Hi All:
Someone asked about taking some basic electronics courses and the problems
that they might encounter.  From my experience, I haven't really had many
problems.  I found that talking to the instructor before the course starts
and finding out what books or handouts will be used is a help. Now days,
many of the instructors have there notes in an electronic form and usually
they will give you them if you ask.  In some of the basic courses, I had the
instructor draw schematic symbols on mylar  sheets and one made the shapes
from some wire.  Take lots of notes and dont be afraid to ask questions.  I
think you will do fine.
For those of you who like to look at parts catalogs, the catalog from
electronic gold mine   might interest you.  There web site is
www.goldmine-elec.com.  It is in two large pdf files one of about 4 megs and
the other is around 3 megs.  I had no trouble figuring out how to download
the catalog from there site.    I converted them using the acrobat 4.05
plugin, and the text files from the conversion became around 229K each
instead of the original 4 megs.
The catalogs has almost any component you might want and the prices are
pritty good. It was very readible after conversion to text.
I haven't forgotten about the meter reader article, I'm still looking for
it.  I have to look on another computer that I am no longer using, but the
serial card died in it,  and I was using the dectalk express so no speech
for the moment.
Have a good weekend

Tony McCloskey, WA3CAO