What Was Your First Experience With 'Electrickery' & How Old Were You?

[greenstar]

It might have been a Heathkit, but not this exact one - my parents wouldn't run to DeLuxe!
http://searle.hostei.com/grant/Elect...its/index.html

[camtechman]

Just to add to my original post and moving on some 5 years later.

I had by now got interested in tape recorders, amplifiers, audio mixing et al.

Dad bought me a new Fidelity R2R (with the basic BSR mec) for my 13th birthday and with that I "produced & directed" my own "Detective Drama" plays, my friends playing different characters and my 6 year old Sister played the female parts.

By now, I had made a basic mixer unit that had separate inputs for 4 mics and two aux inputs. This was fed into the Fidelity R2R and, with a mic for each 'actor' - the results, to my young mind, were quite 'professional'.

We decided that one of our plays was so good that we invited some of the neighbours around to hear it but the audio output from the R2R wasn't adequate and so, I decided to hook it up to Mum & Dad's old radiogram.

I made up a screened lead with a phono plug on one end (to connect to the Fidelity's output socket) and the other end I trimmed back to provide a screen & inner core wire to hook-up to the radiogram.

The R2R was set to play and, having removed the back cover from the radiogram. I reached in to hook the bare wires around the r/g's volume control !

I'll leave the outcome to your imagination of what happened when connecting the R2R to a Live Chassis Radiogram !!!!

[mark pirate]

I had a real fascination with radios from a very early age, back then jumble sales were a great place to spend my pocket money, I started out just taking the old valve radios I bought to bits if they did not work.
It did not take me long to encounter my first electric shock!

I was given a Philips electronic kit for a Christmas present, this provided my first education, I can remember those spring terminations and the mustard caps
I even managed to get some projects to actually work!

Mark

[Andrew2]

Just to take my previous post a bit further. In the mid 60's I got a Tri-onic electronics set for Christmas and had great fun with it. Then came a Sinclair Micromatic kit and my interest in the radio side of the hobby really took off. Many trips to the tip and lots of home-made radios and some attempts at transmitters (oh dear...).
In 1969 I got an apprenticeship at Koffler's shop in Gorton, later moving to a more local family firm where I felt far more at home.

Class B amateur licence in 1984. Still licensed, still fiddling about.

EDIT. Part of my post has been removed. I don't know the reason for this.

[threeseven]

Another Sinclair Micromatic kit builder here! Also built a pair of speakers in my bedroom using EMI 13 x 8 drivers, and a Mullard Unilex amplifier module kit, anyone remember those?!
Most ambitious project I undertook as a youth was a 'scope out of PE, didn't finish it though as I struggled with funding it!

[60 oldjohn]

My uncle knew I liked "pulling things apart" as he said, and brought me a transistor radio to play with. My cousin had the back off to replace the battery, I think he had used a shovel! all the wires were pulled off. So at the age of about 9 I asked my dad to buy me a Henley Solon iron and some solder. When he arrived home with it I set about tracing where the wires went and then I gave it back to my uncle working! He was amazed as none of our family were into electrickery. A few weeks later my auntie gave me her old Phillips TV that had packed up, as she had bought a new one. I had that set working in my workshop for many years until my same cousin got married and needed a TV. I was then given a faulty Autovox colour TV that I managed to repair and used it in my workshop. I think that gave my dad the "push" to buy a colour set for use in the house.

John.

[Andrew2]

Originally Posted by threeseven

Another Sinclair Micromatic kit builder here! Also built a pair of speakers in my bedroom using EMI 13 x 8 drivers, and a Mullard Unilex amplifier module kit, anyone remember those?!

I remember those Unilex modules, but I stuck with Sinclair in the shape of a Project 60 pre-amp, two z30's and a pair of Q16 speakers. I later built my own floor-standing speakers, much better! The record deck was a Garrard SP25 MK2. I had a copy of the (Decca?) 'How to give yourself a stereo checkout' LP and litened to it regularly. Jack de Manio did the voice IIRC.
I had one of those EMI 13 x 8's and found it rather quiet. We used to joke that the magnet had fallen off!

[camtechman]

I'm sure I built a stereo using the Mullard Unilex modules.

Were they in pastic enclosures and had screw terminal blocks to connect the wiring to?

I think I also remember that the instructions showed how to build rather fashionable speaker enclosures & an amplifier enclosure (covered in red rexine) ?

A friend of mine was a carpenter and he knocked me up the speaker cabinets & the amp box out of thick plywood and I covered them in red rexine.....I wonder what I did with them ?

[threeseven]

You were better off with the Sinclair stuff, the Unilex amp didn't have much power.

