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MicroHAMS Digital Conference 2021 – Update

Since 2007 the Microsoft Amateur Radio Club (MicroHAMS) has held a conference focusing on digital communications: the MicroHAMS Digital Conference (MHDC). The mission of the MDHC conference is to “inspire, inform and educate.” As such, the MHDC presenters offer a variety of topics across a wide range of skill levels. 

One of the virtues of going online is that we can invite presenters that would be impractical to bring to the Seattle area.  This year, half of our presenters are from outside our area.  The latest updates will be published on the MicroHAMS web site at http://www.microhams.com/mhdc2021/. 

This year’s conference will feature the following – 

  • Walter Holmes, K5WH – Free DV Digital Voice for HF 
  • Gregg Marco, W6IZT – Rig in a Box solution for DXpeditions 
  • Bob Bruninga, WB4APR – The APRS author will discuss the latest developments 
  • Paul Elliott, WB6CXC – Developing and tracking drift buoys 
  • Paul Sturmer, KI7WLV – High speed communications from HuskySat-1 
  • Bryan Hoyer, K7UDR – The ultimate packet workstation 

Now in our 14th year, we are repeating the online format from last year’s event. The 2021 conference will be streamed to YouTube and at no charge (donations welcome). One of the virtues of going online is that we can invite presenters that would be impractical to bring to the Seattle area and support an unlimited number of attendees. In 2021, half of our presenters are from outside the Pacific Northwest.

During the conference, there are two ways that attendees can interact with our presenters. Attendees can ask questions in the YouTube chat channel, which we will pass on to the presenters during Q&A. For live Q&A, each session has a Zoom breakout room available at the end of the session. Presenters and attendees can hang out and answer questions in person for the hour after their session has aired. The entire conference will also be recorded and available on YouTube for viewing later.

See you Saturday! (April 24, 2021)
Scott Honaker, N7SS for the MHDC Team 

 

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The makeup of the 2021-2022 Board of Directors

With a thank you to Kenny Richards KU7M for acting as Teller for the 2021 Board of Directors election, your board members met Tuesday April 6th to organize themselves into the 2021-2022 Board of Directors for the club with the following results:

Laurence Starks, AG7NB will once again serve as president

Dennis Tillman, W7pF will once again serve as vice president

Grant Hopper, KB7WSD will once again serve as secretary

David Jenni, W7CF will once again serve as treasurer

Scott Honaker, N7SS will again serve as a director and chair of the MHDC

Miguel Mayorga, KC7IGT will again serve as a director

And newly elected to the board, Brian Stucker, KB2S will also serve as a director.

Thank you to all our members for voting, and thank you to all of the board members for being willing to serve and guide the club for the next year.

73,
Grant, KB7WSD

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Presentations from meetings….

A new series has been started on the MicroHAMS YouTube channel. Since the club meetings have been made available to remote members via Teams, the presentations were also recorded. The first of the series is available now and is from the January 2020 meeting. It is John Miles, KE5FX’s talk about frequency measurements.

Update: (2020-06-07) The second in the series is now available from the April 2020 on packet TNC’s.  And the third from the Feb 2020 meeting on the HuskySat-1 development.

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MHDC 2020 Wrap Up

This year we identified a new venue that has room to grow and meets our needs. We started our planning around the new venue when the virus struck. We kept adjusting our plans as the requirements changed. There was a temptation to simply cancel the conference rather than continue to pursue this moving target. Ultimately, we felt it was more important than ever to deliver the conference. The virtual format also offered us the opportunity to reach out to speakers we could not practically bring to Seattle.

We normally get about 100 people at the physical conference. You may have noticed we saw between 300-500 people actively watching the stream over the course of the conference. Interestingly, we also saw 2000 unique views during the conference so clearly some people only attended a portion of the day or specific sessions. We’re pleased with these numbers but if we had been better prepared for all the changes, we would have created a larger advertising push for a greater reach.

We’re happy to announce the videos have been published to YouTube on the Microhams channel. You can find the agenda with the links to the corresponding video on the Microhams web site at MHDC2020. We would encourage you to pass this information along and share broadly with others.

The final accounting isn’t complete but it appears the donations just covered our expenses this year. Feel free to help others find the donate button on the Microhams web site so we can continue to bring you this content in the future. We don’t know what next year will look like but we’ll be ready. We already have a date and deposit on a venue.

