DavidGibson
Member
The next online seminar in BCRA's series will be by David Gibson of BCRA's Cave Radio and Electronics Group. The title will be "Current Problems in Cave Radio" and it will take place next Monday, 13 July, at at 19:30 BST. See details at https://bcra.org.uk/seminars/
Although through-rock radio is now well-established, there are a number of puzzles still to answer. The first part of this talk will outline some topics for further study. For example, the relative merit of loop versus line antennas is not straightforward to answer. Neither is the merit of tuned v. untuned antennas or ferrite v. ceramic antennas. Other topics such as geophysical surveying using broadcast radio, and the anisotropic properties of limestone could benefit from further work, and perhaps make useful student projects. The second part of the talk will describe some of the practical problems of building equipment - waterproofing, battery choice, switches and connectors could all benefit from some careful study. For example, why do supposedly waterproof boxes tend to end up with water inside them when left in a cave for a long period? That, in itself, would make an interesting student project that could be investigated, underground, at BCRA's Cave Science Centre in Poole's Cavern, Buxton.
CREG's summer series of talks: BCRA runs a monthly programme of online cave science seminars, broadcast using the Zoom platform. Generally, these are on the second Monday of the month, with a summer break. This summer, CREG (one of BCRA's special interest groups) will be filling in with some talks on cave radio and electronics topics. We might try a slightly different format, with several short contributions of 15 minutes each, rather than a single hour-long presentation but it depends on what is offered.
Although through-rock radio is now well-established, there are a number of puzzles still to answer. The first part of this talk will outline some topics for further study. For example, the relative merit of loop versus line antennas is not straightforward to answer. Neither is the merit of tuned v. untuned antennas or ferrite v. ceramic antennas. Other topics such as geophysical surveying using broadcast radio, and the anisotropic properties of limestone could benefit from further work, and perhaps make useful student projects. The second part of the talk will describe some of the practical problems of building equipment - waterproofing, battery choice, switches and connectors could all benefit from some careful study. For example, why do supposedly waterproof boxes tend to end up with water inside them when left in a cave for a long period? That, in itself, would make an interesting student project that could be investigated, underground, at BCRA's Cave Science Centre in Poole's Cavern, Buxton.
CREG's summer series of talks: BCRA runs a monthly programme of online cave science seminars, broadcast using the Zoom platform. Generally, these are on the second Monday of the month, with a summer break. This summer, CREG (one of BCRA's special interest groups) will be filling in with some talks on cave radio and electronics topics. We might try a slightly different format, with several short contributions of 15 minutes each, rather than a single hour-long presentation but it depends on what is offered.
