When I was invited to write this Editorial, as an accompaniment to my last internet Commentary (see p. nnn) for this journal, I thought it would be a good idea to summarise my experience in the last half-century or so and to comment on the numerous changes I have seen. My adventure into electronics started in the early 1940s when I built a crystal set so that I could listen to the BBC Home and Forces programmes, while lying in bed at night. Fiddling with the "cat's whisker" to find the best spot on the galena crystal was, I suppose, an entry into the world of semiconductors, even if I didn't understand why. I quickly evolved into using amplification with an Osram LP2 triode valve (vacuum tube) and then super-regeneration. By the age of 16, I had become the UK's youngest "ham" and had started my studies at the Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, to graduate as a Radio Engineer (I think Southampton University started a course in Electronics Engineering, not just radio and telecommunications, a year or two later).
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