Home Based Income as an Electronics Hobbyist

[Harald Kapp]

You know they're going to Lock this thread up.

No, but as Hop suggested

move it to another forum.

 

[Delta Prime]

No, but as Hop suggested

After what he just said about me.
Okay I'm ready let's go!

 

[hevans1944]

If you are talking about Arduino type "so called" electronics projects that is NOT electronics. People who do that are called, "Makers"
...
Electronics is different. It is actually working with electronic components, the laws of electricity and magnetism and the characteristics. of electrical circuits and some physics, to create some kind of practical device.

If it involves electronics, a Maker who "throws together" a project from modules is building electronics projects. Who cares if the Maker knows diddly about the theory, or soldered together components common to most electrical circuits? If the end result works, is useful, it will be successful. An excellent example is the Arduino open-source microprocessor module. Other hobbyist examples abound. A really good Maker could become a business if they could assemble repeat customers. I have seen many examples of this in the amateur radio world. You would need to discover (or create) a niche.

 

[John R Retired]

If it involves electronics, a Maker who "throws together" a project from modules is building electronics projects. Who cares if the Maker knows diddly about the theory, or soldered together components common to most electrical circuits? If the end result works, is useful, it will be successful. An excellent example is the Arduino open-source microprocessor module. Other hobbyist examples abound. A really good Maker could become a business if they could assemble repeat customers. I have seen many examples of this in the amateur radio world. You would need to discover (or create) a niche.

Then what would you call the type of project where a person assembles various components like resistors, capacitors, ICs, inductors
and other discreet components. Uses his or her understanding of electrical laws and relationships via the laws of physics and electromagnetism and electronic construction techniques, to design a circuit and build it from scratch at the most fundamental level, including equations, which later will be used as a module in an Arduino project by a person who knows very little about such things, but only knows how to programme the Arduino after assembling the modules in the role of "Maker" (common term)? I call that a "true electronic project" where the Maker is just assembling the modules for Arduino programming, without knowing the laws of electricity and electronics. The principle is the same as calling a person who programmes a commercially bought musical keyboard to play song parts as the person who designed and made the crcuits inside the keyboard as both "performing electronic projects".

 

[Delta Prime]

Then what would you call the type of project where a person assembles various components like resistors, capacitors, ICs, inductors
and other discreet components. Uses his or her understanding of electrical laws and relationships via the laws of physics and electromagnetism and electronic construction techniques, to design a circuit and build it from scratch at the most fundamental level, including equations

This is what I would call that type of project.
Intrinsically driven.
Pursuing what makes one purposeful.
Entrepreneurial pursuit.
A strong panache to keep learning.
Enthusiasm amplified by feelings.
That's old hat to me...
I don't even wear hats.

 

[John R Retired]

This is what I would call that type of project.
Intrinsically driven.
Pursuing what makes one purposeful.
Entrepreneurial pursuit.
A strong panache to keep learning.
Enthusiasm amplified by feelings.
That's old hat to me...
I don't even wear hats.

Maybe so, but a "Maker" only assembles modules, like Arduinos to program with software, and is not an "electronics" oriented person.

 

[Delta Prime]

Maybe so, but a "Maker" only assembles modules, like Arduinos to program with software, and is not an "electronics" oriented person.

How did you think this conversation was going to end with affirmation and coddling?
(Rhetorical question)
Obviously your passionate about it. Follow it, life is short.
Time becomes more precious when there is less of it...
Besides I have a 100 of nieces and nephews always breaking their electronics guess who they come too.
Those little booger blaster's do not bother with any other family members they're all stuffy.With their PhDs and their Masters. I'm the only Tech in the family for now. I got a lot of business to throw you're way. Hurry up and get established! And good luck to you.

 

[John R Retired]

How did you think this conversation was going to end with affirmation and coddling?
(Rhetorical question)
Obviously your passionate about it. Follow it, life is short.
Time becomes more precious when there is less of it...
Besides I have a 100 of nieces and nephews always breaking their electronics guess who they come too.
Those little booger blaster's do not bother with any other family members they're all stuffy.With their PhDs and their Masters. I'm the only Tech in the family for now. I got a lot of business to throw you're way. Hurry up and get established! And good luck to you.

