Welcome to the Home Page of Neville Roberts and

Orchid Photographs
Hardy Terrestrial Orchids
Orchid-related Links
Physics, Engineering and Technology
Music, Hi-Fi Articles and Television

Weather Satellite Images

	View the latest weather satellite images that have been recorded directly from the satellites as they pass over my location in Dorset, UK.
	Listen to a sample of the APT audio received from one of the NOAA satellites that contains the visible and infrared information used to generate the images.
	View animations produced from these images showing the movement of clouds across the UK.

Orchid Photographs

Prior to 2000, the orchid photographs were taken on a Nikon FE 35mm camera using the standard Nikkor 50mm f1.8 lens with off-camera flash and extension tubes as necessary. The photographs were taken on Fujichrome 'Sensia' ASA100 or 'Sensia II' ASA200 colour slide film. These slides were then scanned on a Nikon 'Coolscan' scanner.

From 2000 until 2004, the photographs were taken on a Nikon Coolpix 995 digital camera. From 2005, a Nikon DSLR camera has been used (a D70 from 2005-2009, a D90 from 2010-2011, then a D7000 from 2012), together with an AF Micro Nikkor 60mm f2.8 D lens. For illumination, either an off-camera Nikon SB600 flash unit with diffuser or a Marumi ring flash unit on the lens was used.

The resultant JPGs have been scaled down for the web - click on the thumbnail to download the picture.

Brassia verrucosa	Cattleya Braziliensis	Cattleya velutina x Laelia Crispa	Coelogyne Cristata	Coelogyne Cristata 'Alba'
Coelogyne Massangeana	Cymbidium hybrid	Cymbidium hybrid yellow	Cymbidium Alexanderi 'Westonbirt'	Cymbidium Alexanderi 'Westonbirt' (7 blooms)
Cymbidium Minneken 'Pink Tower'	Dendrobium Ainsworthii	Dendrobium Delicatum	Dendrobium Golden Blossom 'Sunset'	Dendrobium Hastings
Dendrobium kingianum	Dendrobium Maihime Beauty	Dendrobium Nobile	Dendrobium Pink Doll 'Elegance'	Dendrochilum latifolium
Encyclia cochleata	Epidendrum ibaguense	Epidendrum Prismatocarpum	Laelia virens	Laeliocattleya Meadow Gold
Lycaste Skinneri	Maxilaria Praestans	Miltonia Kasserine x Franz Wichmann	Neobenthema gracilio	Neobenthema gracilio spray
Odontioda Fireflower x Odontoglossum Hallii	Odontioda Flintstone	Odontioda Galaxy	Odontioda Harry Baldwin x Carl Keyes x Elaine Herioda	Odontioda Honiton Lace
Odontocidium Tigersun	Odontoglossum Bictoniense	Odontoglossum Luto Purpureum x Mach Two	Odontoglossum Pulchellum	Odontonia Susan Bogdanow
Oncidium goldiana	Oncidium ornithorhynchum	Paphiopedilum Insigne	Paphiopedilum lawrenceanum x ciliolare	Paphiopedilum Maudae
Paphiopedilum Petronella x Queen Anna	Paphiopedilum Rosy Dawn 'Alba'	Paphiopedilum Rosy Dawn	Paphiopedilum Rosy Dawn (2 blooms)	Phalaenopsis hybrid
Phalaenopsis hybrid	Phalaenopsis hybrid	Phalaenopsis hybrid	Phalaenopsis Sussex Pearl	Phragmipedium Don Wimber
Pleurothallis	Polystachya Pubescens	Rossioglossum grande	Sarcochilus Fitzhart	Sophrolaeliocattleya Jewel Box
Stenoglottis longifolii	Vuylstekeara Cambria 'Orange'	Zygopetalum intermedium	Zygopetalum 'Ladybird'

