Have any of you noticed at libraries that there are more electronic theory books than electronic project books? I've noticed this at both general libraries and my university library. In fact, my university library (like any other) has myriads of technical papers and theory books but hardly any project books.
How did this happen? I don't see how anyone can gain a good grasp of electronic theory without building something. Without a project or device to relate to, electronics theory is just mumbo jumbo.
Are there still people that do elecronic projects? When R/C cars are now a child's throwaway toy, and anything interesting is happening with computer chips and software, what's the motivation for doing those basement bench projects?
You should check around a bit. It's not hard to find people who are designing and building things like HF SSB transceivers in their basements - some of them are even on the web and post their designs to help others.
i GUESS you have never designed a piece of equipment to go into space. Some using a thousand components. . . I DO NOT FOLLOW MANY OF THESE NEWS GROUPS To answere me address mail to snipped-for-privacy@aol.com
In that case, you guess wrong. Working for Kodak in my younger days, Lunar Orbiter was the first of quite a few. Working on projects like these you have very little to contribute to design if you haven't yet mastered the underlying conceputal theory and analysis of simple circuits. I found the same thing to hold true on my later projects in transporation control systems and military electronics.
You're obviously confusing complexity of scale with conceptual sophistication and design elegance. Compare the design of a computer where a few simple circuits are repeated ad nauseum to that of to that of a Colpitts oscillator or the underlying theory behisnd a negative feedback amplifier and you'll discover the difference.
In universities, theory is often combined with laboratory excercises through which the student may confirm his understanding of theory, but rote construction of projects designed by someone else contributes very little to one's knowledge or comprehension.
The practical solution for someone wishing to learn electronics on their own is simply to study the theory, then construct simple circuits to test and verify the concepts that they have previously learned. Once you have secured confidence in your ability to understand and predict what is going on within the circuit, you are in a position to attempt the design of almost anything.
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