Well, the magic certainly happened on Friday 12 Jan 2018. The plan was to bring together a team of people to clean, check and commission as many bits of donated equipment as we could. In particular, we were focused on a stack of not-very-healthy FM exciters – and about all we knew of these was where they’d originated, and that many had “faulty” stickers loudly stating what we feared. As it happens, the stickers were correct.
Technorama took the initiative to structure the event as an education day. We thought, rightly as it happens, that hands-on is the best way to learn. We almost underestimated the enthusiasm of attendees, who were grateful to have hardware to debug, test equipment to take measurements, and experienced mentors to ask.
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For the Technorama team it was a way to discover if we can mount a similar exercise at TR18. You can read about the plan here, on our event registration page. By the way, THAT was a voyage of discovery too, as we experimented with Zenbership’s Event capability. That, plus payment gateway, was a seamless experience, and showed how even small stations could run paid events with minimal admin intervention.
We had ten participants from Canberra, Dungog, Newcastle, and metro Sydney, and our youngest helper was just 8 years old. Hey, never too early to start.
Success!
Over the day, much practical work was completed, and a few splodges of theory were whiteboarded in the process. Attendees appreciated that they could see the relationship between formulae and a real direct outcome.
At completion, 10 exciters were pronounced very much alive. A stereo generator was synthesized from thin air and a certain amount of software. We sang a round of “Ying Tong”.
An audio console was given the serious once-over, and exceeded specifications. We measured <0.2% distortion, and and a frequency response that was flat 20-to-20. Essentially transparent, and you can’t ask better than that.
It’s hard to be anything but pleased about our first TX and Audio Blitz. Thanks to all for coming, and to Hope for hosting.