Replies

I've been building electronics projects since kindergarten. In Scouts, I earned the electricity, electronics and radio merit badges. It wasn't until I graduated from college that I had time to pursue some licensing. I have an Extra Class ham license and First Class Radiotelephone license with Ship's RADAR endorsement (grandfathered to GROL). After grad school, I made a decent living caring for all of the electronics on 180 tuna boats plus base stations, work boats, freighters, naval vessels and pleasure boats. It was good "hands on" experience. I can design to the component level and write firmware to drive the electronics. Writing software for large scale systems is what pays the bills, but I still enjoy building hardware projects. I have PI, PIC and Arduino boards in addition to a few PC104 boards.

You are much more advance than I am. My favorite author as a child was Alfred P. Morgan. In addition to his books he was considered a pioneer in radio and electronics. He wrote a many science and technology books for boys. He was actually born in 1889 and died in 1972 so he wasn’t really around for the “digital age”. It seems like many guys I know who are into “ham” radio also loved Mr. Morgan’s books.