Just don't let them become Makers and then tell you they are electronics experts.

 

[hevans1944]

Just don't let them become Makers and then tell you they are electronics experts.

That has been a pet peeve of mine for a long time. I call that kind of "maker" a "poser" and will call them out the instant they start to spew forth their electro-bable explanations. I can certainly appreciate your frustration if you have ever tried to communicate with a poser trying to be a maker, or worse, an "electronics expert." Those are the ones to whom I sell the Oxygen Free High Conductivity (OFHC) gold-plated 4 AWG copper stranded super-duper high-fidelity speaker wire. You can tell who they are by their Golden Ears and the large number of Benjamins in their wallets or purses.

As a person who has literally spent a lifetime learning electronics, even going to the trouble of studying part-time to eventually earn a bachelor of electrical engineering degree, I can appreciate the self-taught electronics enthusiast. I went through that experience while growing up. When I enlisted in the Air Force, and was assigned to basic electronics tech school, I thought I was pretty hot shit compared to my classmates.

And I was well advanced in my technical knowledge, but my math skills as a high school graduate didn't extend beyond basic algebra and trigonometry. That was "gud enuf" for Uncle Sam, but I needed more formal education to advance from technician to engineer. I graduated at the top of my class at the Lowry AFB Technical Training Center in Denver, CO. After graduation, I was offered a job teaching electronics to incoming airmen. That would have meant a total change in career path. The Government wanted to train me up on the AN/ASG-21 Defensive Fire Control System that used a hydraulically-driven 20mm Gatling Gun to defend the latest generation of B-52H jet bombers.

Being young and still pretty stupid, I turned down the teaching offer and learned to maintain the Fire Control System instead. This was my introduction to solid-state operational amplifiers, electro-mechanical servo systems, rate gyroscopes, torque motors, magnetic amplifiers, cavity magnetron oscillator tubes attached to pressurized Ku-band radar waveguides assembled with "choke" joints and a Faraday isolator between the magnetron and its dual scanning/tracking radar antennas that were spun slightly off-axis so their return radar reflections would nutate around the spin axis and provide azimuth and elevation tracking information.

The ONLY down side to all that was the Strategic Air Command (SAC) loved to station their fleet of bombers in the coldest, snowiest, God-forsaken parts of the United States. I drew the short straw that assigned me to Kinceheloe AFB in the northern peninsula of Michigan. Three years later I was a civilian again, but ineligible for the draft because of my Air Force service.

So, with all this experience, and a decent engineering education, how can I make some extra cash while in retirement? Still working on that. Please let us know if you find a solution.

BTW: it is NOT illegal for hams to make money. We just can't use our licensed status for pecuniary purposes. No pay to play in amateur radio, no commercial or music broadcasts, but if your want to build something electronic and sell it to hams, that is perfectly legal. Good examples are wire dipole antennas. Any ham can purchase copper wire of appropriate length, add some insulators to each end and in the middle, attach a ladder-line or coaxial cable and provide a means to suspend it all in mid-air. But many hams don't go that route. They purchase instead a complete antenna kit that contains all the parts needed, except for the supports on each end and in the middle. Moments after their package arrives they are "on-the-air" with their new antenna.

The problem with selling anything to hams is this: hams are notoriously skin-flints, loath to spend a dime if somehow a penny can be made to work. Untold number of house fires were probably started in the previous century when a penny was placed under a "blown" fuse, but this wasn't just hams doing that. Everyone with a too-small fuse box and too-small wiring took shortcuts like this. A ham always looks for (1) the cheapest but safest way to do somthing or (2) if they have deep pockets full of cash, the most impressive way to do something. There doesn't seem to be much in betweeen anymore, except maybe at ham flea markets.

One thing that is always popular at amateur radio conventions is hand-made call signs that you can hang on the wall or leave on your operating desk. These range from simple wood signs to elaborate neon and led signs. Many vendors will take your order, manufacture your call-sign onsite, and make it availalbe fo pickup later in the day, or they will ship it to your home address. Always popular are component sales, but this takes a lot of cash to build an inventory and transportation costs can eat up profits.

