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I've been interested in electronics since I was a kid. It's really the only thing I've stuck with over the years. I've dabbled with various other things over time, but with everything else I eventually lost interest and gave them up.
Some of my earliest memories are of a 23" Pye Hybrid B&W set in our lounge room. Often peering through the vent holes in the at the tubes and other parts rather than watching what was on screen. That set was eventually replaced by a Philips color set and relegated to a back bedroom. Early one morning when everyone was alseep I took it apart to get a better look at what was inside, then put it back together again before anyone noticed. Later when that set died I took it apart again, though this time I had permission.
Once while hanging around in someone's backyard while my father visited someone I found the chassis from a tube B&W set sitting in an old pram in the long grass. The lady who owned the house said I could have it, but my father would only let me take part of it, so I took the tuner. I carried that tuner around like other kids would carry a stuffed animal or toy car for ages, taking it apart and reassembling it several times.
When I was 7 I discovered the annual road side rubbish collection. I couldn't move anything big on my own so I wheeled around an old pram with a few basic tools and stripped the chassis out of things right there on the side of the road and wheeled it all back home. I used to get into a lot of trouble when my parents got home to find every flat surface in the kitchen or lounge room covered in radios, TV parts and whatever else I had found.
As I got older the area I covered got larger and I got strong/determined enough to start dragging complete sets home. I met the local junk dealers this way, a couple are still doing it today. Occasionally one of them would pass me struggling to move a set and would drop it off at my house for me.
I used to plan my route to school to pass dumpsters and other places I knew there was stuff to be found. I got a few other kids interested in electronics by showing them the stuff that I found, but I don't think any of them stuck with it. Once I even convinced a girl that liked me to help carry a set home. If only I knew then how rare this was, but I was only 11 at the time and was far more interested in the TV than I was in her.
I've been doing this for a long time now and it still excites me when I see the first pictures on a set that I've fixed.
It's that time of year again and there are 8 sets in my car waiting to be unloaded (though only the Siemens 70s set will be worth posting later) and I'm already planning what else to pick up after that.
I past from hobbiest or collector into hoarder long ago, but I can't help myself. I've tried to give it up. Thin the herd and stop accumulating, but I'm always drawn back to it.
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