Working at the BBC, Steve experienced all sorts of problems. The greatest being those dealing with outside broadcast, but his start was in the studio for the BBC TODAY PROGRAMME where he dealt with  microphones, audio tape editing, sound mixing desks and making sound effects! He explained the sound of military marching was done by putting gravel into a cardboard box and turning the box from side to side.

Steve continued working in the studio but moved to News and Sport where he stayed for five years, followed by a short time in Schools Radio. When the chance arrived, he moved to Outside Broadcasts. He says the skills are the same but in a temporary environment. He stayed in OB for the rest of his career totalling forty years working as Engineering Manager. The job was varied but always contained the same challenges, but now in locations such as Glastonbury, Kings College, Ibiza nightclubs, Royal Ceremonials and an almost endless list of locations around the world including the Brazil World Cup. As the Engineering Manager he was responsible for things like planning set ups at large events including power generation, cable routes and rigging plans, microphone locations, wiring connections back to the studio, radio licences, Health and Safety and the cost of it all!

Steve’s presentation to the club was very professional and most entertaining, lots of slides of events and the almost tons of wiring and equipment needed to do outside broadcasts.

After the meeting Paul G1GSN, our Club Chairman presented two cups which he was unable to present during the March AGM

Brian G8GHR received the Cup for the best talk last year.               Paul, G8IUG received the cup for the best week end project in the Construction Contest.

First up was CQWW SSB 2023 on 28 – 29 October 2023. Don began with our claimed score and gave a comparison to the year before. It appeared our score was a bit lower than last year. Most of the problems were listed starting with logging errors. A chart showed where the mistakes were made in incorrect calls, incorrect exchanges and duplicates as well as some calls not in the recipients log. Of course all errors lower the score in the end.

Don continued by showing who was first in the world, then first in EU and finally, who was first in the UK in our section. The tally showed we were sixth. Don also showed a comparison as to where we finished in years past. The totals seemed to change with the conditions each year.

The next contest to be looked at was the CQ WPX RTTY of 11 – 12 Feb 2024. The score looked high and was much better then last year coming third in our section!

The BIG question of the evening was have we made enough points to continue with our callsign G3B?  The answer was YES!