Since you seem to be looking for something involving electronics, I think it would be a good idea to visit some local ham conventions, especially those advertising "flea market" tail-gate parking spaces. Take along a video recorder and take lots of notes, but avoid the temptation to purchase anything until you find your "niche" market. Other places to visit for ideas are the Makers Faires that pop up all over the country. I lot of these are 3D-printer oriented, so you should investigate the cost of obtaining a "starter" 3D printer and determine how you could use it to make a product you could sell.

Lots of ideas can be found on how to make money, but every successful one requires real work, which we haven't seen you do yet. What ideas do you have that we could discuss?

Hop -- AC8NS

 

[hevans1944]

I didn't want to get into a discussion of "Makers" versus everyone else, especially here in the MakerPro forums. Makers make things, and most makers probably don't care to know why the things they make work, if indeed they do work. I have been "playing" with electronics for a very long time, but a few years ago the term "Maker" was relatively new to me. I associated it with those who post on forums that feature "monkey see, monkey do" type projects, usually with some sort of (usually incorrect) explanation of what is going on. I tend to avoid this type of person, unless they express a desire to actually learn something about electronics.

I believe that electronics can be a hobby as well as an avocation, and it's okay if someone wants to combine the two. For me, it started with my grandfather in the late 1950s, who was a retired West Virginia coal mine electrician. He got me interested in electricity, and frequent trips to the library with my grandmother helped me to learn something about it. In the 1950s I haunted the alleys behind radio and television repair shops for discarded tubes and for discarded radio and television receivers, the latter of which I could either salvage for parts or attempt to repair. So in one sense, it started as a hobby for me that gradually led to a career in electronics.

I never thought much about it as a hobby, not having the wherewithal as a youngster to support my "hobby," as most hobbyist are want to do. For example, Dad and I once tried to build and fly model airplanes. I started out with a simple Revell plastic kit model of a non-flying F-104 Starfighter airplane (my favorite jet fighter at the time), painting and gluing the parts together. Then Dad gave me a small flying model of the Spirit of St. Louis that was flown with an 0.049 glow-plug internal combustion engine. This was easy to assemble but I had no idea of how to actually fly it. Our next model was a much larger airplane, size suitable for radio remote control, but we were going to use hand-held control-line wires to fly it. We spent most of one winter building this model.

At this time (late 1950s), Dad had access to a lot of airmen at Lowry AFB in Denver, CO, who were also model airplane enthusiasts. Dad was helping to "stand up" the first classes of the Air Force Academy at Lowry before the academy in Colorado Springs was completed. After we built the model, we took it to an area on the base that was devoted to flying model airplanes. We didn't have a clue what to do, so we turned the plane over to someone who claimed to know how to fly it. In his first attempt at taking off, the plane did a nose dive into the tarmac that destroyed the airplane.

We never did find out what had happened, but we had probably messed up with one of the linkages that controlled the elevator flaps on the wings. This experience took the wind out of our sails and led to our abandonment of further attempts to fly model airplanes. Dad went back to flying in B-47 bombers and I went back to playing around with electronics.

I still have "learning to fly a real airplane" on my bucket list, and fortunately Venice airport is nearby. All I need for my sports pilot license is some money for ground training and flying time. Don't even need to pass a physical exam since sport pilots are not allowed to fly with passengers. Of course this would all come second to saving money for my amateur radio hobby

My father didn't really appreciate my electronics hobby. He considered it a waste of time because I didn't actually produce anything useful while I was "playing around" with electronics, taking apart radios and television sets to obtain parts for experimentation and education. I suppose model airplanes was a worthy pursuit (until it wasn't) but electroncis as a hobby was not acceptable.

I had been slowly acquiring test equipment for which Dad could see no use. By saving money from a paper route, mowing lawns, and washing and waxing cars I was able to purchase a kit RCA Vacuum Tube Volt Meter (VTVM) that I found was necessary for measuring potentials in high-impedance vacuum tube circuits. Later, I added an EICO 460K kit Oscilloscope, necessary to observe AC wave forms; various Heathkit audio and radio frequency signal generators; an Heathkit RCL bridge with a "magic eye" null detector. And many boxes of used electronic components salvaged from discarded radio and television chassis.

