Didn't get into electronics until later in life. Since I got married and had kids I need a hobby that I can do inside. I used to race cars and motorcycles amateur and work on them, but that's even more expensive and time consuming than this.

Ya, it's seriously not popular. I've learned not to even mention it to people I know, cuz you can see their eyes glaze over with boredom.

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Mark Higgins

 

For me it all started one 1970's Christmas when I got a 65 in 1 kit from RadioShack. Learned a lot from that kit. Then in 7th grade got my amateur radio license. Then my advanced amateur radio license in grade 9. All the time tinkering in between, and finding cast off electronic junk which was treasure to me. When I graduated, I lucked out and got into one of the last of the apprenticeship programs in electronics with a local company. Been at it ever since.

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Inside every little problem, is a big problem trying to get out.

 

When I was 8, an uncle or mine introduced me to electronics. Bought me my first wire strippers, caps, resistors, batteries etc... Of course, I couldnt do anything with them, no breadboard, and I was def too young to make my own pcb or even play with an solderin iron.

Anyways, he got him this 50-1 electronic lab.

I'm in my twenties now, and i havent lost interest.

 

For me its simply a near obsessive need to understand how everything works. If someone says something is unfixable I have to find out why. Or if someone says something is impossible I have to prove it to myself they are wrong in one fashion or another.

I am by design a fixer of all things. Electronics is just one aspect of what I work with.

I have never felt much need to follow whats popular. Whats unpopular seems to usually hold far more fascination (and income at times) for me.

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"Issue a general safety warning. Then look the other way and allow stupidity the chance to eliminate itself." -- tcmtech
"Those who can, Will. Those who can't, will achieve positions of power over those who can and then promptly stop them." -- tcmtech
"Your impossibility may just be my day to day routine." -- tcmtech

 

When I was a kid (around 8YO) I would pull apart anything I could. I don't think I learned much except how to pull things apart. I then found the local library, it was a caravan that visited twice a week. I got every book I could find out of that library that was technical. When I was 10, I built a crystal radio from scratch and used it to listen to the first moon landing.

When I finished school I got an apprenticeship as an electrical/mechanical draughsman. Spent about 5 years designing high voltage switchgear (6.6-25kV) before getting interested in computers. I wrote a few games on a Sinclair Spectrum and then got offered a job by a company called A&F Software. I took the job even though everyone told me I was stupid and computer games were just like skateboard, a fad that would last a couple of years.

I worked for various companies writing games until in 1986 I setup my own company. Myself and my business partner, Richard, formed Software Creations and went on to write many games. We were responsible for many games and there is a short softografy here.

Creations went into liquidation in March 2002 after 911. No US company would place any work with us and so the inevitable happened.

We, myself and family, decided to make a fresh start in Australia and this is where I am currently at. We have been here 7 years and I'm starting to get itchy feet. Retirement is not all it's cracked up to be.

Wow, that was a ramble and a half.

Mike.

 

Man, mofetkiller, you sound a whole lot older than grade 10. Alot of my friends could't relate to my interest in electronics, unless I could do something cool, like a bright flashing strobe light or produce a leaping arc. They still aren't interested. Hmmm...

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You don't need a quadraphonic Blaupunkt -- you need a curve
ball.

 

Haha I'm in the same grade as you! I just turned 15 a few months ago. I started like you. Just looking around on the internet. Reading this and many other forums. and learning by trial and error. No one that I know has anything to do with electronics or could care about it....sucks.

Mosfet killer. Where are you located? And yeah in 8th grade I made over 200 bucks selling usb chargers powered by a 9 volt battery. They did not work very well at all but I sold so many of them to kids in school. Then teachers were thinking I was selling drugs.....So I stopped. Ha I use to fix peoples iPods all the time. Their so simple fixed half the time.

 

I don't recall exactly my age when I started in electronics, but I'm sure it was the 5th or 6th grade. Transistors and semiconductor rectifiers may have been invented then but they were not availible commercially. I learned my electronics initially on vacuum tubes. I remember when the first commercially available transistor was, it was a ck722 by Raytheon. I paid about 4 dollars for it in the early 1950's.
My hobby turned into a career with the U.S. Coast Guard. Spent 26 years on active duty, retired from the Coast Guard over 20 years ago and have kept active in the hobby and even designed and built a number of devices that sold commercially.
My eyesight and my manual dextarity are suffering, I'm looking for a younger person that lives close to teach my skills and knowledge and share my large supply of parts with.

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The great thing about electronics is unlimited ways to do the job. The only limit is one\'s imagination. I generally think my way is best.
Show me a different way. I have an open mind.

 

Some great stories in here, I got an early start at the age of 10 one of my dads friends gave me an old broken vacuum tube radio, I of course dismantled it and was able to find a broken connection and had a radio for free. I have been fixing stuff ever since, I got into telephony and electricity shortly after high school. Recently been experimenting with electronics again to make a lightning trigger for my camera. I have added to my knowledge off the web and from reading. To anyone getting started I recommend The Evil Genius' Guide to Electronics, in fact the whole series is a great read my personal favorite is the High Tech Practical Jokes.. great stuff in there. I look forward to sharing ideas and learning more from everyone here.

Caleb

 

Very interesting your stories, I remember that when I was going to start my highschool in september 2001 I chose the electronics course that my school had available, I only learned to make circuits in my breadboard and some therems, I studied it for 3 years until I changed my course becuase I needed one more year if I finished my electronics course and I used to play baseball, I wanted to be a professional player and that "extra" year would have interferred with my possible signing, anyway. I graduated and left the baseball and went back to electronics starting my engineering career, but I didn't know anything about the forums until one year ago when I was trying to make a project and I couldn't find any help, and I found it in the forums, I also owe a lot of my knowledge to the experts in there. I would have really liked to be like MOSFET KILLER and davidball, you can see that they have a great thirst of knowledge just like I had, but given that I am in a very underdeveloped country, and it is not even looking forward to change that (Venezuela), the culture that surrounds me wouldn't lead me to the right places to find it, I am 19 years old, and I am very advanced compared to my classmates and even other students in higher semesters but not very much compared to other students in the world with the same "thirst of knowledge", I am still looking everyday for it I joined this community a few months ago, and it seems to be my second university even when I hadn't have enough time to go to class here, haha.

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"A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new"
Albert Einstein

 

Interesting how most of the stories describe one as having an affinity towards electrons, or electronics at such a young age.

For me, electronics was a way out of chipping paint off a ships hull. In my thinking it was just a job, never hated it nor did I love it. Perhaps that is why I left the profession, and now working towards the medical industry.

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Pay it forward.

 

@Pommie,

Interesting history. Did you ever cross paths with Redline Games? One of my nephews owned that, in about the same period as your company.

As for me, I am just a hobbyist. Started in 4th grad (1952) building my own transmitters for RC models. Had lots of old TV's, etc. to tear apart. Got some TI, Knight, and Heath kits early on. In college, had a one-credit course on introductory laboratory electronics. That was my first introduction to "op-amps," which used vacuum tubes at the time. During my working years, I built an occasional device, e.g., an electrochemical detector for HPLC. About 10 years ago, I got more heavily into electronics and more recently into PIC's, particularly after retirement. Almost all of my projects have been related in some way to my obsession with airplanes.

John