[Ti Pwun]

Having an electrician as a father made me very inquisitive about electricity and how to repair things from a very early age. At 6 I got one of those 30-in-one electronics project kits and I was forever hooked. Not the spring type describe above but older - it had components mounted on Paxolin blocks with 6BA nuts and bolts to mount them to a large circuit board full of holes (hunted high and low since to find one but couldn't).

I learned a lot with that kit but unfortunately, when I was 8 and watching Fireball XL5 on a projector we had, the bulb failed and I, in my infinite wisdom now that I was an expert in these things, decided that it must be a blown fuse inside the projector.

I reached inside to pull out the fuse and got the shock of my life. Everything was still powered up of course - scared me half to death.

It didn't put me off though.

[dazzlevision]

Hello,

When I was nine, I was given a "Triang Lionel" electrical experiments kit, as mentioned in this thread: https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...ad.php?t=73450

There was a control panel (upon which you had to assemble all the following items), which incorporated an electric bell, lamps, a rotary switch and rheostat, plus a matrix board to push in wire links in order to make up various circuits. The set also included a bimetallic coil thermometer/thermostat, a sensitive relay, a photocell and a "rain grid" (a small PCB with interleaved tracks that, when immersed in water, would pass a small current and energise the relay). You could even buy a (sealed) mains switching relay in order to use the kit to control mains appliances (I bet that wouldn't be allowed nowadays!).

It gave me many hours of fun.

Regards,

Dazzlevision

[Phil G4SPZ]

I started from an early age with a Meccano set, supplemented with an electric motor, and of course the obligatory Tri-ang train set for which my Dad had made a huge transformer/rectifier in a wooden box. My pre-Christmas task was using this to check the 20-volt tree light bulbs. I could 'feel' the tingle from the half-wave rectified 12 volts when I placed my fingers across the live rails. I think this is what gave me great respect for voltages higher than this, and I can't remember ever getting a proper electric shock at all. Apart from once, from the spark plug of a lawn mower, and by golly, that hurt.

But my love of radio goes further back, to when I was under five years old and used to watch the 78rpm records spinning round on what I now know as my parents' Sobell Tablegram. I think it was the warm nostalgic smell of dust and valves... and I was just six or seven when everyone in my school class had to write and deliver a short talk about our hobbies. Most of the boys wrote about their favourite football team. My talk was entitled "Gramophones and Record Players"...

I still have my copy of "The Boy Electrician" from which I can still remember some of the text verbatim! I had a lot of fun building the one-transistor regenerative receiver.

[mole42uk]

Originally Posted by greenstar

It might have been a Heathkit, but not this exact one - my parents wouldn't run to DeLuxe!
http://searle.hostei.com/grant/Elect...its/index.html

Nice website! Mine was the Philips EE8 - my uncle worked for Philips at the time (he was an accountant, not an engineer!) so we had a few Philips things in the house.

I remember being frustrated that the supplied baseboard was so big, and making a smaller one from hardboard.

Richard

[Hybrid tellies]

I started very young being fascinated by lights and switches, torches and the lego brick light. My first radio was a small medium wave only radio which could only pull in Radio 4 during the day joined by Luxembourg at night. Then I moved up to a cheap two band long and medium wave set which meant that I could listen to Radio 2 on 1500m as well as the other two stations. I then started to investigate why there was so many more stations on medium wave after dark, and why are normally clear BBC1 405 tv reception use to suffer terrible continental interference during the summer months.
By the time I was 12 or 13 I had a good understanding of radio wave propagation from Long wave through to UHF and had already stripped down and repaired various TV's and valved and transistor radios. Yes I did get a few electric shocks, especially from those AC/DC sets but I survived and learnt a lot.

[Sideband]

I also started with batteries and switches. I think what triggered this was when I made a battery at home using a roll of tinned copper wire, some aluminium foil, bleach! and a jam-jar. This followed something I'd seen in a book. I was about 8 at the time. All I did was half fill a jam-jar with bleach, then dropped a ball of tinned copper wire with a piece of wire attached on one side at the bottom and then slide a piece of aluminium foil with a piece of wire attached at the other end. It probably would have been better to use vinegar instead of bleach but we didn't have any....It was my older brother (16) who suggested using bleach anyway....

I then connected a small torch bulb across the two bits of wire and was delighted when it lit and felt very clever. I didn't worry about the chlorine gas even though it 'ponged' a bit. All I knew was that I shouldn't breathe it in....!

Now I suppose today you'd say it was irresponsible of my mum to leave bleach where I could find it. Well in those days, everyone had more sense and hadn't been programmed by H&S rules. I knew you had to be careful with bleach and most of the other things in the cupboard under the kitchen sink.

Anyway all this playing around with batteries and bulbs led me to build a crystal set and the rest is history....!