This was all just an accumulation of junk as far as my father was concerned. Of course, he only had a practical knowledge of electricity acquired from his father. Dad knew diddly about electronics, although the airplanes he flew in relied heavily on electronics. As a navigator/bombardier on B-47 bombers, he was basicallyt a "monkey see, monkey do" appliance operator. He was sort of like people today who flip on a light switch with absolutely no understanding of what is happening if the lamp lights, and no idea of how to troubleshoot and correct the problem if it doesn't light... replace the light bulb or reset the circuit breaker is about the extent of their knowledge of electricity. Or maybe pay the power and light bill if all else fails.

I actually did work part-time, after school, in a TV repair shop. Televisions were beginning to go solid state and soon it was cheaper to replace defective TVs insteads of repairing them. Folks would drop their sets off for a repair estimate and then abandon them after finding out how much it would cost to repair them. I was given the "opportunity" to repair those sets so the shop owner could sell them later. I didn't earn much money, but I did learn a lot about the radio and television repair business... enough to know that this wasn't the career path for me.

About this same time, silicon controlled rectifiers (SCRs) were becoming popular and affordable, so I decided to build an incandescent lamp dimmer, based on articles I had read in Popular Electronics or maybe Electronics Illustrated. This went well: I used money from my paper route to purchase a nice Bud box, a finned heat sink, an SCR and some power semiconductor diodes along with the "glue" components needed to make it all work. I really didn't know much about what I was building (still a dumb teenager), but the project was successful.

Dad seemed impressed that I had put together something useful. I hooked it up to his favorite reading lamp, next to his living room chair, and demonstrated how it worked. A few years later, wall-mounted light dimmers became available in big-box home improvement stores for the DIY public, at a price much less than the cost of the parts I used for this project. Some time after that I got real electronics training, courtesy of the U.S. Air Force, after graduating from high school and signing up for a four-year enlistment. Of course the "fine print" on the enlistment documents said four years was a minimum term of enlistment. Uncle Sam could actually use my services for as long as the Government felt it was necessary. I was so "green" in May 1963 that I didn't even realize there was a war going on in some place called Viet Nam.

And after my initial enlistment term was over, I still had a two-year Inactive Reserve obligation before I was Honorably Discharged, but I did not have to do anything except keep my address up-to-date with Uncle Sam. So, a month after I was separated from the Air Force, I talked my way into a real electronics technician job at the University of Dayton Research Institute (UDRI). Later I earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering degree (BEE, 1978, University of Dayton) on their dime (I only had to buy my text books) while working full-time and attending classes part-time.

It took awhile (ten years) to finally graduate, and another year after that to find a job as a newly-minted electrical engineer, but I worked in an "Ivory Tower" from June 1967 until the summer of 1978. I was the envy of most of the techs I worked with because my military service exempted me from being drafted. They had to stay on their toes and work hard to avoid losing their cushy "exempt because of National Security" jobs and becoming subject to the draft. People that were drafted were immediately sent to Viet Nam, where a lot of them were dying like crazy. I thank my Guardian Angel that I was able to avoid that.

Of course I continued my electronics hobby after graduating from Meadowdale high school in the Spring of 1963. I became an Federal Communcations Commisssion (FCC) licensed Novice amateur radio operator, call-sign WN8UTJ, in 1966 while serving in the Air Force. The license expired after a year and was not renewable. I had to either upgrade to a Technician or General class license or get off the air. So I remained off-the-air until 2013 when I finally tested successfully for the Amateur Extra class license. Also passed the Technician and General tests at the same sitting. It helped me that the FCC dropped the Morse Code proficiency requirement to obtain an amateur radio license. I enjoyed CW (Morse Code) conversations (QSOs) as a Novice, and after a year my code speed was more than fast enough to pass the General test. But after my enlistment ended, I would have had to drive to Columbus, OH, to an FCC field office to test in person before an FCC examiner. That didn't happen because a job, family, and school took all my available time. So now, several decades later, I need to re-learn Morse Code... not because I have to, but because I want to. Morse Code will generally get through when all else fails.

