The System Whisperer

The term came from my colleagues, not from me.

I never thought of myself as anything special. I was just an engineer who paid attention, who cared about the work, who refused to give up when problems seemed insurmountable. But somewhere along the way, people started noticing.

Not because I had any magical powers. Not because I could commune with machines through some mystical connection. Simply because I had learned, over years of patient work, to listen. To observe. To understand what the equipment was telling me, even when it spoke in subtle signals and obscure error codes.

Every system has a language. Most people only hear the silence when it works and the noise when it breaks. The whisperer learns to hear the conversation in between.

The systems I've worked with over the years—the RADCOM, the Factrons, the Teradynes, the WesTest, the countless boards and units and assemblies—they all have stories to tell. My job was simply to hear them.

And sometimes, to whisper back.

 

The Black Art of PCB-RE

Every trade has its expert, and every master craftsman has his tools.

PCB-RE engineers are no exception. More so, when it comes to doing this work manually—by hand, by eye, by patience and persistence. In my fifteen years of reverse engineering printed circuit boards and modular electronic units, I've come to appreciate the importance of having a good set of tools on hand. Not just the basic toolkit, but the essential ones. The ones that make the difference between frustration and flow.

Tools alone aren't enough. You also need strategy. Different types of PCBs require different reversing strategies.

Analog PCBs deal with continuous signals—voltages that vary smoothly, like audio or sensor readings. Digital PCBs deal with ones and zeros—logic levels, binary signals, data buses. Mixed-signal PCBs combine both worlds. They have analog sections, digital sections, and the circuits that connect them—analog-to-digital converters, digital-to-analog converters, and their supporting components. 

Power PCBs are their own beast. They handle higher voltages and currents, and their design is driven by different priorities—heat dissipation, efficiency, safety.

Here's something important to understand:

PCB-RE is not just about finding the connectivity of a circuit board to recreate its schematic diagram. That is the primary focus, yes. But it's not the whole story.

A lot goes into figuring out circuit topologies and functionalities. You need to arrive at a logical understanding of how the components are related, how they work together, why the designer chose this arrangement over that one. Only then can you achieve accuracy and reliability in the reversing process.

A traced connection tells you that two points are connected. It doesn't tell you why. It doesn't tell you what signals flow across that connection, or what those signals mean, or how they interact with other parts of the circuit.

That deeper understanding comes from study. From reading datasheets. From recognizing common circuit patterns. From asking, over and over: Why did they do it this way?

Learn from others, yes. Absorb their methods, their insights, their hard-won wisdom. But then develop your own technique. Find ways to surpass your own limitations. And if possible, surpass the authors who taught you.

That's how the art advances. That's how each generation builds on the last.

 

The Language of the Machines

In the course my thirty years career in Electronics, both in the air force and ST Electronics, I have worked on several automated test equipment. Each of these machines has its own language to learn and master, some in high-level descriptive form much like English, some in minimalist cryptic syntax, and some using a mix of graphical and text combinations.

My first two years in ST Electronics were spent assisting two engineers to develop test programs on the RADCOM. That's what I was headhunted to do. But I was expected to work on the Factron S700 series testers, just like the rest of the engineers in the department. This was also my expectation when I decided to join the company—to pick up new skillsets and continue my learning journey in Electronics.

Text-based machines soon gave way to graphical-based platforms as the work center sought to upgrade its capabilities and attrack young engineers who were more comfortable working in the Windows environment. Enter the Spectrum 8800 series ATEs. To protect existing assets and continue our support for the armed forces, we did quite a fair bit of test program migration and test fixture adaptation from the old machines to the new. Tedious but necessary.

When our sister subsidiary, ST Aerospace, landed on a big F-16 project to develop test program on their newly acquired WesTest 2000/DATS station, several of us senior engineers were lobed in to train on the tester and help develop the test program sets. 

The language of the machines is vast. I've learned only a small part of it. But that small part has been enough—more than enough—to sustain a career, to solve impossible problems, to find meaning and satisfaction in the work.

And the best part? I'm still learning.

 

Headhunted

As the run-out date drew near, emotions ran high among the pioneer technicians. We had been through everything together—the setup, the training, the pressure, the pride. Now we faced a future that was suddenly open, uncertain, full of possibility.

