SolderSmoke -- A Global Adventure in Radio Electronics
From Crystal Radios to Podcast MP3s
With Occasional Forays into Astronomy, Kite Aerial Photography, and
Model Rocketry

SolderSmoke is the story of a secret, round-the-world, after-hours
life in electronics. Bill Meara started out as a normal kid, but
around the age of 12 he got interested in radio... To make matters
worse, when he got older he became a diplomat. In all of the places he
has lived, his hobby caused him to seek out like-minded radio fiends,
to stay up late into the night working on strange projects, and to
build embarrassingly large antennas above innocent foreign
neighborhoods. SolderSmoke takes you into the world of an expatriate
geek. It is a technical memoir filled with funny stories and with
serious descriptions of Bill's struggles to truly understand the
theory behind the equipment that he built.

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My intention was to produce a book that is both fun and useful. The
memoir part of the book is about my life as electronics-addicted
diplomat. But this is more than a memoir: portions of each chapter
describe my struggles to really understand the theory behind the
circuits that I was building. Throughout, I try to lace the text with
inspirational descriptions of the fraternal, cooperative,
international aspects of ham radio, of what we call "The International
Brotherhood of Electronic Wizards." In short, its the kind of book
that a techie would like to take to the beach.

Here is the web site -- it has the cover photo and a preview of the
first chapter.

http://www.lulu.com/content/paperbac...rsmoke/6743576