just a simple topic.. post how old are ya and how many years are you with electronics..
I'm going to start
I'm 15 and got like 5 month on electronics (started with the online AAC tutorial).


how about you guys?


Yoda

 

43.
Built my first project..(a phaser style gun using bits from an old radio poked thru a piece of cardboard) at 8.
Charged out my first jobs at 12, building a Gieger "Click counter" and also a nicad charger for the school I was at.
Started my first job in an electronics workshop at 17.
Finished an apprenticeship as an electronics tech at 22.
Worked in domestic electronics for most of the rest, also with a few short stints at a couple of FM radio stations as tech/producer/voicing.
Cheers.

 

I'm 26. Very old in dog years.

 

I'm 26. Very old in dog years.

I'm not a million miles away! I was an apprentice from school, went directly to University to do my undergraduate Masters (Electronic Systems Engineering) and postgraduate doctorate (in Electromagnetic Tomography) as a sponsored student (I basically worked for the company unless I was attending academic 'stuff'). So I've got a little over 10 years experience - nothing compared to some who frequent AAC.

Dave

 

62. Practicing the various arts like computer repair, programming, electronic repair & design for 40 years. 2 1/2 years training in the Navy, hard knocks thereafter.

 

Hi...48 !!!...Started at about 4, my Dad worked for the then GPO and bougt home all sorts of things that I used to take apart.... Built my first crystal set at 5, my Dad bought me my first "Antex" soldering iron shortly after that..... And it all went on from there......Daniel.

 

I turn 47 in less than a month. I've about 35 years with electronics in one form or another.

 

I always liked electronics, always fascinated me, but I started really learning it by myself when I was 18 years old. A bit late, I guess.

 

Hello. I'm 19 + 1/2 and just got admitted to university (automated control & computer science; I'm at automated control). As this is a late introduction (I registered a few days ago), I'll say a few things about me, along with the age I was:
- 3-4 yrs: Got my first computer. MSDOS was quite instructive.
- around 10 yrs: Got my first programming book: C++ by Herbert Schild.
- 12 yrs: Started using Linux (I believe it was RedHat 6 or something). I also tried to learn some electronics.
- 17 yrs: Started working per-project/per-service in configuring Linux servers for networking purposes. I did the following by now: bandwidth limiting, traffic accounting, bandwidth usage plots, dynamic routing with BGP (multihoming), tunnels/VPNs, static routing with load balancing of Internet connections, configuring firewalls, setting up services (DNS, HTTP, databases), automating various server tasks... I don't have much experience with these on Windows (where it applies).
- 17yrs (more): I made an A/D converter (with ADC0804) controlled by computer together with a classmate for a presentation. He knew (and I bet he still knows) more about digital electronics, so he handled the hardware part. I programmed the software to drive it. (A revised device&software was presented again at a university a few months ago.)
- 18yrs: Various small contributions to open-source projects.
- 19yrs: Started studying electronics more seriously. "Tunnelled" through the initial barrier that most analog electronics books presented to me. Most books don't explain the schematics thoroughly enough. They also don't rigourously describe how you can obtain an exact output from the input (as in designing an amplifier with a given output Vp, quiescent point and impedance when presented with a given input Vp sine-wave and source impedance) and give you non-intuitive explanations.

As you can see, my background is dominated by computer science rather than electronics.

 

An interesting point I will make out of this discussion is how early some people started out using/discovering/learning electronics. In the UK, electronics is not even a compulsory part of the National Curriculum - the formal education system for pre-16 years. Given the size of the electronics industry, and all of its subsidiaries, I find it amazing that this scientific topics is not more mainstream.

Anyway, this is a completely different topic. Just a point I observed from this discussion.

Dave

 

Looks like I'm the senior geezer here so far, based on age. I'm 66. I built an oatmeal box crystal set when I was 14. I got my EE degree in 1966, and did circuit design, mostly analog, for over 40 years. I've been retired for less than 3 months.

Ron

 

me to im almost 100.
Just in like 85 years. -.-
so im 15 (16 this summer so i can start driving!!)
Iv teaken stuff apart scene i was really young. I am going to a technical high school. Am a sophomore. 2years of real electrical experience. I am like the smartest in my school. the rest of them are like retarded.(its not a special ed school) They are so stupid i want to kill some of them!!!

Also I have been fixing computers from like 10.
built my first pc at like 12

 

1# Born in 1980, you do the math
2# A couple of years.

 

I'm 25. I started into computers at about 18 and that developed into an interest in electronics over the past 4 years.

It's amazing how young some of you are. I got a late start. It wasn't until my first job after college that I developed a real interest in electronics... I created a 7-segment display for an air pressure gauge using a PIC microcontroller. It's sad that during the course of my 4 years in a engineering program that we barely touched actual circuits. In my one and only circuits class, we did not even use breadboards... we used Multisim. In my physics class, we actually had some breadboards...but all we did was make a few series/parallel resistive circuits.

 

56 years old, started fooling with electricity when I went to my first school back in 1965. Been at it ever since in one capacity or another..

 

62. Practicing the various arts like computer repair, programming, electronic repair & design for 40 years. 2 1/2 years training in the Navy, hard knocks thereafter.

I knew you had to be that old to know all that stuff. You always seem to have an answer for everything Oh and I'm 19.

 

55 yrs old (in November)

Took first basic electricity course in High school, 1969.
Got into a band a few years later. Had to pay (at the time) outrageous sum of $45 to have an amplifier repaired. Tech told me it was a 49 cent diode that failed and took out a $10 tube. The rest was labor. Started me thinking about electronics.

A few more years pass, I realize I am NOT going to be the next Clapton or Santana or anything like that so I take a few courses in Recording at a local studio. I completed all the courses top of the class. I was in line to be hired at the studio but the owner needed someone that knew electronics as they tried to do their own repairs. Well, me not knowing anything except the cost of a diode and a tube, I got passed over.

But, it motivated me into going back to school for electronics. Graduated from 2 yr tech school with an associates degree in Electronic technology in 1979. Went to work for an audio company doing everything from installs in School auditoriums to Background music systems for doctors offices as well as building sound reinforcement systems for bands. ( We actually built the monitor system for the J.Geils band...for you older folks that can remember them)

Moved into biomedical repair work (better pay and company benefits, car, etc) then got back into musical audio repair stuff as a sideline in the last two years.

So, I pop in here to brush up on my electronics theory and pick the brains of the folks that really know what they're doing!

And to those folks A HUGE Thank you for taking the time to inform and assist the other guys trying to learn!

 

25, been fiddling around with electronics for about a year or so. And those boxes from Digikey still elicit the same sensation that I'd get on Christmas mornings.

Definitely want to echo the big thank you to everyone that gives a bit of their time to respond to questions here.

 

50, Started exploring electronics, astronomy,biology ;-) at about 10.. My motivation was the space program, I wanted to be one of thse people involved in exploring the 'new frontier'. Lived in S.A. and the first time I watched TV (a recording.. there was NO TV in S.A. at the time) was in 1969 when I watched Niel step on the moon. Perhaps this pushed me to electronics.

 

19 years old. Started using/working with computer back in Jr High. I'm pretty good at fixing computers but not so good on the programming side. I know how to write programs but don't have in dept knowledge about complicated programs. I'm a sophmore in Electrical Engineering. Still not sure what I'm going to go into. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to do logic design though.