Discussions buzzed in the cafeteria, the workshop, the moments between tasks. Plans and options. What we wanted to do when we finally regained our civilian status. Some opted to recontract with the Air Force. They had risen to senior ranks, earned comfortable salaries, built lives within the service. Another six years meant stability, familiarity, and job security.

Others considered doing something completely different. Anything but engineering. Sales had appeal—more interaction with people, and less time hunched over circuit boards. Insurance promised commissions, flexibility, a clean break from the technical world. A few adventurous ones intended to start their own businesses. Small shops, trading companies, ventures that would let them be their own bosses.

And me?

I decided to stick with electronics. It wasn't a difficult decision. It wasn't really a decision at all—more of a recognition, an acceptance of something that had always been true. Electronics runs in my blood. Still does. I couldn't think of doing anything else.

My transition from the air force to ST Electronics, a homegrown defense industry, felt like divine appointment. It started with a late night phone call out of the blue, two months before my contract expired. The timing couldn't be more perfect.

It was later that I learned the RSAF had purchased two RADCOM systems. One, as I knew well, was in our squadron, used for daily operations. The other had been acquired by ST Electronics, for a different purpose: future local support.

ST Electronics had the contract. They had the equipment. They had engineers eager to do the work. But they lacked something essential: hands-on experience with the RADCOM. Real experience, the kind you can only get by operating the system day after day, troubleshooting real faults, learning its quirks and capabilities.

They needed someone with that expertise, and I was the man of their choice.

 

Ron's Way

No matter how urgent some jobs may require our immediate attention, Ron would always insist on finishing the task on hand first. This seemed counterintuitive at first. When a commander makes a direct request, doesn't everything else stop? Isn't that how the military works?

Ron had a different perspective.

"If I drop everything every time someone asks for something," he explained once, "I'll never finish anything. And unfinished work creates more problems than urgent requests solve."

But he wasn't rigid about it. He had a system.

He had served overseas attachments in Japan, learning from technicians whose approach to craft bordered on the spiritual. He had worked in the repair bay of an aircraft carrier, where space was tight, resources limited, and the stakes as high as they get. He had done tours back in US military airbases, seeing how different units organized the same work.

He had seen more than any of us young technicians. And he had learned, from all of it, how to handle both people and work with clarity and confidence.

That's something I learned from him. Close up. As his personal apprentice.

 

The Zen of Work

Before I move on to the next phase of my life's journey, I want to dwell a little on the work philosophy I developed during those Air Force years.

Not the technical skills—those I've already described. Not the equipment or the procedures or the test programs. Something deeper. Something that would prove more valuable than any technical certification.

The mindset.

The way of approaching work that transforms pressure into purpose, chaos into clarity, mundane tasks into meditation.

The Zen of the workbench.

If we approach work as just a means for livelihood—a necessary evil, something to be endured until we can go home and live our real lives—then every task becomes a burden. The backlog feels oppressive. The duties feel pointless. The pressure feels personal. We feel miserable. We perform poorly. We confirm our own worst expectations.

But if we keep our heads cool and level, something shifts. The same tasks, the same pressure, the same demands—they don't disappear. But our relationship to them changes.

We can always find a silver lining in the midst of chaotic work situations and personal conflicts. Not by pretending the chaos isn't there, but by recognizing that chaos is just information. It's telling us something about priorities, about resources, about what truly matters.

This wasn't wisdom I was born with. It was something I learned—from Ron.

 

Mr. Ronald Paul Dykeman

Ron's coffee mug

Ron was, quite simply, one of the most experienced and meticulous engineers you could ever find. He had been with Grumman for decades. He had worked on the E-2C since its early days. He knew the RADCOM the way a master craftsman knows his tools—intimately, completely, with a depth of understanding that came from years of hands-on work.

But experience alone doesn't make a great teacher. Ron had something more: patience. The willingness to explain something five different ways until it clicked. The ability to stand back and let you make mistakes, then guide you through understanding why they were mistakes. The quiet confidence that came from knowing he didn't need to prove anything.

