#1099 How I learned electronics

Episode 1099
I learned by reading and doing. The ARRL handbook and National Semiconductor linear application manual were the books I spent thousands of hours looking at. You can teach yourself. Don't wait.

[X-OR_]

In 1975, I told my scout leader I was interested in Electronics, he gave me a 1974 Signetics Digital Linear MOS Data Data Book (One of the most beautiful Data books of it's time). I carried that book everywhere and taught myself digital electronics design. That Signetics Data Book was the start of a long career in electronics engineering . I'm now 60 and retired, but still have that Signetics data book in my library.

[IcyTorment]

I was a Computer Engineering major in college. The thing I liked best about my EE classes was the total lack of memorization. It was all about developing certain ways of thinking about things and processes for analyzing them.

[geraldbull]

Enjoyed this presentation, no hype, no music, just pure down to earth chatter, many thanks even though I couldn’t grasp some of it.

[lawrencecohen]

60 years ago I started electronics with the "just let's do it" philosophy. That led to a fun and rewarding 47 year career as an electronics engineer.

[Exciting__Electronics]

I can still remember what made me fall in love with electronics as a kid. Looking through the holes in the wooden fibre board on the back of a twin cassette tape with record player on the top. Seeing all the components on brown pcb and thinking it looks like a mini city hidden in darkness. Good Times

[gopro]

This video explains my outlook on life/learning very well. The older I have got the more I have realized you can learn anything just by putting your genuine attention and curiosity into it. You said "you don't worry about the stuff until you need it then become an expert on it". I learned programming as a high schooler just from wanting to create stuff and I became good enough at it to secure a full time job in it. 3 years ago I purchased a corvette and now I am a pretty great mechanic just out of interest and necessity. You just have to go into stuff with the mindset of "I can do this" and you'll get there. I'm painting my car next week lol I've never painted a car before and most people will tell me that it's gonna turn out bad if I don't spend $5000 but you just gotta not listen to that and go for it. I'll just keep this outlook for the rest of my life because I love the freedom it gives me

[matthewjohnstone]

This style of video is quality. No music and it gives you a first person view of learning something that a lot of people might think is more difficult than it needs to be.

[drububu]

I think this is brilliant. I learned electronic circuits in the early 90’s on a polytechnical school. At the end I received a diploma and was able to calculate voltage dividers, coil hysterisys curves, ntsc and pal vectors… but I had no clou how to build things. Because we had not learned how to bring this in practise. We had no youtube back then. Just our teachers who learned their ways to us the way they had learned it from their teachers. After a few years I quit my repairjob (Most of the time I had no idea how to repair. Just switched components until I had the right component removed and replaced) and went into computersciences. That was the end of my electronics ambition. Now, after almost 30 years, I reenter the world of electronics because I’m missing the one thing in my life that really has my interest. Electronics. But instead of learning all the equations, I bought a multimeter, a power supply, an oscilloscope and a function generator and some components and started playing. Blew up a lot of things (my first led went with a real ‘bang’) and learned by doing. And I have the greatest time of my life. Sometimes I look up the math to start understanding how it is working and it all falls into place now. In stead of trying to memorizing the math, it now is more like understanding the situation and applying the math out of it. I think this video deserves way more likes and views and should be an inspiration to everyone. Thank you sir!

[EagleLogic]

I love your humility. I also have a degree in physics, grad degree as well. I work as “engineer” but there are so many things I simply don’t know but hungry to learn. This video was excellent. Thank you very much.

[michaelmoorrees]

I have an EE degree, and what you learn in school, is mostly theory, on how circuits work. Very little is taught on circuit design itself. Some in digital electronics, but less in analog circuitry. Most of what I learned is self taught.

As far a math goes, in engineering school, they do go into the derivations. But what's really important, is the concepts behind the math. Knowing the math concepts can often help you design a simpler circuit. For example, the "sampling theory", which is the SAME as side band modulation, mathematically. Lots of harmonics generated, but if generate a perfect square wave (exact 50% duty cycle), you'll see that all the even harmonics disappear. Only odd harmonics. One of my old bosses, used this to create a simple tape erase system, that REQUIRED a sine wave. He just used a simple flip-flop stage, that made a perfect 50% square wave, that he fed directly in the erase head, as the inductor, and a cap so it would resonate roughly near the square wave. That combine provided enough filtering to get a perfect sinewave, because the 3rd harmonic amplitude was small enough to not be worried about. The competition, used an overly complex multistage multiorder op-amp filter. Both worked the same, but our was cheaper and more reliable.

[acs-bitzone]

"Just go do" is great advice... Prototyping circuits is a great way to learn. Your video really demonstrated your point. You were questioning the success of the video towards the end, but don't second guess yourself, it was perfect.

[erin]

Im80 now. A a, kid, I, swept up in a radio tv, shop. They taught me to solder and change parts. I read the ARRL book. After high school i did get formal education, then the Army radio school. All my life meant self education and practice. One never stops learning formally or otherwise.😊

[HoraceMash]

“Go do” is a great philosophy for gaining understanding and wisdom. I did EE a long time ago and, for a range of reasons, the “go do” philosophy did not feature in my undergraduate learning. “go do” is what you need to do to figure out the relationship between abstraction and reality. I salute your spirit of inquiry and investigation! Really enjoyed your vid!

[jacobhempel]

I like this perspective.
A lot of people want to know how to get motivated to learn new things. I think your idea of just doing things is one answer. As you do things, you seem to find things that motivate you. It reminds me of the advice people give to artists: dont wait for inspiration to lead you to act. Instead, act, and let that lead you to inspiration.

[nevis]

As someone who's been doing the theory first, this video was the perfect kick in the butt I needed. Cheers man

[MotoMarios]

"Rarely are there educational systems that will teach you the basics in a clear way".

One of the greatest truths I've seen on YouTube.

[GusFromDaysPast]

This was a very good presentation. I'm a 3rd year General (41 year old) and I'm just getting into electronics. The presentation was very encouraging. You'd be a very good Elmer.

[Factory]

This is gold!
I have been interested and active in electronics since childhood. Every learning step was complicated math and deep almost never starting with basic concepts that build intuition.

[zorgrian]

Mr electronics, respected dude, I am now 60 years old, and have done electronics since I was about 7 years old. (Simple experiments with radio)
Nothing in this life is actually learned unless you learn it yourself. I did not go to school for the last 2 years of secondary school. This is because I am dyslexic and they did not help me. This is a good thing because it taught me how to teach myself. This is what they should teach people in the schools, colleges and universities IMHO

[davidharms]

Absolutely solid advice, I think when we normally want to learn about any subject, we tend to get intimidated and overwhelmed by math, theory, etc.. I appreciate your simplistic approach and think your video came out great!. Thanks!