'Hardy' Terrestrial Orchids

Anacamptis pyramidalis	Anacamptis pyramidalis (Badbury Rings, Dorset)	Anacamptis pyramidalis (spray)	Cypripedium Emile	Cypripedium fasciolatum
Cypripedium Gisela	Cypripedium Hank Small	Cypripedium Reginae x Flavum (in garden)	Cypripedium Reginae x Flavum	Dactylorhiza fuchsii
Dactylorhiza fuchsii (Badbury Rings, Dorset)	Dactylorhiza fuchsii (spray)	Dactylorhiza fuchsii (St.Leonards, Dorset)	Dactylorhiza praetermissa 'anada'	Epipactis gigantea (in garden)
Epipactis gigantea plant (in garden)	Epipactis gigantea	Habenaria radiata	Listera ovata (Batcombe, Dorset)	Ophrys apifera (in garden)
Ophrys apifera	Orchis mascula (Badbury Rings, Dorset)	Orchis morio (in garden)	Orchis morio	Platanthera chlorantha (Badbury Rings, Dorset)
Platanthera chlorantha & Dactylorhiza fuchsii	Pleione praecox

Orchid-related Links

Bournemouth Orchid Society	Hardy Orchid Society	The North of England Orchid Society	The Orchid Mall	Orchid Research Newsletter - Kew
American Orchid Society	Ratcliffe Orchids Ltd. (Plants & Sundries)	Bournemouth Natural Science Society

Physics, Engineering and Technology

The Institute of Physics Home Page	European Physical Society	(formerly The IEE) The Institution of Engineering and Technology Home Page	European Federation of National Engineering Associations	The Engineering Council
RSS Consultancy	NHS Somerset

Music, Hi-Fi Articles and Television.

Other interests include light and classical music, especially baroque. All of my classical recordings are listed in Album_Details.PDF.

I also have a comprehensive collection of the excellent quality light music used to accompany the BBC test card and am a member of the Test Card Circle. I have a copy of virtually every tape from 1959 through to 1982 on CD. The tapes were 1/2 hour long up until 1972 and then were 1 hour in length. Most of these CDs have been made from the original BBC coded music master recordings and the later ones are therefore in stereo!

In addition to the BBC test card music, I have copies of the music used to accompany the Channel 4 test card when the channel started broadcasting on 2 November 1982. I have copies of the first nine 1-hour tapes used, again from the stereo masters, as well as the original Channel 4 theme. I also have a collection of library music recordings (recordings that were not commercially available) and much of it was used for television theme tunes and interval music.

I have written a number of articles for Hi-Fi and audio magazines over the years. Reproductions of the submitted articles as PDF files from 2001 to 2011 are available below.

