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“Face it, you like to get under the hood, so to speak, to dink around and “build” your own system. More power to you, that’s something that has provided a handsome livelihood to many for several decades. It’s going the way of the buggy whip, though, and is being relegated slowly but surely to hobbyist status. No doubt people built their own televisions and radios back in the electronic dark ages, too. Who does now?”

You have to know that you really hit a nerve there... I have built radios, TV’s, Computers, Test Equipment ( Oscilloscopes, Multimeters, Signal Generators, etc. ). along with several other obscure items...(Remember Heathkits?).

Anyway, you just may be right, these things may be times past OR they may just be the knowledge that saves the US in the future... (the way that it is going). Not really feeling secure these days...

Anyway, nice to hear from you...

If your concern centers upon some future dystopia, likely or not, I’d suggest acquiring a greater level of familiarity with old tech, like analog, vacuum tubes and cathode ray tubes, lol. They won’t “fry” as easily with EMP and the bar is much lower as far as manufacture.

I bought a used HW-2036A 2-meter FM transceiver when I got my Tech class HAM radio license in 1979.

I had to add a 100 Hz sub-audible tone (CTCSS) generator to be able to access the repeaters. But once I did, what fun!

Those were the days.

I think that today the tech savvy kids are into making things work together software wise and writing application software. Maybe they may get started building a couple of simple circuits (usually using 555 timer ICs) from Radio Shack. But for serious applications they make use of the hardware that is already out there (why design and build a display and front panel when laptop computers are available, for instance...)

Even in the "good old days" we were still dependent on the right transistor being available - I still remember (after a few seconds) the 40673 MOSFET transistor that I had to replace in the front end of the Heathkit shortwave receiver I had built.

I was always more of a hardware person myself. But even a lot of the hardware gurus that I know (electrical engineers) got into programming micro-controllers with the major processing power and on-board circuitry already available at far cheaper than what even your time alone is worth to even try to build it, and any misc. electronic parts and soldering is to interface that circuit to the rest of the world. The technology evolves over time.

http://www.nutsvolts.com/

Nuts and Volts is a good publication for the current state of the modern electronics hobbyist.