At the November 2023 meeting of the Tamiami Amateur Radio Club (TARC), I was presented a certificate from the Quarter Century Wireless Association (QCWA) for 55 years of participation in amateur radio. In 2023 I renewed my amateur radio license for another ten years. My next goal is to live long enough to receive a 60 year certificate.

I haven't found a way to earn a home-based income as an electronics hobbyist. Some hams sell stuff to make a little side income, but it is not something I am interested in doing. If I could afford to rent a facility, I would like to teach electronics to young people to perhaps get them interested in either amateur radio or a career in electronics. These would be small one-on-one classes with combinations of classroom instruction and a hands-on electronics laboratory. No complicated maths, just some algebra and simple trigonometry for ages from perhaps thirteen to thirty. Still exploring this by acting as an "Elmer" or mentor to new hams at monthly TARC meetings. Mail-order courses in electronics were a heavily advertised in popular electronics magazines when I was growing up, but I haven't seen any advertised lately. Perhaps with the demise of mom-and-pop repair shops no one wants this sort of instruction anymore. Or maybe there is no interest in amateur radio because everyone now has a cell phone that can call anyone, anywhere, in the world... and access to the Internet for social media communications.

 

[Martaine2005]

Those are the ones to whom I sell the Oxygen Free High Conductivity (OFHC) gold-plated 4 AWG copper stranded super-duper high-fidelity speaker wire.

Yep, £1000 per metre.
Cheap at half the price for having (well, half a brain).

 

[kellys_eye]

I don't suppose there's much room for home based businesses any more - unless it's in sales. We started a small business from home many years ago that quickly turned into needing premises to hold and distribute stock before we progressed into owning a shop and selling direct to the public. The internet quickly made such sales more than difficult so we ended up doing it from home again! Full circle.

I started an electronics repair business (marine) after we relocated but that quickly escalated into the customers demanding on-site presence and the travelling took its toll - toting the repair tools and test equipment eventually led to a serious back injury that brought me back to a home-based situation - again! Another full circle.

After the repair business started falling off (the economy and our remote location made bringing dud equipment to me impractical) and the back injury took so long to repair that many customers went elsewhere, I did a complete change of course and made/sold frozen meals for which we still do very well and have a pretty decent customer base. Fortunately our reputation and media attention made people come to us quite willingly despite our location plus a burgeoning local self-catering chalet market created more customers as the weekend visitors don't exactly have a wide choice of food outlets! Captive market - yay!

Adaptation has always been necessary if you want to run a business. Picking just electronics, although encompassing a few potential sub-sets - is still a narrowing of your choices and potentials. Obviously if you only have skills and knowledge in one specific area then you're pretty much stuck but have a long think about what ALL your potential routes could be. There may be something quite different that fills the gap?

Still, the economy itself makes any decision variable - from an endless demand for your services/products to just scraping through or even reconsidering your options. My own circumstances are very much more favourable than many (no mortgage, no debt, very little expense to live (or run the business) etc) but the economy is STILL having an effect and whereas people may easily forgo a repaired TV, radio/whatever they will always want to eat. Maybe not my meals but we can (and may) just sell provisions instead - another direction change but, that's what we do. We go where the demand is and inside knowledge of where that market is or may be heading is vital if you want to keep afloat.

There are no easy options, no idealised solutions and no one-size-fits-all answer. Equally I very much doubt anyone can offer an answer to your own needs/wants without the OP being very open and specific about their life and skill sets as a few of our membership have quite clearly detailed.

 

[John R Retired]

I don't suppose there's much room for home based businesses any more - unless it's in sales. We started a small business from home many years ago that quickly turned into needing premises to hold and distribute stock before we progressed into owning a shop and selling direct to the public. The internet quickly made such sales more than difficult so we ended up doing it from home again! Full circle.

I started an electronics repair business (marine) after we relocated but that quickly escalated into the customers demanding on-site presence and the travelling took its toll - toting the repair tools and test equipment eventually led to a serious back injury that brought me back to a home-based situation - again! Another full circle.

After the repair business started falling off (the economy and our remote location made bringing dud equipment to me impractical) and the back injury took so long to repair that many customers went elsewhere, I did a complete change of course and made/sold frozen meals for which we still do very well and have a pretty decent customer base. Fortunately our reputation and media attention made people come to us quite willingly despite our location plus a burgeoning local self-catering chalet market created more customers as the weekend visitors don't exactly have a wide choice of food outlets! Captive market - yay!

