I built a 50-watt ham radio transmitter (copper chassis and all) with an 807 final. And an allied radio receiver kit. And later a VFO kit to drive the transmitter. And a Q-Multiplier and a BFO for the 1927 Zenith radio from my dad so I could hear tones in CW. Then, from scratch, when I got my General Class license, I built an AM modulator on a 14-inch steel chassis to get on AM. Going almost digital, I built a two-tube 12as7 W9TO keyer for morse code for the above rig. And an antenna system with two 45 foot poles about 180 feet apart to put up three dipoles. And I cannot count the number of antennas that I have built over the years at my various residences.
Later, I built one of the second wave of the Altair computers, and actually had one or two consulting gigs from that.
And, to brag a little, I pointed my daughter, to a QST article on a code practice oscillator, and she built it with almost no supervision when she was in high school.
I built, from a kit, one or three of the amateur packet radio kits, and ran a radio BBS for too long a time. (You see, the internet is just ham radio 2.0, but none of you get that fact, but i digress)
I built (strictly was architect for) a medical information system that gathered electrocardiograms from patients bedsides, transmitted them via telephone to a datacenter near Chicago, which returned an english-language report to the hosptial in ten minutes or less. (This one is cheating a bit, as a large component of this was software.)
But by far and away most of the stuff I have built is software.
Now, my gig is to break software, but that is off-topic. (Hint--you sometimes need to write software to break other software.)
Later, I built one of the second wave of the Altair computers, and actually had one or two consulting gigs from that.
And, to brag a little, I pointed my daughter, to a QST article on a code practice oscillator, and she built it with almost no supervision when she was in high school.
I built, from a kit, one or three of the amateur packet radio kits, and ran a radio BBS for too long a time. (You see, the internet is just ham radio 2.0, but none of you get that fact, but i digress)
I built (strictly was architect for) a medical information system that gathered electrocardiograms from patients bedsides, transmitted them via telephone to a datacenter near Chicago, which returned an english-language report to the hosptial in ten minutes or less. (This one is cheating a bit, as a large component of this was software.)
But by far and away most of the stuff I have built is software.
Now, my gig is to break software, but that is off-topic. (Hint--you sometimes need to write software to break other software.)