Hello from the last of the streetcar suburbs, about fifteen minutes from Tektronix-Keithley.
I got into electronics back in the early years of school with the Radio Shack spring-terminal kits (a 50-in-1, the Voice Recorder, the four-piece Action Kit, and the AM/shortwave radio) and a science fair project on solar cells. The only survivor from this era is my old 8-range analog multimeter, which I've hung on to for sentimental reasons (incompatible with proper safety probes). I'm not precisely sure why I lost interest in it, but I think a little bit of my interest in electronics returned late in primary school and early in high school when I was thinking about becoming an electrician. I tried my hand at Aerospace Engineering at Ohio State University down in Columbus, but got mired in Calculus II and transferred to John Carroll University, a few minutes away from where my family lives. I ended up getting a Bachelor's degree in Physics, and that led to me taking electronics courses as a technical elective. From that point on (and after a very difficult struggle through quantum mechanics), I knew I'd be continuing on into electrical engineering. And now, I find myself working on my Master's degree at Cleveland State University in Electrical Engineering, with an emphasis on power electronics/systems and now...instrumentation. Programming was never a strong point for me, so the analog fields seemed somewhat more appealing. I found EEVblog, started watching it, and...here I am.
I worked as an engineering intern at the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority during the summer of 2013, and would love to return after I take my engineering licensure exams. Traction power and transit operations have fascinated me since I was little, and I really enjoyed the culture in the engineering department there. This summer and fall, though, I'm going to be working at Tektronix-Keithley, which is great...but touring the place...oh, I'll start a new thread about that, it's an issue unto itself.
I'm a frequent guest of the Cleveland Makers' Alliance hackerspace at the Shaker LaunchHouse, but dear gods, the place is a mess, and there's no good place to do electronic work (or keep the test equipment) at this point so I'm not ready to start paying dues. The lack of workspace both in and outside of the house has really limited my ability to start projects. I have successfully repaired a PAiA Fatman synthesizer that had defective components, but that's about it.
My current test equipment stable includes:
-Rigol DS2072 (hacked to DS2302)
-Keithley 199 System DMM
-HP 3311A Function Generator
I'm planning on acquiring:
-Knight Laboratories ML-2010 portable prototyping station
-The carry bag for the DS2072 so the knobs don't get scraped off.
Other hobbies include:
-Drawing
-Tabletop RPGs
-SCUBA (but I just haven't had the time)