Nidum said:
Purely as a bit of nostalgia - my first ever experience of electronics was making a crystal set .
My first electromagnet did not work. I used the DCC double cotton as specified. A few months later I worked out that wire had to be made of metal and that was why my mother's button thread had not worked. DCC copper wire did work, so I had success at last. Many years later I met an electronics technician working in the science labs who had also wound his first unsuccessful magnet with button thread, probably after looking at the pictures in the same book.
I then investigated 3V torch globes that got brighter as you ran them on greater voltages. I was quite surprised at how bright it was and never did find the pieces, but I hid the evidence, repaired the damage and the fuse on that 240V light circuit was replaced.
Steam engines were next. How I extinguished the spilled methylated spirit fire in my bedroom I will never know. Again, I hid the evidence and kept climbing that learning curve. I picked my way around the many overhangs without a guide.
And then I turned 10.
So I built my first crystal set with some advice from a friend whose father had shown him how to do it. We measured the voltage on the mains to be 240VAC, but the current range on his dad's multimeter did not go high enough to measure the current from the mains. I had some idea by then and explained that we should have wired the meter in series with a load and not straight across the supply. Unlike the meter, he survived his partial honesty when his dad came home, I survived because he committed the sin of omission and left me out of the explanation to his father. A dog, alone by itself, will wait quietly until it's master returns, but two dogs will round up the sheep and kill a few in the excitement of the chase.
Apparently by the time I was 14, I had fixed more than I had broken to date and so had passed the critical “break even point”.
It became easier over the next few years as the local radio station technician dumped his old books, electronics journals and junk parts on me. I built radio receivers that were excellent and got well into short wave listening, antennas and push-pull audio amplifiers. Building my first oscilloscope was a big step forward as I could then see what was happening inside my circuits. It was certainly more interesting than watching B&W TV.
My way forward had become clear.
So I left my books and electronics junk heap with a couple of friends who both then became electronics technicians and radio amateurs. I headed off interstate to study Geology. Six years later I was up to my knees in mud, my elbows in Geophysics and my ears in 16 bit minicomputers. That lead to electronics design for medical research and then electronics design and manufacturing, interrupted by surveillance antenna work for the Government and a fair dose of radio astronomy.
Books are great. Friends with a common interest are better, especially if they lend you their books. Make more friends.