Hi-Fi World Magazine

	April 2001	DIY Supplement 57		Design and Construction of a Quality Stepped Attenuator
	November 2001	DIY Supplement 61		Building Quality DIY Mains Power Leads
	November 2001	DIY Supplement 61		Upgrading the WAD Series II Modular Preamp
	April 2002	DIY Supplement 64		Review - Njoe Tjoeb 4000 CD Player
	April 2002	DIY Supplement 64		A Moving Coil Cartridge Head Amplifier
	May 2002	DIY Supplement 65		Review - Origin Live Turntable Kit
	August 2002	DIY Supplement 67		Upgrading the Njoe Tjoeb 4000 Valve CD Player
	February 2003	DIY Supplement 71		Cartridge Alignment with the Vinyl Essentials Test Record
	October 2003	DIY Supplement 75		Upgrading the Upgrade –The New Origin Live Turntable Motor
	April 2004	DIY Supplement 78		The New Origin Live Ultra Turntable Power Supply
	December 2004	DIY Supplement 80		Stepped Attenuators – The Final Instalment?
	February 2005	DIY Supplement 81		A Touch of Glass
	April 2005	DIY Supplement 82		The ProLogue One AABB Upgrade
	April 2005	DIY Supplement 82		Tube Hoops
	August 2005	DIY Supplement 84		HD83 Extreme Makeover
	October 2005	DIY Supplement 85		Book Review - Sound Design by David Attwood
	October 2005	DIY Supplement 85		An Eighth-Wave Transmission Line Loudspeaker
	March 2006	Vol.16 No.1		The History of Vinyl & Phonograph Cylinder Recording + audio samples
	April 2007	Vol.17 No.2		Rewired for Sound - rewiring a tonearm
	April 2007	Vol.17 No.2		On The Run - the evolution of my Hi-Fi system
	June 2007	Vol.17 No.4		Soundbites – Logitech Wireless Hi-Fi Link
	August 2007	Vol.17 No.6		Soundbites - Black Rhodium Cables
	September 2007	Vol.17 No.7		Arms Length Review - The Audio Origami Tonearm
	September 2007	Vol.17 No.7		Soundbites - Sennheiser OMX90VC Earphones
	September 2007	Vol.17 No.7		Glass Time - The SuperTubeClock Valve CD Clock Upgrade
	February 2008	Vol.17 No.12		Olde Worlde - The Reel Thing - The Sony TC-377 Open Reel Recorder
	October 2008	Vol.18 No.8		Soundbites - Philips GoGear MP3 Player
	October 2008	Vol.18 No.8		Soundbites - Ringmat CDi Blue Statmat & Dampers
	January 2009	Vol.18 No.11		The Holy and the IV – The PrimaLuna ProLogue Eight Upgraded
	March 2009	Vol.19 No.1		Soundbites - TJ Full Music Valves
	June 2009	Vol.19 No.4		Soundbites - Sonic Freedom Offspring Spikes
	June 2009	Vol.19 No.4		Soundbites - Black Knight Figure of 8 Powercord
	October 2009	Vol.19 No.8		Buy buy Blackburn! - A New Valve Range from Blackburn MicroTech Solutions
	December 2009	Vol.19 No.10		A History of Test Card Music
	January 2010	Vol.19 No.11		Spinning the Bottle
	January 2010	Vol.19 No.11		Kinetik Energy – The New ISOkinetik Modular One Turntable
	February 2010	Vol.19 No.12		A New Concept? – The Clearaudio Concept Turntable
	February 2010	Vol.19 No.12		Review - ISOkinetik Upgraded Rega Turntable
	March 2010	Vol.20 No.1		The Rega RB1000 Tonearm
	May 2010	Vol.20 No.3		TEAC for Two - The TEAC T-H380DNT Stereo Tuner
	March 2011	Vol.21 No.1		Out of the Blue - The Kiseki Blue NOS Cartridge
	July 2011	Vol.21 No.5		Cable Sound - Do Cables Make a Difference?
	December 2011	Vol.21 No.10		Squeezing More Out of a Squeezebox!

audioXpress Magazine (US)

	July 2008	audioXpress		CDs Under Canvas - The Tentlabs DIY CD Player
	November 2009	audioXpress		A New Approach to Tube Design

Hi-Fi Choice Magazine

From May 2012

Issue 358 -> onwards

Copies of articles available to subscribers on the Hi-Fi Choice website

For Hi-Fi enthusiasts wishing to build their own stepped attenuator to replace the volume control in their amplifier, I have written two Javascript programs to calculate the values of the resistors required; one for a resistor string attenuator with up to 24 steps and the other for a shunt attenuator with up to 50 steps. I hope you find them useful.

If anyone wants to test 300B triodes on a valve tester that doesn't support these valves, click here to read how I solved the problem with my B&K Dyna-Jet Valve (Tube) Tester Model 606.

For anyone interested in television engineering, I wrote an article for Wireless World back in 1979 on the design of a unit to electronically generate colour television pictures from a black & white source. More recently, I wrote an article for the Test Card Circle on Baird 30-line television and have included both articles below.

	August 1979	Wireless World		Colour Synthesizer Design for the PAL System
	April 2004	The Test Card Circle Magazine		30-Line Television: Baird for All to See!

To open PDF files, you need to have a copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your PC. You can download it free from the Adobe website by clicking on the icon below.

Thank you for your interest!

This page has been accessed times since September 2004.

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(c) 1998-2012 Neville Roberts BSc CEng CPhys FIET MInstP