In light of the current COVID-19 pandemic, there are no Hamfests or Amateur Radio expeditions being held anywhere in 2020. As an alternative, there was an online QSO TODAY EXPO held on the weekend of the 8th & 9th of August 2020.
Some 26,000 people registered for the event with 14,000 attending online over the weekend.
My own interest in the event was the online talks and a full list is shown below. Each one was about 30 minutes in duration and covered a wide variety of topics. Over the EXPO weekend and the following week, I've probably watched about two-thirds of the videos on offer.
When the videos were streamed live, I found the feed would fail and I'd have to re-enter the talk again. This problem didn't happen when I looked at the recordings later so I presume it was a bandwidth issue during the EXPO weekend.
The videos could be described as useful primers on subjects that you might be interested in. They certainly weren't as detailed as say some videos on YouTube but many were entertaining and interesting all the same.
Many of the talks had the slides available as a downloadable PDF which is useful to refer to after the event.
There was a Q&A session after each talk although I had no idea how to access this and I really didn't take the effort to find out.
There were commercial booths with products online as well although I didn't bother looking at these. Still, with 14,000 plus visiting the site, I'm sure plenty probably did.
I suspect that in future, we're going to see a lot more online events like this even when the COVID-19 pandemic is over. It removes the need and expense of having to travel long distances.
Maybe these online EXPO's may not have everything that a real physical EXPO has but there's a lot to be said for being able to attend from the comfort of your own home.
The videos can be viewed until the 9th of September 2020.
Visit https://qsotoday.vfairs.com/
List of talks...
Keynote Address: COVID-19: Amateur Radio’s Impact On Problem Solving To Create A Global Response To The Pandemic
How to Solder - Steve Johnston, WD8DAS
The History of Heath Company, the G.I. Bill, and Economics of Restoration - Paul Topolski, W1SEX
Get Active! Get On The Air! - Don Keith, N4KC
Getting On the Air For Beginners, Having Fun With VHF - Bob Witte, K0NR
RigExpert Stick 230 - the most innovative antenna & cable analyzer” by Jason Johnston, KC5HWB
The Search For Amelia Earhart's L10E - Tom Vinson, NY0V
Building A New Shack - Vance Martin, N3VEM
Grounding And Bonding: The Essentials - Ward Silver, N0AX
Fully-Remote Amateur Radio Exam Administration- Marcel Stieber, AI6MS
CWOps CW Academy - Learning CW - Eric Silverthorn NM5M
HamSCI: Science With Your Ham Radio - Phil Erickson, W1PJE
Kit Building Techniques For Success - Joseph Eisenberg, K0NEB
Mountain Goats and Shack Sloths & Marconi and me A QRP adventure in Italy -Don Minkoff NK6A
Building The Future -David Cripe, NM0S
VP6R 160 Meters: Mutiny on the Bands! - Glenn Johnson, W0GJ
RFinder BT1 HT Radio
FT8 & FT4 An Introduction - Anthony Luscre, K8ZT
FlexRadio: An Introduction To Remote HF Operating - Michael Walker, VA3MW
Portable HF Operating - Mike Dahlhofer, K8MRD
Salt Water Amplifier: Key To QRP SSB DX - Thomas Robinson, G0SBW
The 630-Meter Band: Is It Practical For Amateur Use? - Steve Johnston, WD8DAS
DXing With Modern Software Defined Radios - Ria Jairam, N2RJ
Getting Started In HF - Michael Burnette, AF7KB
Portable Operating - John Jacobs, W7DBO
Having Fun With Morse - Anthony Luscre, K8ZT
Saltwater Effect: Fact Or Myth - Greg Lane, N4KGL
Cycle 24, Solar Minimum and Cycle 25 - Carl Luetzelschwab K9LA
PackTenna Portable HF Antennas: Think Like A Backpacker - George Zafaropoulos, KJ6VU
EME On a 40 Meter Dish - Dennis Kidder, W6DQ
FT8 DXpedition Mode: Will DXing Ever Be The Same? - Ned Stearns, AA7A
Tips for Being A Better Single Op Contester - Randy Thompson, K5ZD
GPS Today - John Ackermann, N8UR
The Slot Antenna: Undiscovered Country for Most Hams - John Portune, W6NBC
Getting Started On EME (Moon Bounce) With A Basic Station - Howard Sherer, AE3T
Remotely Controlling A Solar Station - Robert Norman, VK5SW
Is 3 dB Worth A Divorce? - Glenn Johnson, W0GJ
Building And Contesting On 10 GHz - Wayne Yoshida, KH6WZ
Simple HF Antennas - Carl Luetzelschwab, K9LA
A 100W HF-6M Amplifier Project -Jim Veatch, WA2EUJ
Youth In Ham Radio - Carole Perry, WB2MGP
Youngsters On The Air - Introduction - YOTA Region 1
ARKnet Wireless Emergency Intranet - Marcel Stieber, AI6MS
From Rotators to Baluns, What's New At DX Engineering - Tim Duffy K3LR
21st Century Transceiver Design: The K4 High Performance Direct Sampling SDR - Eric Swartz, WA6HHQ
Audio Building Block for Hams - Mark Smith, KR6ZY
Send An Amateur Radio Balloon Around The World - Bill Brown, WB8ELK
FlexRadio Product Talk - Michael Walker VA3MW
Digging Dirt On Inductors: Experiments With Custom Magnetics Made From “Black Sand”- H.P. Pete Friedrichs, AC7ZL
3D Printing Microwave Antennas - Karen Rucker, KG5GAK
QSL Confidential - Jeff Murray, K1NSS
Qatar Oscar-100 Satellite - Zvi Segal, 4Z1ZV
Summits On The Air: Taking Ham Radio to New Heights - Keith Schlottman, KR7RK
Welcome to the Arduino - Glen Popiel, KW5GP
Hollow-State Homebrewing - Grayson Evans, KJ7UM
Everything you need to know about Lithium Batteries- Marcel Stieber, AI6MS
Everything You Need To Know About USB And Serial interfaces -Bob Wilson, N6TV
Getting Started with Amateur Radio Satellites - Tom Schuessler N5HYP
No comments:
Post a Comment