The results below were taken from the delegate questionnaires returned at the Automotive EMC 2005: The Road to Compliance Conference on 11^th May 2005 at the CCN Ost, Nuremberg, Germany. There are also explanatory notes and comments added by the conference organiser; Martin O’Hara. Items in quotation marks in italics are delegate comments entered onto their questionnaire form, all other comments are from the organiser.

All scores shown are the modal result, except “Best Vote” which is the winner by total number of votes cast for each paper in this category. Not all respondents completed all sections or scored all the papers, a total of 24 questionnaire forms were returned on the day.

“Lunch would have been better (consume less time and give opportunity to talk) if buffet.”

“Maybe it’s better to provide a sandwich lunch and not loosing so much time in the restaurant is more efficient.”

“Please use wireless microphone during presentations like Dr. Matthias Troescher”

“Location gets low score due to difficult flights requiring 2+ days off work. However, I have enjoyed a bit of sightseeing in Germany”

Undoubtedly the biggest let down of the day was the time it took to serve lunch. We had asked about a buffet but had been steered by the catering supplier to the “Vasco de Gama” restaurant for our requirements. While the food itself was excellent, I think we were the victim of bad timing as the Crash-Tech 2005 conference broke for lunch at the same time as ourselves and although they were in a separate dining room they were being catered for using the same kitchen. This is the first time we’ve tried a sit down meal for lunch and I guess it will probably be the last.

I understand the comment about using the wireless microphone that one delegate has made, and this was available to all speakers (including myself) at the conference, however, it was left up to the speaker to determine if they wished to use the headset. Personally I prefer to use a podium microphone, but it can give variable sound level if a speaker moves around and the headset looked a little cumbersome compared to lapel microphones we have hired in the past.

Nuremberg can be an awkward place to get to, especially if you leave flight bookings to the last minute! It is very well served for hotels and even with the SENSOR+TEST exhibition there were still some rooms available within Nuremberg. The Toy Fair they have there in February occupies all 10 halls, not the 1.5 that SENSOR+TEST required, hence the supply of accommodation is especially generous for the size of the city. Consequently, while I acknowledge Nuremberg can be awkward to get to, certainly with direct flights from outside of Germany, it is not in my opinion a bad location per se.

“Very well prepared and organised for such a small conference (actually even for a big one!).”

It is very pleasing to find that people thought the information supplied prior to the event was good, this does help get everyone to the venue and unlike last year we had no late-arrivals due to mix-up with other conferences that’s were on at the same time. Some of the credit must go to the organisers of the SENSOR+TEST 2005 exhibition who made it very easy for us to put on this event and assisted greatly with some of the delegate pack content.

Even greater thanks must be given to EM Test AG who fully sponsored the delegate bags and these were of a very high quality this year, to such an extent that we have decided to go with the same supplier of bags next year. The delegate who thinks the printing might limit their future use must work for a competing test equipment supplier to EM Test AG as I personally have been using mine continuously since February.

Conference Papers	Content	Presentation	Best Vote
Keynote Address: The Automotive Power Network; Past, Present and Future Peter Hartnett, Transparent Engineering	3	3
The Aftermarket and 2004/104/EC Terry Beadman, Dove House Associates	3	3
Aftermarket Component Test Standards for the North American Market Martin O’Hara, Trafficmaster PLC	4	4	1st
Using Pulsed Amplifiers to meet the Narrow Frequency Band, High Field Strength, Automotive Immunity Tests Dominic FitzPatrick, Milmega	4	4	2nd
A Transient Measurement System for the Evaluation of Vehicle Electromagnetic Radiation Valerie Chauvet, IRCOM	3	3
Integration Strategies of HF Antennae in Vehicles by Simulation M. Trgovčević, Trimerics GmbH	3	3
Linkage of PCB and Cable Harness Simulations for Automotive EMC Analyses Dr. Matthias Troescher, SimLab Software GmbH	4	4
EMC Testing Of Networked Vehicles And Subsystems – A Challenge To Track Failures Dr. Uwe Reinhardt, EMCtech GmbH	4	4	2nd
Conducted Immunity Testing to International Standards and Vehicle Manufacturer Requirements – An Overview Roland Spriessler, EM Test AG	3	3	3rd

The voting was close, but the paper by myself (rather embarrassingly) had the highest number of votes, with Dominic FitzPatrick and Dr. Uwe Reinhardt close on my heals in joint second place and Roland Spriessler just behind these. To minimise my embarrassment I am sending the “Best Paper” certificate to my co-author; Rick Goodwin of Solectron Invotronics in Canada, who could not make the conference. He will also be receiving a complete set of “Dilbert Mints”, as did two of the delegates during the lunchtime lottery draw.

Mean score was 3.5 and split evenly between 3 and 4 scores. It was slightly disappointing that a “very good” was not the modal score but at least everyone thought the conference was good or better than good and hence met everyone’s expectations. Personally I thought the papers were excellent and I am glad I didn’t have to try and choose the best paper as I would have been split for at least 3 which were directly relevant to me and one which was superbly delivered even though unrelated to my work.

Attendance was similar to 2004, so although I would always like to have a packed room, the attendance itself was not problematic for the conferences finances (we only try to break even, we are not a commercial conference company). Being a niche conference for a niche field will never get the attendance figures the IEEE EMC Symposium or EMV Zurich can command, but it is because these events are so generic and have so little directly related to Automotive EMC that the conference was first conceived. If figures did fall off from this level the basic economics would dictate that the continued survival of the event would be jeopardised, but as long as the attendance remains at this level then we can continue with an annual event alternating between the UK and Germany.

The content of the conference is difficult to predict since we are reliant on submitted synopses. As a designer I too always like to see component/PCB papers in the mix of the event, even so the mix was still quite balanced and as stated above at least 3 of the papers I found of direct relevance. I would hope that we may get more design oriented papers next year, but that depends on the answers we get to the call for papers that should be going out in the autumn. I would also like to see more papers from Tier 1 suppliers and even automotive OEM’s, but suspect that many of these treat their EMC work as commercially sensitive so are less likely to present it, which is a great shame as I know that some of the work that goes on it these companies would make excellent papers.

Would you be interested in attending Automotive EMC 2006 in the UK [ YES=11 / NO=5 ]

Would you be interested in attending Automotive EMC 2007 in Germany [ YES=9 / NO=4 ]

Only about 60% of returned questionnaires completed this last section and fewer still made any remark on 2007. The results suggest almost 70% of those that responded are interested in returning to another Automotive EMC Conference, which is a very encouraging response. I just hope these book earlier than many did this year and 2004, as most booking came only in the 2 weeks before the conference which made the catering difficult to plan and might also explain why we had some of the problems mentioned above in the VENUE section.