He didn't give answers. He gave directions. He taught us to think like diagnosticians, not just button-pushers. He taught us to understand the systems, not just operate the equipment. It was the best education I ever received.

Ron taught me about radar and communications and automated testing. But he also taught me something else: that the best teachers are also human beings, with humor and warmth and the ability to laugh at themselves.

I carried both lessons forward.

 

The American Apprenticeship

January 1987. A New Squadron.

We were the pioneer batch. That phrase carried weight. It meant there were no precedents, no seniors to guide us, no established procedures to follow. Everything we did would be done for the first time. Every success would become a template. Every mistake would be a lesson for those who came after.

My team, the ATE group, was assigned to the third-line repair bay, along with two other teams. Third-line meant deep maintenance—the most complex repairs, the ones that required removing systems from the aircraft and bringing them to a dedicated facility. It was the highest level of technical work in the Air Force, and it was ours.

Our new home was a bomb-proof shelter, designed to survive attacks that would level ordinary buildings. The shelter was empty when we first saw it. A shell. A promise. Nothing more. We had three weeks to turn it into a functioning repair facility. Those weeks were a blur of physical labor and logistical coordination.

Once the facilities were ready, we waited. For the arrival of the CETS.

A specialized team of personnel from Grumman Aerospace, the company that had designed and built the E-2C. Their mission: to assist us in running the squadron for the first two years of its operation. To train us, guide us, ensure that we could do the work before they left us to do it alone.

Our ATE team split into two groups. One would handle the CAT-3D, the general-purpose test system. The other would take the RADCOM, the specialized system for radar, communications, and more. I was assigned to the latter. And I was fortunate—more fortunate than I knew at the time—to be placed under the guidance of a man named Ronald Dykeman.

 

E-2C Ahoy!

Pioneers of the E-2C Squadron, after 25 years

Upon completing BMT, I was posted to the Airforce Engineering Training Institute—AETI, as everyone called it. After the physical exhaustion of BMT, the mental engagement of AETI was a relief, a return to familiar territory. By the end of the year, my academic performance had been noted. I was earmarked for something special: the E-2C program.

Initially, I was being considered for its radar team. Through rotational posting around different squadrons during my OJT, I distinguished myself as someone apt in building test circuits and operating test equipment. Then someone from the E-2C's ATE team pulled out. I became the replacement choice.

It was May 1986. I had been in the Air Force for nearly two and a half years. I had learned radar theory, built a test fixture, and studied a sophisticated ATE system. Now I was about to embark on the next step.

Together with my teammates, I was flown to the United States for a six-month training stint. Our destination: the Grumman Aerospace facilities, where the E-2C Hawkeye was designed and built. Our purpose: to learn two of the most advanced ATEs Grumman had ever created—the CAT-3D and the RADCOM.

Six months passed in a blur of learning and discovery. When I returned to Singapore, I was not the same technician who had left. I had seen the cutting edge. I had touched it, studied it, made it part of myself. I understood automated test equipment at a level few others did. 

The year was 1987. It was one of the best times of my career life.

 

The Promise of Electronics

Like any Singaporean male, I had to render obligatory national service to my country. Two years of my life, given to the military, required by law. But unlike most, I wasn't serving two years and returning to civilian life. I had signed on as a regular. The Air Force was now my employer, my future, my path forward.

Basic military training, or BMT, is where every new recruit undergoes a three-month stint of intensive, tactical training in military craft. For the conscripts or NSmen, it would be their full experience of military life before being posted to units where they would serve out their time.

For us regulars, the ones who had signed on for a career, our BMT was compressed. Still physically demanding—the runs, the marches, the obstacle courses, the drills—but shortened, so that more time could be devoted to what we were actually here for: technical training. 

And through it all, I kept my eyes on the horizon. Beyond BMT lay the real work. The work I had signed up for. The work that would build on everything I had learned at the polytechnic. The work that would, if I was lucky, fulfill the promise I had made to myself and my family.

But destiny, I was about to learn, has a way of taking unexpected turns. Looking back, I marvel at the path that had brought me here. The promise of electronics had fulfilled itself in ways I never could have imagined.

And it was just the beginning.

