to others. Nothing makes you understand anything better than having to teach it. Now if I could only make it pay better.

10/14/2004 12:06 AM

Enzo

Re: how did you guys learn electronics?

I am sure you already know we had to walk to school every day and it was uphill both ways and we were barefoot in the snow that was over our heads. Why you kids today don't....

Oh never mind.

Somewhere around 1954 or 1955 my dad got me a little crystal radio kit. I built it and was fascinated that I could pick up radio stations on the thing I made. I then tried putting it togethre different ways to find out what parts did and which were not needed. I started out on solid state!

Back then, everything was tubes, so tubes is what I learned. I was mainly interested in short wave radio, but I did design stereo amplifiers from paper. DIdn't work bad either. I went behind all the area TV repair places and raided the trash for dead sets. I took them home and took them apart to build a collection of resistors, caps, tubes ,etc.

By the time I got to high school electronics, I was pretty well past it. I learned most of my stuff from the RAdio Amateur Handbook from ARRL. That and teh RCA manual. Of course many other influeces came along like Popular Electronics and Radio Electronics and Electronics World. Magazines I got monthly. QST I read a lot too. Nowdays, QST is still here, but all the others have gone. We have Nuts and VOlts now.

I was always building receivers, antenna preamps etc, and of course stereos.

I took my home made stereo to college with me in 1965. By 1969 or so I was involved in music and joined a band in 1971. There I learned how all this stuff worked, and serviced all our gear. In 1974 I gave up the scene and started making a living doing electronic repairs.

I really only had a peripheral understanding of transistors at this point. I knew tubes inside and out, but noy transistors. I learned digital logic and got good at that, but had to sorta go back and really learn transistors.

Now I am here. I know a lot of electronics, but there are plenty of guys here who know a lot more theory than I do. I don;t consider myself an electronics expert, what I consider myself is a troubleshooting expert. I solve problems and I am resourceful. That gets things fixed around here.

And do you know what really improves my understanding of this stuff? Explaining it to others. Nothing makes you understand anything better than having to teach it.

Now if I could only make it pay better.

Replies:

GaryW I had an uncle that was an engineer... -- 10/14/2004 2:59 AM
Brutus It doesn't surprise me that a few h... -- 10/14/2004 5:29 PM