Adaptation has always been necessary if you want to run a business. Picking just electronics, although encompassing a few potential sub-sets - is still a narrowing of your choices and potentials. Obviously if you only have skills and knowledge in one specific area then you're pretty much stuck but have a long think about what ALL your potential routes could be. There may be something quite different that fills the gap?

Still, the economy itself makes any decision variable - from an endless demand for your services/products to just scraping through or even reconsidering your options. My own circumstances are very much more favourable than many (no mortgage, no debt, very little expense to live (or run the business) etc) but the economy is STILL having an effect and whereas people may easily forgo a repaired TV, radio/whatever they will always want to eat. Maybe not my meals but we can (and may) just sell provisions instead - another direction change but, that's what we do. We go where the demand is and inside knowledge of where that market is or may be heading is vital if you want to keep afloat.

There are no easy options, no idealised solutions and no one-size-fits-all answer. Equally I very much doubt anyone can offer an answer to your own needs/wants without the OP being very open and specific about their life and skill sets as a few of our membership have quite clearly detailed.

"Picking just electronics, although encompassing a few potential sub-sets - is still a narrowing of your choices and potentials"

That's true from a stictly economic-survival POV. I suppose you can be flexible and collect cans and bottles or mow lawns too.

As far as electronics goes, trying to use electronics in some way, some manner, to do a home based business (rather than being a cog
for an electronics company) because you just love figuring circuit relationships and construction is a different story and is rooted in idealism as far as making a living goes.
A college professor once told me, "If you want to be successful, work at something you Love" I'm not saying I love it that much
to the extreme but it beats working at "Kentucky Fried Chicken" assembling take out orders, or working as a plumber cleaning out
sewers.

 

[hevans1944]

"If you want to be successful, work at something you Love"

This is an absolutely true statement, but it doesn't guarantee success to love your work... a certain amount of skill and ability to perform the task at hand is also part of the "formula for success." But why work your life away doing something you don't love? Move up or move out, but don't blame the work if you have an opportunity to do better. America is still the land of opportunity, so get off your duff and go out there and opportune. If that involves electronics (real stuff, not the fake shit you have complained about) then you owe it to yourself to learn everything you can about your potential market.

Today, virtually any sophisticated electronics project will involve one or more microprocessors, several "glue" integrated circuits, some sort of power supply, and chemically-etched copper-laminated circuit boards... also called printed circuit boards or PCBs. Assembling everything into a project that evolves into a product that you sell at a profit requires a lot of planning, not to mention some monetary investment. It would be all too easy to neglect the details and hope for the best, but hope is not a substitute for a business plan, nor will it impress lenders when you ask them to loan you money to purchase parts.

I don't much like to work with surface-mount devices (SMDs), but with the aid of an inexpensive magnifier or microscope, and appropriate teeny tiny hand tools, I can manage to do one-off projects. For two or more, I would probably farm the work out. And if my gee-whiz product was REALLY successful, I would probably sell the rights outright and move on to something else. Or sub-contract the manufacturing to some entity better equipped to handle it. All sorts of options are available, but you do need that first successful product. Or perhaps service.

Software as a service (subscription based) is popular today. With AI assisting, it could be the "wave of the future" everyone wants to catch and ride into prosperity. Well, it worked for Bill Gates fifty years ago, and it is still working! Gates literally stole the personal computer market from International Business Machines, who actually invented the personal computer, by selling them MS-DOS based on IBM's own published Basic Input/Output System (BIOS). IBM thought they had designed a "new and improved" keyboard data entry system. Gates thought he would start a software company that appealed to the masses. Thinking "outside the box" made Microsoft the giant it is today, along with cut-throat marketing practices (It ain't done 'til Lotus won't run!) and the hiring of exceptionally talented people.

