RSGB 2022 Convention livestream

We are delighted to bring you our first hybrid Convention this year. We will be livestreaming some of the presentations each day to give you a taste of the variety on offer if you attend a Convention in person.

In addition, the livestream will bring you:

Convention chats with influential amateur radio leaders
Informal interviews with RSGB Board Directors
An opportunity to find out more about the SIG (Special Interest Groups) attending the Convention
A chance to meet the new RadCom editorial team
Snippets from delegates about why they have chosen to be at the Convention this year

There will also be times to have a coffee, take a break, see live operating of GB3HQ and watch some inspiring short videos to encourage you to try different amateur radio skills.

Saturday

09.00 Official Opening – RSGB President, Dr Stewart Bryant, G3YSX

09.15 Keynote Presentation – IARU President, Tim Ellam, VE6SH/G4HUA

10.30 Adventure radio in Europe – Phil Catterall, G4OBK

I will talk about the main four adventure radio programmes, mainly concentrating on Summits On The Air (SOTA) and what is involved in planning a successful low power HF Portable Expedition in UK and Europe. Licensing, travel, navigation, useful websites and online tools will all be explained, enabling anyone to leave their shack and successfully enjoy the excitement of operating amateur radio in the outdoors whilst on holiday or on a dedicated adventure radio tour.

11.30 Building a VHF/UHF Contest Station – Prof Alwyn Seeds, G8DOH

Success in VHF/UHF contests requires three things: a good site, skilled operators and a high-performance contest station. In this talk I will describe key considerations in building a high-performance contest station for the VHF/UHF bands including choice of aerials, receive system design to maximise dynamic range and transmit system design to give a clean signal which meets the requirements of the RSGB VHF/UHF Contest Code of Practice.

13.30 Stoking Bletchley – The story of the Y Services, 1939-1945 – Dr David Abrutat

Bletchley Park was the home of the Government Code & Cypher School (GC&CS) during the Second World War, beginning as a small cryptanalytic centre, working closely with the Y service (Army, Navy and RAF) interception sites around Britain and overseas. Bletchley quickly expanded to become an industrial scale producer of signals intelligence (SIGINT), and the Y services were one of its core providers of intercept. It is a poorly understood area of SIGINT history but a significant aspect of Bletchley’s success.

14.30 Antennas for an effective contest station – Lee Volante, M0MTN

Is bigger always better? This presentation will review many of the options available to the HF contester when making antenna choices. Antenna type, height, location and available resources are to be considered against the type of contest and a contester’s personal goals. We will look at a mix of theoretical analysis and real-world examples showing what works, and what doesn’t, in particular events.

15.45 DXpeditions to 3B8 – Olof Lundberg, G0CKV

Olof, G0CKV will discuss DXpeditioning and in particular contest DXpeditions. What is involved, where to go, getting there, finding a great location, propagation, building a team, antennas and rigs. The main objective: having a good time and having fun with radio. A secondary objective: how to beat the likes of K3LR and M6T – competitive holidaying.

16.45 YOTA 2022 Croatia – Dan McGraw, M0WUT; Hamzah Shah, 2E0HXS and the YOTA team

Dan and Hamzah will be presenting on the YOTA 2022 summer camp in Croatia, what happened during the event and what learnings the UK team have brought back to engage other youngsters in ham radio.

Sunday

09.15 Digital ATV – Opening New Horizons – Dave Crump, G8GKQ

Dave will describe how easy it is for the home constructor to transmit and receive digital ATV without the need for the specialist camera or receiving equipment that used to be required. After discussing the flexibility that Digital ATV offers for trade-off between DX and picture quality, he will talk about the opportunities that there are for ATV contacts and experimentation by normal propagation, sporadic-E and through QO-100. Discussion will include all bands from 28 MHz to 122 GHz.

10.30 Plastics for the radio amateur – Prof Norman Billingham, M0EBI

The modern world would be unimaginable without synthetic materials, plastics, fibres and elastomers. The development of polymer chemistry has been particularly crucial to the growth of electronics – where would we be without insulation, encapsulants and dielectrics? This talk will review the early developments which led to the explosion of new materials then discuss the main classes of plastics, thermoplastics and thermosets, amorphous and crystalline, with particular emphasis on their applications in electronics and radio.

11.30 In Introduction to Test Equipment – Philip Lawson, G4FCL

This talk considers typical scenarios in which you might need some test equipment, and the six most useful items of test equipment that you can buy or have access to. In these difficult economic times, it will suggest that cheaper, older test equipment is often perfectly satisfactory for making measurements, while there are some simple items that you can make for next to nothing which are really useful for testing and fault-finding. As an amateur, a ‘thinking experimenter’, using test equipment should be both informative and enjoyable, and lead to a satisfactory outcome; so there will be a few tips on how to get the most from the experience, including how to avoid some of the most common (and costly!) mistakes.

13.30 Space Weather – Dr Colin Forsyth

The interaction between the Sun and the Earth creates the conditions for radio waves to propagate around the world but can also disrupt radio pathways and technology both on the ground and in space. In this talk, Colin will explore the basics of how the Sun and the Earth interact, how this interaction leads to effects that we now call Space Weather, and some of the research we are doing to try to mitigate these effects.

14.30 What have the 2020s told us about Sporadic-E – Jim Bacon, G3YLA

Jim Bacon will review his recent work during the 2020s using new analysis programs, which have revealed behaviour characteristics of Es layers by plotting ionosonde data. There will also be an examination of the newly developed Es Probability Index (EPI) to see how it stacks up against observations. The third section will include a detailed look at selected events during the 2022 Es season.

Closing Statement – RSGB President, Dr Stewart Bryant, G3YSX

Link : https://rsgb.org/main/about-us/rsgb-convention/convention-2022-livestream/