It would also be very helpful if you would complete the conference survey so we can improve the conference experience in the future. The survey is short and should be quick. You can find it HERE.

Mark your calendar. We hope to see you Saturday April 24, 2021!

Scott Honaker, N7SS

MHDC 2020 Chair

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MHDC 2020 Update – May 8th

Another day, another update! 

I have just created the stream event on YouTube for the conference tomorrow (May 9th) and completed all the testing I can at this point, so barring any visits by Murphy you should be able to get to the conference by clicking this link.

MHDC 2020 – YouTube Link

So far YouTube search hasn’t added it to the index, if you search for MHDC 2020, all you find is the past years saved conferences. I’ll see if there is something I can do to make it show up. I know a lot of people are looking forward to watching the conference on their big tv’s using some type of streaming device, so it will be good if you can search and find it.

73, Kenny-KU7M (YouTube Lackey)

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MicroHAMS Digital Conference Update – May 5th

Quick update on how the conference will operate this year. While the MHDC has been streamed via YouTube the last couple years, we have never attempted to produce the show with all the speakers remote and 100% of the audience also remote. Since this our first time trying something this complicated, please understand it will not be perfect.(You get what you pay for, but please donate anyway)

Here is some of the details for how things will work on Saturday.

  • The event is being streamed via YouTube, a link to the event will be posted on Friday evening (May 8th) on this page and the home page. This allows any modern web browser to enjoy the event, as long as you have a decent internet connection. The stream should go live at ~8:30AM on May 9th, with Scott-N7SS kicking things off officially at 8:45AM.
  • The chat function YouTube provides (on the same page as the stream) will be enabled for the event and this will be how people can submit questions. Questions can asked any time during the speakers talk and they will be captured by one of the moderators. During the Q&A time at the end of the speakers presentation, Scott-N7SS will ask as many of the questions that there is time to cover. (similar questions will be combined) Based on our testing, there is about a 10 second delay on the stream, so doing ‘interactive’ questions isn’t feasible.
  • To provide additional time to interact with speakers for those interested, each speaker will be invited to a private Zoom chat room after their talk has completed. For those that are interested, you will be able to join the Zoom chat room and continue the discussions. The Zoom chat room will be lightly moderated and participates will need to be respectful. Because some of our speakers are located in different time zones from Seattle, we can’t guarantee how long or if every speaker will take part in this option. Information on the chat room will be made available on Saturday morning. We will only have one breakout room, so the speakers will only be available for a maximum of an hour, after that it will be time for the next speaker. Please remember the basic Zoom etiquette of muting your mike when not speaking and being respectful of others.

FAQ:
Question1: why are you using Youtube and not Zoom for the entire conference?

The primary reason is around control and ensuring the event is enjoyable by as many people as possible. Streaming via YouTube allow anybody with a decent internet connection and a modern browser to take part in the conference. YouTube is also designed for broadcasting to thousands of people located around the world. We chose to use Zoom to ‘produce’ the content from the speakers who are all remote and located around the world, along with switching to different local video sources as necessary to create the live stream. This ability to blend different sources on the fly isn’t something Zoom is designed todo, which combined with the access and number of viewers we are expecting, made YouTube the only real choice for the conference.

Question 2: Then why will you host a Zoom chat room after the talks?

It is our belief that the number of people taking part in any single ‘chat room’ will be much smaller than the overall number of people viewing the stream. This is similar to the of people who chose to follow the speakers out to the hallway to continue discussing their talk during the in person conferences, while the next talk begins. It is possible we are wrong and the chat room will become unruly and will need to be turned off. Please follow the basic Zoom etiquette of muting your mike unless speaking and being respectful of others.

Question 3: I can’t make it on Saturday, where can I watch the talks later?

The talks will be made available on YouTube (like past years) after Saturday. Links to the each speaker will be provided on the MicroHAMS website, along with copies of the slides. Groups are welcome to re-stream the talks at club meetings, as long as the creative commons license is followed.

Question 4: Wait a minute, there is no break for lunch or even going to the bathroom in the schedule!

That is correct, no breaks have been planned. By eliminating lunch and bathroom breaks, an additional speaker slot was created. Since people will be viewing this from around the world, there is no common “lunch time”, so instead people can grab lunch/snacks or a bathroom break whenever works best for them. You will be able to ‘pause’ the stream if you don’t want to miss anything.

Question 5: What is the schedule of the talks?

See the schedule linked on the main MHDC2020 page.