I bought into the Microsoft hype many decades ago. Now I am wondering if I should have gone with Linux, when I had the opportunity to do so while working on a government contract in the 1980s. It still isn't too late (lots of free Linux distros available), but I suspect that the learning curve would be a tough climb at my age. Still. there is that Raspberry Pi (laying in my goody box) on which I installed a version of Ubuntu Linux "just the see" if it worked. It did. Maybe I should try to make a whole-house security system based on the Pi and a few inexpensive, solid-state, Wyze TV cameras that my wife bought. Meanwhile, I have renewed for another year my monthly "maintenance" subscription for Alibre Design Expert parametric 3D design software. This is a hobby activity, not something I ever expect to make any money with, but I find parametric modeling to be a fascinating adjunct to my electronics hobby.

 

[Harald Kapp]

Now I am wondering if I should have gone with Linux, when I had the opportunity to do so while working on a government contract in the 1980s. It still isn't too late (lots of free Linux distros available), but I suspect that the learning curve would be a tough climb at my age.

You're never too old.
Give it a try. Modern Linux distributions are easy to install and easy to use. Superficially like Windows. Long gone are the times when you had to be a wizard at the console (or terminal window) to configure your Linux system by some keyboard magic.
Of course, you can still do that, if you wish (and for some not so commonplace actions it may still be required. But a modern Linux can figure out many settings by itself (e.g. install required drivers) or has GUI-based settings tools.

You may need to learn a few new applications as many indows apps are not natively available on Linux. But in many cases equivalent apps do exist for Linux. Or you can use Wien to run native WIndows applications on Linux.

Or chose a dual boot setup with Linux and Windows on the same computer. Then boot the system you need.
Or run Windows in a virtual machine (VM) under Linux.
Or get acquainted with the Linux subsystem for Windows.

So many possibilities to learn Linux...

 

[kellys_eye]

I've run Linux (as Ubuntu) for about 10 years now. Although I do keep an identical laptop with Windows installed as a 'backup' for those occasions when Linux can't cover the app, I haven't picked it up in at least the last 12 months.

For those who are set in their ways over Windows, there is a version of Linux made specifically for you called 'Zorin' - check out this Tube video on its installation and operation.

 

[bertus]

Hello,

I have been using linux on my home computer since there was a virus hose on windows 98.
At the moment I am running OpenSuse Tumbleweed.
That is a linux distribution that always gets the latest tested software and will always be up to date:

openSUSE - Free Linux operating systems for desktops, servers and containers

openSUSE makes open source Linux operating systems, available for free in several flavors.

www.opensuse.org

With some extra repositories, you can install quite a bit of electronics or science softwares.
Here is a picture of the repositories I added:

I installed the Linux in dutch, but it can be installed in more than 50 other languages.

There are many versions (distributions) of linux.
Distrowatch keeps track of almost all versions:

DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.

News and feature lists of Linux and BSD distributions.

distrowatch.com

If you want to try a linux without installing, you can have a look at one of the many live distributions:

The LiveCD List · The LiveCD List

livecdlist.com

A well known and usefull live distribution is Knoppix:

KNOPPIX - Live Linux Filesystem On CD

Bertus

 

[kellys_eye]

If you load Linux in any form it is preferred to do so with versions that have 'LTS' attached to them - Long Term Support - and the Ubuntu I use even now was the first version I installed years ago - it's just been keeping upgrading as and when necessary and I've never suffered a lockup or catastrophe as a result of any upgrade either. Something Windows seems very capable of creating i.e. problems.

 

[shrtrnd]

My input is that the money is in repairing high-end stereo gear for audophiles, but if you do that, you'll
have to advertise your business so that it comes-up on a web search. The owners want to save their
high-end stereo gear at almost any price. Aside from that, I find my number one request is for building
specialty power supplies for people who want a specific replacement for their equipment.
As a side-note, from one of your other posts, I was one of those ex-military CW (Morse) US operators
due to the fact that a lot of other countries were still using Morse well into the 1970s.
Hams appear to be a joke here, but those who learn the code never forget it.
I suppose it is doomed to die when we do.

 

[Delta Prime]

I suppose it is doomed to die when we do

No it won't.Your contributions will not be lost, right here right now intergenerational interaction, collaboration is taking place, fostering a supportive environment via this website that is documenting
your personal experience, insight, knowledge, wisdom to be shared with future generations.
What's Morse code?
(Just kidding).