I probably I get to my best being presented with a new problem that I have not tackled before or anything like it, some historic examples:

Way back I was asked to design a STROBE light for disco work, this resulted in several years producing, sound to light systems, strobes, and other disco lighting systems, and led on to a 500W per channel audio power amp and active crossover systems for music reproduction. And several years with Theater Sound & Light (TSL) on theatre sound systems and a hybrid type of talk back system.

Some years later after a spell in a ‘proper job’ Marconi Instruments I was back on the self employed trail. This time renovation of valve guitar amps, these were getting rare and people who understood them were also rare. At about this time I took an interest in amateur radio and radio rallies, this appeared to be another route to earning a few bob, apart from meeting others and buying cheap & interesting parts.

But as always I strayed into other projects. First was a direction finding radio receiver to recover lost ‘wave rider boys’ in the North sea. Then a moving letter display for a fairground consisting of many many small light bulbs, transistor switching and a ROM program.

Through this work I became involved in the feature film industry and particularly the problem of displaying video and TV images synchronised to the film camera. I am still involved with facets of this today, though with LCD flat panel monitors it is not such a problem, however many more challenges exist in ‘Video assist’ work such as time code monitoring and AV switching etc.

The ‘we get there in the end’ motto came about because if something was not right, I would do my best to get it right, whatever that involved although this would sometimes be a complete rethink, redesign and rebuild from scratch...