©2017 David E. Spencer
Until now (March 2017) the main focus of my web site has been family history and I will continue to update those pages as and when needed. I have wanted for quite to some time to devote part of my web site to one of the other of my great interests - hobby electronics. Like many others of my time I had a youthful interest in hobby electronics in the early 1960's. Transistors were replacing valves and you could build some interesting circuits using battery power but some of the prototyping methods we were forced to use would bring gasps of disbelief today. Along with some of my boyhood friends we spent hours stripping parts out of old radios and the like. After a time I lost interest for many years until in the 1970's as a young science teacher I came across some of the techniques and methods that we now take so much for granted - integrated circuits, affordable lightweight mains electric soldering irons and prototyping breadboards among many other innovations. By the 1980's my interest in the hobby aspects of electronics became one of my hobby interests.
My objective within these pages are to encourage those starting up in this activity and to try and offer some constructive advice. The emphasis has to be on building circuits that work on a limited budget with a minimum of expensive capital equipment and in doing this I aim to keep theory to an absolute minimum.