Practical Electronics
Practical Electronics is a British monthly magazine for electronics hobbyists, constructors and enthusiasts, publishing circuit designs, construction projects and technology features in print and downloadable formats. First issued in November 1964 by IPC Magazines, it was created as a constructors' magazine for the electronics enthusiast and quickly became one of the defining titles of Britain's post-war home electronics boom, selling around 115,000 copies of its first edition. Over sixty years it has been known successively as Practical Electronics, Everyday with Practical Electronics and Everyday Practical Electronics (EPE), before returning to its original name in April 2019. Its ownership has passed from IPC to independent publishers, to Wimborne Publishing, to Electron Publishing Limited in 2018, and most recently, in mid-2024, to Australia's Silicon Chip Publications, underlining its international reach among hobbyist readers.
Launch in 1964 and the Practical family
Practical Electronics was founded by IPC Magazines in 1964 as a sister publication to IPC's other "Practical" titles, which included Practical Mechanics, Practical Motorist, Practical Television and Practical Wireless. The first issue, Volume 1 Issue 1, was dated November 1964 and arrived in a Britain where, as its own fiftieth-anniversary history recalls, Prime Minister Harold Wilson had spoken of a white-hot technological revolution and the Space Race made electronics seem pivotal to the future. Interest was intense: about 115,000 copies of the first edition were sold. The magazine addressed a mixed readership of highly skilled engineers, ex-military types, keen amateurs and talented professionals, at a moment when home construction was shifting decisively from valves and point-to-point wiring towards printed circuit boards and stripboard assembly for hobbyists at the kitchen table.
Building from the first issues: PCBs and Veroboard
From the start, Practical Electronics put construction technique at the centre of its offer. Its fiftieth-anniversary account notes that printed circuit board foils were offered from day one, with cellulose paint recommended as an etch resist and a ferric chloride and hydrochloric acid mixture suggested for etching boards at home. Stripboard assembly quickly followed: the December 1964 issue already carried a pull-out blueprint featuring two projects using the new 0.15-inch pitch Veroboard system, the British-designed board of copper strips and punched holes launched in 1961 that put home electronics construction within easy reach of hobbyists for decades. Readers followed the magazine's carefully drawn assembly diagrams and soldered their projects together at home. That practical, build-it-yourself ethos – complete circuits, board layouts and step-by-step guidance – remained the magazine's signature as components moved from discrete transistors to integrated circuits and then to microcontrollers.
Everyday Electronics and the IPC years
In November 1971 IPC launched a companion title, Everyday Electronics, aimed at the novice constructor. Until 1977 the two magazines shared the same production and editorial team, with Practical Electronics serving the more experienced builder and Everyday Electronics providing an entry point for beginners. The arrangement gave IPC a ladder of titles through which readers could progress as their skills grew. Both magazines rode the 1970s surge of interest in home electronics, when building audio equipment, test gear, gadgets and early electronic music projects at home was a mainstream hobby. Practical Electronics became particularly associated with ambitious construction series, including its 1973 PE Sound Synthesizer project series, one of the notable do-it-yourself modular synthesiser designs published for home constructors, and a 1978 rhythm generator design – projects that are still documented and discussed by vintage synthesiser enthusiasts today.
Sale, decline and the Wimborne merger
In 1986 both titles were sold by IPC Magazines to independent publishers, and their editorial teams, separate since 1977, remained separate. By the early 1990s Practical Electronics had suffered a marked decline in market share as the home construction market contracted. In 1992 it was bought by Wimborne Publishing Ltd, which was at that time the publisher of its former novice-level companion and rival, Everyday Electronics. The two magazines were merged to form Everyday with Practical Electronics – the word "with" was dropped from the title from the November 1995 issue, leaving Everyday Practical Electronics, universally shortened to EPE. In February 1999 the publisher acquired another former rival, Electronics Today International, and merged it into EPE as well. The Wimborne years thus consolidated three historic British electronics titles into a single monthly, preserving their combined archives and readership under one masthead.
