Thank you for your reply to my comments. As you said, "To each his own."
I am curious why you stated that in 21 years you will be 100 years old. Is that your life expectancy? That would probably mean that you are now approximately 79 years old, a relative youngster for those fortunate enough to make it to 100 without serious illness or running out of money.
I doubt that I will live much longer. My father died of cancer when he was only 82. My mother died at age 85, from complications of anesthesia, after she fell and struck her head against a tool box someone had left in her bedroom. Not blaming anyone: that tool box had to be placed somewhere. Because of health issues, I no longer make long-range plans. I just live my life one day at a time. Even with just twenty-four hours in a day, a third of which are usually occupied by sleep, that still leaves me sixteen hours to do whatever I please in retirement.
The key word here is "retirement". If you are "retired" it means you no longer need to work to have an income. Most of the world does not have a retirement plan: you work every day until you die. In America, most of the population is eligible to collect an income from Social Security after a certain age, if they have contributed for a specified number of years as determined by law.
I am going to assume that you, John, are eligible to collect SS income or income from your service to the Government. It may not be enough income for your life style, so perhaps you desire to supplement with a "side gig" and are now somewhat interested in electronics, citing your previous experience in this area. Do I have that right? You don't NEED extra income, but DESIRE that your life in retirement be USEFUL. Some extra income would support this, right? Or are you just here to troll us?
It pleases me to continue to pursue my electronics hobby, which eventually led me to a career in electronics. This was not without problems. My father, for example, did not understand how my spending so much time in the basement futzing with radios and stuff was in any way productive. He also didn't understand Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity, which I accepted but could not explain to him either.
So, one day, I decided to take what I had learned so far and put it to use by building an SCR (silicon controlled rectifier) light dimmer. This occurred in the early 1960s and SCRs were starting to become ubiquitous and affordable for hobbyists.
Dad, when he was not out and about (or flying in airplanes for the U.S. Air Force), liked to read the newspaper in the living room with a floor-lamp behind his reading chair. I built the SCR dimmer into a small sheet aluminum "Bud box" with a convenience outlet, a power cord, a fuse holder, and a potentiometer for SCR phase control mounted on the exterior. I think I used a stud-mounted SCR and mounted the heat sink externally, too. Then I plugged it all in, including the floor-lamp, and waited for Dad's approval.
It didn't come. He did notice that what I had built worked to control the brightness of his reading lamp, but he wasn't impressed. His "so what" attitude might possibly have been because he could purchase a dimmer the size of a wall switch at Home Depot or Lowe's, but I think those might have come out a few years later. COTS (commercial off the shelf) equipment is always less expensive than custom-made.
I tried real hard not to show any emotion at Dad's nonplus reaction, but inside I was crushed. Nothing I did seemed to please my father. The only thing I could think of to do was to see an Air Force recruiter and hope to get an assignment that had something to do with electronics.
It's hard to impress someone who has spent most of their life dropping bombs on Nazi Germany from a B-17 and then, later, carrying a bomb bay full of nuclear weapons on a B-47 for a one-way trip to the USSR that (thank God) never had to occur. "Peace Is Our Profession" was the Strategic Air Command (SAC) motto when Dad served. Mine, too, after I graduated high school and joined the Air Force as an enlisted airman, not an officer, and for only four years, not a career. Peace Through Strength is also a good motto, but mottoes are supposed to be only inspirational, not directive.
Regarding ham radio, it is true that technology now allows inexpensive conversations between people in far corners of the world. So what? I know of almost no one anywhere else in the world, much less their telephone number. So that capability is of no use to me, at least right now and probably in the future. But that isn't the purpose, or the main capability, of ham radio, of which there are many uses.
Ham radio is sometimes the ONLY means of communication when land lines and cell phone towers are incapacitated by local events, such as tornadoes, hurricanes, wild fires, and civil insurrection. There may be other circumstances where hams can aid their local community, for example by promoting STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Science) courses in schools from K - 12. I could go on and on about ham radio, but instead I suggest you visit
https://arrl.org for a more nuanced view of ham radio. Or visit a lending library, where I am sure there are a lot of books on the subject. I think your view of ham radio is rather sophomoric.
One of the things that
some hams like to do is to "chase DX," which means to try to contact another ham in a country other than your own using ham radio frequencies. I don't participate in this activity, but if a ham has deep pockets full of cash, a powerful transmitter, a sensitive receiver, and a good "antenna farm" this is an ideal way to separate hard-earned cash from your pockets.
Some hams spend thousands of dollars traveling to less-visited places (like islands no one has ever heard of, located in places that are difficult to reach) to "activate" a "rare" entity. These trips are called DXpeditions. They are supported by DX chasers who donate money to the effort. It is quite a large niche in the ham radio universe, but as I said, not for me and not for every ham either. And ALL ham radio activity is niche activity. The rest of the world couldn't care less about amateur radio, yet most nations support it.
Ham radio is of course a hobby. Hams pursue it for the sheer pleasure of making contacts with people they would otherwise never meet. Some of us participate in public events, such as marathon races, to monitor the contestants and notify appropriate authorities if someone gets into trouble. After I was re-licensed in 2013 as an amateur radio operator in Dayton OH, I participated as a ham volunteer for the Air Force Marathon, held at Wright-Patterson AFB every year. Participation required a two-way handheld radio (not a cell phone!) network to coordinate all the amateur radio volunteers.
It appears that you, John, are not interested in hobbies. Or if you once were, you now have no time for it. But it does beg the question: Why would you come to an electronics
hobby forum asking for advice? This thread has the title "
Not Understanding Arduino useage versus traditional Electronics useage in Devices." I wonder (after 45 messages) whether that has been answered to your satisfaction? If not, perhaps a moderator can terminate this thread (which does not seem to be going anywhere) so you can start yet another one, as you already have. What is your take on that suggestion?
