DIY Electronics

I am sure there are kids into that sort of thing if you can find them. I know one who built all manner of things including an engine controller for a lawnmower. Usually based around an Arduino or similar.

He has now grown up, got a degree, and is doing the same for a job.

rick expressed precisely :

Oh, don't skip them - I for one would welcome them to add to my collection, rather than see them end up in the skip.

Have you tried Freecycle and/or Facebook as a way to donate them to a good cause.

Some schoolkids are still building stuff: take this, for instance -

Your question prompted me to go and look at eBay where I see lots of people are trying to sell things like that: not sure how these auctions turn out because I haven't watched any to the end but it indicates that you are not the only one thinking this way. I suspect that the market might be for older folk who are still soldering on (see what I did there?) and perhaps your nearest Men's Shed or similar project might be interested.

Me? I have a stack of stuff like that myself but every now and then I rummage through and find the bits I want and build something else so I'm not ready to let my stash go just yet.

Nick

Nick Odell used his keyboard to write :

Same here, plus handy for the odd repair session.

Same here, and agree with other posters, don't skip them. Freecycle, FB, FB marketplace; any repair clubs locally? Posting on a FB "local" group will almost certainly locate someone's dad who would love them!

I'm currently building some arduino stuff on good old fashioned Vero, complete with pins and track cutter, because I find it difficult to solder on "modern" prototype boards.

Many of the style of projects that appeared in those journals can now be accomplished with much less effort using one of the many microprocesors such as Arduino, RPi, Pic, etc.

Perhaps it is the negation of the old adage that necessity is the mother of invention, for when chidren of today carry around in their pockets a supercomputer with world-wide transceive capability (Their smart phone!) there is little interest in scratching around in the dirt when you have a shiny new tractor-driven plough!

PS. Reading the OP again, Linsley Hood???? ISTR that the Bailey amp was the bee's knees, the cat's whiskers and the dog's bollocks?

There's quite a thing going with computing in schools / robotics / 'physical computing', etc. Building audio stuff, not so much (many things don't even have headphone jacks these days). Some of this is built with modules for Raspberry Pi, micro:bit etc, so there isn't so much soldering and building from components involved.

Always worth asking if you know someone. Although be prepared for them not to be interested - it's potentially just landfill from their perspective.

I think the main thing is the components will be outdated and not in sufficient volume. Through hole is useful for breadboarding, but it very much depends on what you have - capacitors good, older chips are less useful. In particular the circuits they're building may be doing quite different things to your application, so audio amplifier chips etc are probably not needed.

Maybe the main thing will be a student interested in sorting through it - the teacher won't have time, but perhaps there's a keen student interested enough to dig into what you have?

I could probably use a stash of random bits like that, but it would need to be surface mount. Which rules out most of the older stuff out there.

(the other problem with SMD stashes is you end up with reels of random-value components, which actually take up more space than a bag of through hole ones. I can't use 3000 6k72 resistors, even if they were free)

Theo

I've got half a loft full of old Practical Wireless/Electronics/Computing etc

I'm not likely to be arsed taking them with when I move house, have they all been scanned and stored online somewhere?

Andy Burns used his keyboard to write :

I have seen some scanned magazines somewhere.

I don't know if BitSavers deals in UK magazines?

Andy Burns wrote on 10/09/2021 :

I remember having seen archives of ETI, PCW and RC.

That seems to cover most of my hoarde, I could check for missing issues on their lists ...

SNIP There used to be a search setting on eBay to display only completed auctions, so you could see what things actually sold for. I always checked this when selling stuff. Haven't done anything for a while, so don't know if this option is still there somewhere.

Andy Burns explained :

Also from memory their archives do have missing months, which you might be able to help them fill.

Yes, that's what I meant ...

It is

That seems to be a US site and doesn't include Wireless World.