Riding the Radio Waves

A talk by Jane Humphreys OBE

Part of Building the Wireless Age, a unique Marconi exhibition

At the original Marconi Wireless and Telegraphy works in Hall Street Chelmsford,
the world's first wireless factory which Marconi established in 1898.

The daughter of a Marconi radio engineer, Jane Humphreys spent much of her career as a Civil Servant working with the broadcasting and telecommunications industries. She will talk about how Marconi's discoveries coloured her career and how radio spectrum shapes all our lives.

Despite pioneer Heinrich Hertz saying "I do not think that the wireless waves I have discovered will have any practical application", Marconi and other early pioneers developed tuned communication equipment which opened the door to controlling spectrum usage.

Jane was head of Spectrum Policy at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport until November 2014, and led the team that handled the analogue to digital TV switchover. She will explain how technological advances and tight spectrum allocation control have allowed the present large number of TV channels available today to be provided in less bandwidth than the original five analogue TV channels did before they were switched off in 2012.

She was also involved in overseeing the spectrum allocation to mobile phone companies, through the auction and awarding process for 2G, 3G and 4G usage worth well over £20 billion. The next challenge for the future will be 5G, and candidate suppliers are already proposing that "it will be even better", although little has so far been forthcoming on the likely benefits.

Please book through Eventbrite: www.chelmsfordcivicsociety.eventbrite.com

Tickets are £5. All proceeds from talks and merchandise will be used to cover exhibition project costs. This is a volunteer-led initiative.

Chelmsford Science and Engineering Society is proud to support Marconi Science WorX: Chelmsford Civic Society in collaboration with BBC Essex.

When
27 May 2016 from 19:30 to 21:30
Location
19 Hall Street (Former Marconi Works)
Chelmsford
Essex
CM2 0HG
United Kingdom
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