Rich

[P.Pilcher]

When I was about 5, my father bought me a remote control toy car. It was battery powered and had a steering wheel mounted on a little plastic panel connected to the roof of the car by a flexible steel wire to enable it to be steered. After a suitable amount of play the system was dismantled leaving me with a length of fine tempered steel wire. Ever wishful to experiment, I decided to insert one end in one hole of an electric socket (round pin, no guards or any sort of protection in 1952) but before inserting the other end of the wire in the other hole (no earth either) I decided that it would be safer to hold the centre of the wire with a protective type handle - so I acquired a bulldog clip! Fortunately I got little more than a very brief shock as a result of the bang which put out a 5 amp fuse, but I can remember a lesson from my father on the science of tempering steel as the end which got red hot had become brittle, not springy any more and easily broke. My father was very good at not telling me off when I did something silly - he merely made sure I had learned from my mistake!

P.P.

[Biggles]

I started properly with an electronics kit but I'd already been trying to build crystal set etc by about the age of about twelve if I remember correctly. I definitely remember having a few mates at school into electronics about the age of thirteen or fourteen. Most of my early exploits were through dismantling old TVs and radios that either were donated or came from sales in the village hall. With living in a small village word soon got round that I was interested in junk so various items would appear on the doorstep. I suppose it was easier for the neighbours to dump stuff on me rather than make the trip to the tip. I collected quite a few components but they never seemed to be the ones required by the various library book projects. Things improved as the years went by and visits to component shops in Newcastle were made to purchase new components (I hadn't heard of mail order then). I have had a few shocks over the years but managed to avoid anything really nasty, the most serious being about twenty years back by leaning my hand against a "dead" 13 Amp socket on a farm while talking to someone. Someone had put the breaker in the neutral instead of the live. That was a bad one. Considering I used to play around with AC/DC sets when I was growing up and never checked mains polarity I must have been lucky I suppose.
Alan.

[crackle]

Reading through your interesting posts it seems clear that so many of us have had similar experiences and inspiration.
I think I was probably 7 or 7 when I first started taking an interest in the invisible energy in wires.
I remember being fascinated and learning more about the string of Christmas lights with large envelopes in the shape of Santa, Xmas trees, etc. I used to take all the multitude of different mains types of mains adaptors apart to see how they worked and put them back together.
I soon had a simple intercom system working up to the shed at the end of the garden where I could hear the hamster going round in his wheel. There were no active components just 2 loud speakers, and a pair of very long length of enamelled wire strung across the trees.
I think I must have been about 9 or 10 when I got my first "trionics" kit.
At about 11 I got my Sinclair Micro 6 for Xmas and had it assembled in bed before mum and dad were up. I added various items to this (odd speakers) to try and make it louder eventually just using it like a tuner with a little amp.
I built various amplifiers from Sinclair modules and eventually even made a reasonable case to house it all. I remember winning a 1st prize at school in a hobbycraft exhibition.
At about 10 years old Ohms law was second nature, and I prided myself in being able to work out simple combinations of series, parallel, and the output power of my amplifier.(which was rather disappointing and no where near the 30 watts claimed by the Sinclair adverts.)
Our English teacher had worked at the BBC in a recording studio and he had setup an audio recording studio adjacent to the classroom. This got me interested on tape recorders and I started to monopolise the Philips R2R that my sister had bought to help with her studies at teacher training college.
The Philips had a superimpose feature and I recorded my own version of the Charge of the light brigade, you know, Into the valley of death rode the ..... with sound effects taken from the 1812 Overture LP Dad had, edited and dubbed over my voice.
I can remember discovering the distinct advantage and improvement in quality of recording direct from the source to the tape.
Oh well that is a summary of my early years, I guess I was inspired by my Dad who was a Chartered Electrical Engineer working at STC, and his father who was a Engineer at a power station in Hale and then later at Dartford.

Mike

[ianj]

When I was very young I got a battery operated slide projector with a dr who slide story.About the same time I learned how to switch on and tune the radio set ( second hand valve grundig) In the lounge. I seemed to have an affinity with electricity; I would sit for ages just looking round the back of the radio or tv at the orange glow, and breathing in the warm air.Even today I love that smell, and the tinkling from valves warming up. I worked in a power station for L.T. at Lots rd chelsea when I left school at 16

[Focus Diode]

I was fascinated by anything electrical from a very early age, how items worked when plugged into the mains........
One vivid memory, as a toddler, was finding some round Wylex plugs in the kitchen drawer, some without tops on. While no one was looking I got one of the latter then crawled to the socket and plugged it in. I still remember the shock I received and how much I cried afterwards! My parents and grandparents were understandably more shocked I think with much panic going on.

I've been extremely careful and respectful of electricity ever since!

Cheers,
Brian