Zoom Workshop

AJC

Western Thunderer
Sorry to have missed it! Not compatible with a family holiday (at least, when the sin’s shining). If there’s a next time, however...

Adam
 

paratom

Western Thunderer
A thank you to everyone who participated in today’s workshop zoom meeting. It was my first hosted zoom meeting and a learning curve for me so I do apologise if some of the participants did not get a word in. This will be rectified in the next meeting and I will endeavour to get as many participants to participate as much as possible. I will keep everyone posted on the topic of the next meeting, time and link to it. Really enjoyed talking to all the modellers who participated despite now feeling an even more inadequate modeller than I was before.
 

ianlbsc

Western Thunderer
Thanks Tom?
An excellent opportunity to share a few insights as to how people make things with different equipment. I see it is possible to record these so maybe I can host one and record it, put it one my onedrive for others to see after, or even load it up to Youtube? Is there A Western Thunderer channel??
Cheers Ian
 

michael080

Western Thunderer
Thanks Tom,

very informative meeting, but of course the main point for me as a overseas member is that I don't have any chance to meet you personally, so these virtual meetings are a great opportunity for me.
I will try to prepare some things I am working at for the next meeting. 3D-printing seems to be a big thing for many of us, I see its limitations and think that this might be something to discuss.

Again, big thanks for organizing the meeting.

Michael
 

michael080

Western Thunderer
Adrian,

I noticed that you were having problems with audio at the meeting. You can still click on Tom's link and open the app. There is a button to check the audio channel. I hope you can sort this out until the next meeting.

cheers,
Michael
 

simond

Western Thunderer
Apologies, I wasn’t there, at the last minute I was dragged away, kicking & screaming...

glad it went well, and looking forward to hopefully joining the next one.

Atb
Simon
 

paratom

Western Thunderer
As I am getting to grips with Zoom hopefully the next session will go a bit smoother and I will have more audience participation. The next session will take place at 11 am on the 19th of September and will not focus on people's workshops. I should have anticipated that not everybody’s computer is in their workshops or have portable devices . The session will focus on something that you can bring to your computer that demonstrates a particular field of railway modelling that you are interested in. The item does not have to be a finished item and can be a work in progress and please if you prefer could be shown as still images if you share your screen. A link to the session will be posted nearer to the date.
 

Ian@StEnochs

Western Thunderer
Tom,

Thanks for taking the initiative and organising the Zoom. It was an informative meeting even though some folks were having connection problems and not everyone got to contribute. For future meetings can a way of letting everyone a chance to speak? Either a time slot or a way that a participant can indicate he would like to speak.

ian
 

Dikitriki

Flying Squad
Tom,

That would be a much easier theme to get everyone involved. Just make sure you bring in everyone in turn. Participants can indicate they wish to speak by raising a hand. It sounds like school, but it works.

Richard

(on Linda's computer today!)
 

Hobbyhorse

Western Thunderer
What would help is adding a second camera, you can use your your smartphone. This would improve the quality when viewing models, I use a small try pod that holds the phone over my workspace.
Simon
 

adrian

Flying Squad
Again thanks for organising it Tom. Hopefully next time I may be able to sort out a contribution.

I noticed that you were having problems with audio at the meeting. You can still click on Tom's link and open the app. There is a button to check the audio channel. I hope you can sort this out until the next meeting.
Thanks for that I will test it.

With respect to the audio there were 2 issues.

The first was the quality of the sound - quite often I found it difficult to understand what people were saying as the audio came across with a fair bit of static at times. I wasn't sure if this was due to bandwidth problems. Not on my internet link as I have a high speed fibre link but maybe within the Zoom application itself. Hence why I turned off my video stream temporarily to try and reduce the network traffic. Was it just myself suffering this static or did others get static?

The second was I wasn't sure if my audio was coming through - I had a couple of questions when people were explaining things but they didn't seem to be picked up. The little microphone symbol was lighting up like a sound meter so I thought it was working properly. So I will run a few more tests before the next meeting.
 

Overseer

Western Thunderer
Again thanks for organising it Tom. Hopefully next time I may be able to sort out a contribution.


Thanks for that I will test it.

With respect to the audio there were 2 issues.

The first was the quality of the sound - quite often I found it difficult to understand what people were saying as the audio came across with a fair bit of static at times. I wasn't sure if this was due to bandwidth problems. Not on my internet link as I have a high speed fibre link but maybe within the Zoom application itself. Hence why I turned off my video stream temporarily to try and reduce the network traffic. Was it just myself suffering this static or did others get static?

The second was I wasn't sure if my audio was coming through - I had a couple of questions when people were explaining things but they didn't seem to be picked up. The little microphone symbol was lighting up like a sound meter so I thought it was working properly. So I will run a few more tests before the next meeting.
Nearly all of the audio was clear from this end, as was the video. I saw you trying to speak but there was no sound and the marker highlighting the current speaker did not come on for you. No idea where the problem was, I have been using zoom quite a lot for work and family meetings without any problems so have no trouble shooting experience.
 

cbrailways

Western Thunderer
I had a lot of breaking up of the sound. I also tried the 'putting your hand up' feature to ask a question but It didn't seem to work, unless Tom didn't notice it!
 

paratom

Western Thunderer
I had a lot of breaking up of the sound. I also tried the 'putting your hand up' feature to ask a question but It didn't seem to work, unless Tom didn't notice it!
That was my fault Chris as I did not have all the attendees visible on my screen so I did not see their hands up feature. It was the first Zoom meeting I hosted so a learning curve for me. Please join us for the next meet.
 

Yorkshire Dave

Western Thunderer
I've been in many meetings like this with with my employers and always have some ground rules - it's a bit like going back to school but it does work.

Apart from the organiser, attendees set their microphones to mute as this cuts out background noise and any feedback; raise a hand when wanting to speak and un-mute the microphone when called to speak, and mute microphone after the discussion.
 

76043

Western Thunderer
Yes, totally agree on muting the mic when not speaking. The pops and whistles not necessarily from your sound chip cannot then be heard by all.

Tony
 
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