 

A Circuit Breaker

I'm not talking about the COVID-19 safety distancing measures implemented by the Singapore government back in April 2020. However, it does have a similar ring concerning disruptions to the normal daily life we were all so used to.

Life has its fair share of surprises that sometimes affect the choices we make. My father's sudden heart attack episode was such a case, and just after my graduation from the Polytechnic but before my enlistment to national service. Suddenly, the plans I had for pursuing my passion in electronics took a different turn, for the sake of the family.

Was it good, or was it bad? I had no way of knowing at that moment. A friend who attended the air force recruitment talk handed me a lifeline. It changed the course of my career path, and shaped my understanding of electronics and work philosophy.

As they say, what doesn't break you will ultimately make you.

 

When Theory Meets Practice (Part 2)

The is an idiomatic phrase coined by Indochinese Thai vendors. It implies things are similar yet distinct, and often used to describe fakes, alternatives, or nuanced differences.  The same is true with theory and practice. What we learned in theory should work in practiee. But any experienced engineer will tell you that's not the case.

My years in the Polytechnics certainly had their highs and lows. The highs were, of course, the projects I got to build in my second and third years. The low? A lecturer who was mediocre. Not incompetent, exactly—he knew the material well enough to recite it from the textbook. But his knowledge ended where the textbook ended. And he taught us electronics!

It was frustrating. Demoralizing. A class of eager students, hungry to understand, met with a teacher who could only point at words on a page. We learned despite him, not because of him. That mediocre instructor was a regrettable blot in my tertiary study—but in hindsight, he taught me something valuable. 

Not about electronics, but about teaching. About the difference between knowing a subject and being able to share it. About the kind of educator I would try to become, years later, when I sat down to write my first book.

 

When Theory Meets Practice (Part 1)

I'm not trying to be funny here; just stating a fact that many aspiring engineers have come to know when trying to apply what they've learned.

Even the transition from high school to tertiary education can be quite a shock for most people, let alone real working life. The first year wasn't exactly what I had envisioned after I was accepted into the Singapore Polytechnics, the very first of the country-state's multi-disciplinary institution. Instead of plunging straight into studying and doing electronics, we were subjected to a whole year's worth of theory on applied mathematics, basic electricity, mechanical science, and materials engineering. 

Of course, there were practicals but not what you would imagine: metalwork, woodwork, electrical control, arc and gas welding, lathe machining, and precision CNC milling. Interesting? Yeah... Tiring? Definitely.

On hindsight, we understood that engineering isn't just about electronics. Engineering is about making things—real things, physical things, things that exist in the world. Before we could call ourselves electronics engineers, we needed to understand what it meant to shape materials, to join them, to machine them to tolerance. 

High School Hobbyist

Everybody has a hobby—sooner or later. Mine came during high school days when the class teacher introduced us to electronics.

After learning the basics of electricity and how circuits work, and doing simple experiments in the laboratory, we couldn't wait to get our hands on whatever we could find to make our own projects. Back in the 1970s, the place to go was Sim Lim Tower where many small family run electronic shops congregated, offering their wares to entice would be electronics enthusiasts.

The real breakthrough, however, was when the class teacher let us build a superheterodyne AM receiver, though I suspected back then many of us didn't understand what the super-heck-the-roden thingie was. But we built it anyway.

And the deal was sealed, at least for me. Electronics it was!

 

The First Spark

Life is made up of a series of sparks which propel us in our journey of learning and growth. But the first spark is often the most significant. It can be a moment of realization, a special encounter, or the quiet observation of someone close to you. It is the source that started us on the path of discovery and exploration.

However, not everyone remembers. Or clearly at which point in time or life that made them decide what they wanted to do or be. One of the favorite questions posed in class to young students is: What would you like to be when you grow up. The young minds fire up and imagine their own future of possibilities.

For me? I wanted to be like my father—to be able to fix things. To take things apart and know what make them work, and why they fail. That's what my father taught me, by what he did around the house, and through my quiet obeservation.

Sometimes the daily inculcation of a mindset is unspoken. But it catches on. And without realizing it, you find yourself aligning and steering your own destiny towards that goal, only to find out that there are more waiting beyond the horizon.

