AR-2020-21

33 rd ANNUAL REPORT 2020-21 166 software packages for all participants. Entries from 18 teams consisting of more than 150 participants reporting details of their completed antenna design and assessment of performance characteristics from simulations, have been received by the extended deadline of September 30, 2020. These are now being judged by a jury of leading antenna experts of the country, headed by Raghunath Shevgaonkar (Former Director, IIT, Delhi, and presently Vice-Chancellor, Bennett University), Subramaniam Ananthakrishnan (Former Dean, NCRA-TIFR, Pune, and presently at the Savitribai Phule Pune University), Ajit T. Kalghatgi (Former Director, R&D, BEL), Shiban Koul (Emeritus Professor, Cent re for Appl i ed Research in Electronics, IIT, Delhi), Surendra Pal (Professor Satish Dhawan Professor and Senior Adviser, Satellite Navigation Centre, ISRO), and K. P. Ray (Dean, DIAT). A set of promising designs will be short-listed for proto-type fabrication and tests. The SWANtenna competition was being coordinated by Avinash Deshpande, and other colleagues at TLC. The thirteenth Radio Astronomy Winter School (RAWS – 2020) was organized online jointly by IUCAA and NCRA-TIFR, during December 28, 2020 – January 9, 2021. There were well over 600 applicants, of which 50 were selected to participate via Zoom, and the rest could listen via YouTube. In addition to the presentations and tutorials and discussion sessions on various topics related to radio astronomy, sometimes went on till late in the night, there were also carefully designed experiments, which the participants conducted in their homes. The experiments were done in 10 teams of 5 members each, including a teacher mentor in eachteam from different universities and colleges in the country. These experiments included a few which used mobile phones and laptops as transmitters and receivers of radio waves. The participants examined the variation of the signal with distance andeffects of attenuation along its path. They also explored the effects of using plane and corner reflectors on the received radio signals. They did an interesting experiment on the interference of radio signals received directly and also bouncing off a metal/aluminium reflector. This mimicked the early sea-cliff radio interferometer made during the 1940s in Australia. In addition, there were work sheets on radiometer Radio Astronomy Winter School