I learned electronics much the same way as you did before going to college. Then I had some formal training, but mostly software. In the workforce I learned a lot about digital hardware and some analog hardware. Now I design the electronics and write the software for it. My work is freelance. Most of the stuff I make is laboratory or medical instrumentation, and communicates in a variety of ways with a control center or data collection facility. I also work the PC end to do something with the data. My lab includes instrumentation that can detect, demodulate, and decode arbitrary signals. Detecting streaming audio anywhere in the RF bands is pretty easy.
Are you working on any cool projects? Play with Arduino? We could exchange ideas.
Only in my mind.
I've so many 'projects' in the pipeline that I end up doing none of them!
Way back when HBO was broadcast in the clear, a few of us conjured up a reciever that took the HF HBO signal and mixed it with a local oscillator so that the resulting IF was then in the 2-13 channel band.
HBO managed to sniff out these LOs by driving thru neighborhoods and plopping a Cease & Desist order on the guys that were using them.