 

The Seasons of Life

In setting out to write a memoir of my life, I have pondered on the paths I've taken. Not every one of them are by choice, but each has had its own share of challenges and surprises. From a boy watching his father fixed things around the house, to a student learning electronics, to an apprentice in the military and established engineer in the commerical sectors, until today as a self-published author sharing my thirty years of experiences, I have walked through my own seasons of life.

And this is precisely how I will frame my lifestory—as a four-part narratives:

1. The Academic Years
2. The Air Force Years
3. The ST Electronics Years

4. The Author Years

Nothing fanciful, really. Just authentic and personal. There are valuable life lessons that I am still able to recall, for now, and these anecdotes will interweave with the work experiences I will be sharing with my readers.

Hopefully, it will inspire more engineers to embrace their work as a calling, and not just a career. At least that's what I hope my memoir will achieve, if nothing else.

 

Dear Reader

The Preface is an introductory section that explains the story behind a book's creation, and is written by the author. In all my engineering books, I always include one with my motivation for writing, the scope of the subject covered, and sometimes the relevance of my experience.

In writing my own memoir, I decided to use the personal address "Dear Reader" in place of the usual term. And there are good reasons. Firstly, it is about my life story. Secondly, it is directed to my readers. And thirdly, it is meant to be a gift—an impartation of something personal and dear to me—the memories of a journey forged in adversities, uncertainties, yet much to be grateful about.

Here is a fragment of what I have written, a foretaste if you may:

Dear Reader

The book you hold in your hands began not as a book at all, but as a series of moments—small decisions, unexpected turns, challenges faced and overcome. For much of my life, I did not think of my journey as remarkable. I was simply doing what needed to be done: learning my craft, supporting my family, solving the problems that landed on my workbench.

It was only later, after thirty years in the engineering trenches, after I had written six technical books and begun to reflect on the path that brought me there, that I realized my story might have value beyond the circuits and schematics.

This is a book about electronics. But it is also a book about life. The two, I have come to understand, are not so different.

A circuit is a system of connections. Components linked by traces, signals flowing along paths designed for purpose. When the system works, we barely notice it. When it fails, we must face and resolve the issue—tracing the broken connection, identifying the failed component, understanding why the expected behavior has stopped.

Life is the same. 

We are all systems of connections: to family, to work, to dreams and duties and the people who depend on us. Life's circuit has a way of completing itself—not always as we expected, not always along the path we would have chosen, but in ways that can surprise us with their wisdom and their grace.

I hope this glimpse will create an anticipation for the upcoming memoir, just like the six engineering books before it, one that is engaging and filled with words of inspiration to learn from my trade, but this time, from my own life. For the past ten years, I have found much joy in writing and sharing my knowledge in electronics, whether it's reverse engineering a PCB, deciphering a schematic, or diagnosing a failure. I hope you, my readers, have found the joy of reading them too.

In gratitude.

 

A Memoir in the Works

It's been almost three years since I wrote "PCB Diagnostics", the last of my engineering books. After diverting to writing sci-fi and other genre of faith-related books, I felt it's time to retrace my life's journey from a high school electronic hobbyist to a full-fledge engineer. 

Few engineers write their own memoirs and I can understand why. Writing is hard, Writing about your engineering knowledge (and expertise) is harder. But writing about your own life's journey on this aspect? Believe me, it's much, much harder.

So what prompted me to write my own biography? Well, age is catching up on me and my health isn't as good as it's used to be. So before I pass off the scene, I thought, "Heck, why not tell the story of my life and how I arrive at where I am now?" I'm sure readers of my engineering books would love to know the intricate details of those personal anecdotes which I mentioned in passing in several of my works.

Here is the book cover concept and back blurb:

As most readers are aware, I have the habit of creating the book cover and blurb to give me a handle before I start out to write the content. It helps me focus on my task better——in this case, my life story.

This work is of a different nature, though. It will have a mixed of engineering and emotional stuff weaved into a personal narrative. Readers who enjoyed my engaging style of writing will most certainly not want to miss out on this opportunity to know, really know the author behind the books they found helpful in learning the black art of PCB-RE.

So keep a look out for the progress. And leave a comment if you are a fan of my books. I would love to hear from you and be inspired to write more, if health permits.

Stay well and safe, my friends!