Golborne talk "The art of Alignment"

[Keithstv]

Here's the electronic handout for the Golborne talk today.

No fire alarm today and I got through all the material. Unfortunately the FM demodulator demos didn't work as expected but as is typical when I checked it when I got home it worked perfectly. C'est la vie!

I'm prepared to do another talk next November if anyone is interested but what would people like to hear. I have a couple of ideas, the design of a simple linear regulated power supply or how does Colour TV work, the encoding and decoding process for analogue colour TV.

If any of these appeal to people let me know or suggest other subjects.

Keith

[Keithstv]

And here's yours truly in full flow with a couple of pictures of the equipment.

Keith

[Yorkie]

Thanks so much for the very informative talk Keith, and for going to so much trouble with the preparation, setting up the equipment and for the excellent well illustrated notes.

No longer will I need to harbour the guilty secret of being a 'phantom twiddler'!

Nice to see that you had a 'full house' and kept everyone's attention for well over an hour.

A few more pics, including a rare pair of REP DRR2 coils, which Keith covets and used as part of his talk!

[Mark R]

I missed it again!
Got the notes Keith, thank you again! PSu for me!

Ta Mark

[Audiomagpie]

Enjoyed your demonstrations very much Keith!

Greg

[MarkJames]

Found the talk very useful. Thanks for the handout - I suspect that it will be invaluable. My choice would be the psu for your next talk.

Mark

[Keithstv]

Having considered the two options I gave, I think the PSU one would A) be easier for me to put together and B) more useful to the audience.

I've a few ideas as to what would be included. Watch this space in about 11 months time.

Keith

[Yorkie]

Having considered the two options I gave, I think the PSU one would A) be easier for me to put together and B) more useful to the audience.

Keith

As to 'A' above, having attended both talks (test gear last year, alignment this year), and downloaded the notes, it's evident just how much preparation went into the talks, and then setting up the equipment. As to 'B', I can only speak for myself, but I found the talks interesting, informative, and useful, and this year, with no fire alarm to disrupt proceedings, only a couple left a bit early, which I think speaks for itself, especially given that all seats were taken and the talk lasted about 1.5 Hrs.

I'm sure that a talk on power supplies, (maybe half wave/full wave rectification, smoothing/reservoir caps, LF chokes, direct/indirectly coupled cathode rectifiers and so forth), would go down well.

Certainly from my perspective, the talk makes the visit more worthwhile, given that an hour or so browsing and everything has been seen and some visitors start to drift off.

[Keithstv]

You're quite right about how much preparation is needed. For last years talk in November I started preparing it around April and the same for this years talk. Much of the time is spent writing and rewriting the notes then building any demo units and testing them. I try to go through the demos several times to ensure I know what to expect although it doesn't always work out as witnessed by the FM demod not working as expected.

Sometimes there is an unexpected result such as being able to use the loop I built to measure the local oscillator frequency of an AM radio. I didn't demonstrate this but it is mentioned in the notes.

I already have a rough plan for next years talk so am beginning to work out what demos are needed and what needs to be built up. Fortunately one of the proposed demo units coincides with a PSU I need to build for an old radio I have, so there's added incentive to build it.

As you say it's an added bonus to visit the event and hopefully people will go away having learnt something useful. In fact at least a couple of people on Sunday said they had come to the event specially to hear the talk.

I would like to think we could make this a regular attraction at Golborne providing Mark is in agreement although I'm not sure I could do one every year. We'll have to see about 2015.

Anyway thanks for all the positive comments from everyone it somehow makes all the effort worthwhile. Having been interested in electronics since the 1960s and working in the electronics industry for the best part of 40 years I feel it's only right that I should transfer some of the knowledge gained over those years to others.

Keith