> My parents encouraged my mechanical/electrical/electronic interests at a =
young age.
> I remember on several occasions when they bought a second copy of somethi=
ng (eg: a
> cassette tape recorder) after I taken apart the first to see how it worke=
d. It seems
> that in those days I sometimes couldn't get things back together. This wa=
s
> especially amazing because our family had little $ for extras.

I was lucky that my father also had an interest in radio, and when I got a =
book out of the library describing how to build a crystal set, he was in bo=
ots and all to help.

> I remember "improving" small transistor radios by connecting them to high=
er voltage
> batteries (18V?) and larger speakers. The sound output was impressive, fo=
r a while.

LOL ...

> Another story: when I was about 10 my dad was doing some remodeling and h=
ad to
> install a wall switch for a light. He thought the simplest way to do it w=
as to wire
> it in parallel, _across_, the line. He reasoned that when the switch was =
on the
> current would go through it rather than the light bulb. I set him straigh=
t, and from
> that point my mom wouldn't let him do any more electrical projects.

Maybe he thought it was fed with a signal generator at a rather higher freq=
uency ...

One of the courses I did when I was an apprentice, the lecturer described h=
ow he used to confuse guys from the NZED (New Zealand Electricity Departmen=
t, the outfit than ran the national grid power distribution) by having a pa=
ir of open feeder wires stretched across the ceiling of the laboratory. He =
had a light bulb one end, a signal generator the other, which must have had=
 a reasonable output capability, even to light a small torch bulb, and then=
 part way along the overhead wires he had a pair of wires dropped down to a=
 knife switch, Close the switch and the light came on, open the switch and =
the light went off.

IIRC he had the signal generator running somewhere in the 150MHz range, whi=
ch would give about the right wavelength for the length of the stub down to=
 the knife switch, and its distance from the generator. I never saw it in a=
ction, but as an illustration of 1/4 wave tuned transmission lines it worke=
d a treat. Apparently it used to really confuse the guys from the NZED who =
didn't know anything about 1/4 waves or any of that RF nonsense ...

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