Learn Practical Skills At Home

Your comprehensive lessons are clear and well-organized; easy to follow, yet challenging and engaging at the same time. Each lesson begins with an introductory note from your instructor, plus a preview outlining the subject matter and study objectives.

Next comes the reading assignment from your textbook, lesson book or supplemental references. Practice exercises help you check and review the key concepts you've learned. Then, turn in your open-book exam (available online) for the lesson, whenever YOU are ready.

You'll receive these useful, high-quality supplies as a student in The Professional Basic Electronics Program. They are included with your tuition, at no additional cost!

• Digital multimeter: A pocket-size, precision diode-testing instrument that measures DC voltage, DC current, AC voltage, and resistance.
• Solderless breadboard: This sophisticated prototype board gives you maximum flexibility for building many different types of circuitry.
• Soldering supplies: We've included a soldering pencil, desoldering braid, and adjustable carbon steel wire strippers.
• Components: You'll get a 9-volt battery, insulated test leads, 8-ohm speaker, resistors, transistors, and many more useful items.

Enroll online or call 1-800-535-1613 to speak with an Admission Advisor!

Meet Your Instructor

Dave Ronan, course author and chief instructor of The School of Electronics, will help you get the most out of this fascinating course. He has been an electronics enthusiast for many years. During his career, he's installed and serviced broadcast and sound equipment and security systems. He was an electronics instructor for the U.S. Army and has developed many home study training courses for both PCDI and IBM Corporation.

What You’ll Learn Lesson By Lesson in this Course

Lesson 1, Getting Started In Electronics. >How to set up a lab; common test equipment and electronics supplies; starting a parts and materials inventory; getting components at low or no cost.

Lesson 2, Basic Electrical Concepts. Resistors, potentiometers, rheostats, capacitors, inductors, diodes, transistors, and integrated circuits; color coding; voltage, current, resistance, AC and DC, conductance, and power; circuits; the laws of electricity.

Lesson 3, Alternating Current & Transformers. Understanding AC waveshapes, frequency, amplitude, and calculations; inductance; DC resistance; sine waves; transformers; soldering for the first time; desoldering techniques; safety concerns.

Lesson 4, Diodes & Rectification. Solid-state devices explained; basic operational principles of diodes; the common types of diodes; referencing; full-wave and half-wave rectifiers; testing bridge rectifier modules.

Lesson 5, Capacitors & DC Filtering. Kinds of capacitors and their construction; important capacitor operating principles; filter capacitors; designing raw DC power supplies.

Lesson 6, Transistors & Voltage Regulation. Operating principles of transistors; common transistor types and configurations; transistor-amplifier comparisons; impedance matching.

Lesson 7, Special-Purpose Diodes & Opto-Electronic Devices. Zener, Schottky, and varactor diodes; diacs; tunnel and fast recovery diodes; noise and transient suppression diodes; a brief look at quantum physics; practical circuit projects.

Lesson 8, Audio Amplification. Transistor biasing and load considerations; amplifier classes; audio amplifier output configurations and operational basics; high-quality audio systems.

Lesson 9, Power Control Devices & Circuits. Silicon-controlled rectifiers; the triac; UJTs; diacs; neon tubes; using thyristors in power-control circuits; how to build a soldering iron controller.

Lesson 10, Field-Effect Transistors (FET) & Batteries. FET operational principles; how to build a high-quality mosfet audio amplifier; additional practical circuit projects; battery types; how to build a general-purpose battery charger.

Lesson 11, Integrated Circuits. Operational amplifiers; IC or hybrid audio amplifiers; IC voltage regulators; special-purpose ICS; improving the lab-quality power supply; how to build a quad-outputpower supply; additional practical circuit projects.

Lesson 12, Digital Electronics & Computers. logic gates; logic symbols; multivibrators; digital clocks; shift registers; digital memory devices; using a logic pulser and probe; analog signals.

Lesson 13, Resonance & IC Filters. Inductive and capacitive reactance; reflected impedance; resonance; passive filters; integrator and differentiator circuits; waves; harmonics.

Lesson 14, Diagnosing Analog & Audio Circuits. Troubleshooting digital and analog equipment and audio-amplifier consumer chips; narrowing the problem; block diagrams; using a bench power supply; signal tracing; output devices; troubleshooting basic low-frequency amplifier circuits; audio distortion problems.

Lesson 15, In-Circuit Discrete Semi-Conductor & IC Troubleshooting. How to troubleshoot the PN junction diode and bipolar and FET circuits; how transistor circuits, diodes, zener diodes, UJT oscillators, and thyristors operate; transistor and resistor arrays; voltage regulator ics and consumer IC chips; understanding analog switches; optical isolators.

Lesson 16, AM, FM, TV & RF Troubleshooting Techniques. Modulation; transmission and reception of RF signals; watts, transmitters, and components; radio receivers; TV; AM and FM detectors; microvolt signals in receivers.

Lesson 17, Diagnosing Pulse & Digital Circuits. Pulsed waveforms; source and load instruments; the originating pulse and processing pulse circuits; digital ic references; understanding digital schematic diagrams; digital gates; how to troubleshoot digital circuits.

Supplement: Time Management Guide. How to organize your study for greatest efficiency; maximizing your productivity while on the job.

Supplement: Career Search Guide. Locating opportunities; crafting a winning cover letter and résumé; self-employment and self-promotion.