The EPE formula: projects, theory and regular features
As Everyday Practical Electronics, the magazine described itself as a premier hobbyist title for electronics and computer enthusiasts, with construction projects for beginners and experts alike. Every issue was built around ideas, theory and projects to build, with full circuit diagrams, printed circuit board layouts, artwork and photographs. Its regular features became familiar fixtures for readers. Techno Talk reviewed the latest, often quirky, developments in technology. Circuit Surgery investigated readers' circuit queries in depth. Practically Speaking, written by Robert Penfold, explained the techniques of building electronic projects, including soldering. Pic 'n' Mix covered PIC microprocessors, reflecting the shift of hobby construction towards programmable devices. Net Work discussed developments, software and equipment for internet use, while a dedicated Raspberry Pi feature reviewed and developed projects for that microcomputer and its accessories, and Interface presented circuits and components to use with a computer. Readers' letters and advertisements from component, equipment and software suppliers completed each issue.
Print, digital and an international readership
Through the Wimborne and Electron Publishing years the magazine was available both in print and as a downloadable digital edition, sold through platforms including Pocketmags, with an associated app presence as EPE. Retail listings describe a monthly publishing schedule of twelve issues a year and a readership extending well beyond Britain – promotional material for the title has long noted readers in more than sixty countries. That international footprint is a natural consequence of the English-language hobby electronics market: construction projects built around widely available components travel easily, and the magazine's archive of circuits gave it a catalogue value that kept older issues in circulation among constructors long after their cover dates.
Electron Publishing and the return of the Practical Electronics name
In November 2018 Wimborne Publishing passed EPE, together with all rights to the earlier material – including Practical Electronics, Everyday Electronics, Hobby Electronics (which later became Electronics Monthly) and Electronics Today International – to a new publisher, Electron Publishing Limited. Electron Publishing's first issue was dated January 2019. From the April 2019 issue, the magazine's title changed back to Practical Electronics, reviving the name of one of its merged predecessors and restoring the masthead under which the title had started fifty-five years earlier. The Bournemouth connection in the magazine's modern history reflects its south-coast publishing base under Electron Publishing, whose website, electronpublishing.com, serves as the title's online home, handling subscriptions for both print and digital editions.
Transfer to Silicon Chip Publications
The most recent chapter in the magazine's ownership began in mid-2024, when Practical Electronics was transferred to the Australian company Silicon Chip Publications Pty Ltd. The September 2024 issue was the first published by Silicon Chip. The move was a logical fit: Silicon Chip, Australia's electronics magazine, had been licensing content from the British title for a number of years, and its own publishing model – construction projects, features, reviews and vintage radio material built around microcontrollers such as PIC and PICAXE devices – closely parallels the British magazine's approach. The transfer placed a cornerstone British hobby title in the hands of a specialist publisher whose entire business is electronics publishing, rather than a general magazine group.
What readers build
The content of Practical Electronics has always been defined by construction. Across its history its projects have spanned audio amplifiers and preamplifiers, power supplies, test equipment, alarms and security devices, lighting controllers, automotive electronics, musical instruments and synthesisers, radio-related circuits, and, in the modern era, microcontroller-based designs using PIC and similar devices, single-board computers including the Raspberry Pi, and computer interfaces. Features explain the theory behind the circuits, while technique columns teach the underlying skills – soldering, board assembly, fault-finding and safe workshop practice – that allow a novice to progress to expert-level builds. Supplier advertising, readers' letters and queries columns tie the magazine to the active community of constructors, schools and university students, professionals and hobbyists it has served since 1964.
Practical Electronics today
Practical Electronics today continues monthly publication in print and downloadable formats under Silicon Chip Publications, from a lineage that now stretches past sixty years. Few British hobby magazines can match its continuity: launched by a major consumer publisher at the height of the post-war electronics boom, merged twice with its closest rivals, revived under its original name in 2019 and transferred to a specialist Australian publisher in 2024, it has outlived the market conditions that created it by continually adapting its projects to new technology – from Veroboard and ferric chloride etching to PIC microcontrollers and the Raspberry Pi. For generations of British constructors, it remains the magazine that taught them to build.
