"To be good at this job you've got to be physically fit and mentally deficient, and we are neither." James Tough Lonie BEM, Chief Mast & Aerial Fitter (Scotland), Independent Broadcasting Authority, quipping about the job of replacing the aerials at Durris.
@antster1983 was that around the time when the Durris mast was badly damaged by a lightning strike ?. I remember reading an article in a BBC handbook about how they used their AM transmitter at Redmoss as a temporary site until Durris was repaired. This surprised me as, in the IBA's handbook, they mentioned that AM radio & UHF TV signals don't work well together at the same site. If anything I thought they would've used the Granite Hill transmitter where Northsound Radio broadcast their FM signal from at the time
I remember around late 83 we got our first teletext set and I used to tap in random page numbers to see what came up. One page of Oracle just showed a small text overlay on the TV picture that said something like "This 405 line service will be closing shortly". The word "THIS" confused the hell out of me and had me thinking that teletext was somehow using the 405 line service and that we wouldn't have teletext much longer. Was it just a typo or was this intended for the transmitter sites to overlay on 405 line broadcasts in the run up to switch-off? We did have a dual standard set in another room but I don't remember seeing any on screen messages on 405 prior to closure.
One thing I always like seeing on your videos is that strange "pattern" that moves down the screen at the start of recordings. My grandparent's old VCR (an early 80s ITT model- a massive thing with all sorts of inputs, outputs, knobs, switches and functions you'd never use) did the same thing- along with putting a farting noise on the soundtrack just afterwards (you can see and hear it on both these clips I uploaded- th-cam.com/video/WfMTy5QMoRI/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/ZHP-QgABbNo/w-d-xo.html). I'm guessing it's something to do with the way some VCRs from that era worked. Long lasting machine too, They were still using it until 1999, then I had it for a year or so till it finally died.
It was a primitive form of "skip" feature that you find on DVDs now. When the machine made a new recording it would recording a voltage pulse in the video and audio signals so that when it was in this "search" function it would fast forward or rewind with the tape around the heads, and it would load into play when it found one of these pulses it had recorded. It was crap not only because of the limitations of VHS, but it would not find recordings that had their start point erased over nor was it compatible even with different models of machine with the same "feature" (as the technology was the same only in theory, in practice variations in the voltage pulse, the length of the pulse etc resulted in incompatibilities when using this feature).
@2001JamesTV I had a Ferguson stereo (pre-hi-fi) VCR which did exactly the same thing. It was an early precursor to the Index Search function that was common on many VHS VCR's during the 90's & 2000's. Thankfully by then, the index signal was neither visible nor audible regardless of whether it were a mono or hi-fi VCR
So this was a "ghost programme" right? Wouldnt it have been beneficial for general consumption in regards to transmitter interruption announcements in particular? How would people have known about outages otherwise before the internet? I mean, about a year ago my local transmitter (Emley moor) went off at exactly midnight for essential works while i was in the middle of watching an episode of american dad. I went online where i couldnt find any information of an outage on google but then checked twitter/x which confirmed it was down until 6am for maintenance. Nothing elsewhere, especially on tv itself. At first i thought my telly was knackered!
Were these actually transmitted over the network, to everybody? Like at 4 in the morning maybe? Or did the IBA send them out on tape to interested parties?
Yes they were. Anyone could watch them, but they were aimed primarily at people working in the radio and television trade, hence when they advertised visits to their HQ near Winchester they restricted it to members of the trade (television/radio dealers, aerial riggers and fitters etc.)
It states at the beginning & end on the captions it would be twice at 9:15am & 12:15pm. Used to be broadcast to all viewers on the transmitters of the IBA to all of the Independent Television but by the time of this clip it was being shown on Channel 4, when ITV started showing daytime TV.
What wonderful presentation on this delightful programme. Great times.
"To be good at this job you've got to be physically fit and mentally deficient, and we are neither."
James Tough Lonie BEM, Chief Mast & Aerial Fitter (Scotland), Independent Broadcasting Authority, quipping about the job of replacing the aerials at Durris.
@antster1983 was that around the time when the Durris mast was badly damaged by a lightning strike ?. I remember reading an article in a BBC handbook about how they used their AM transmitter at Redmoss as a temporary site until Durris was repaired. This surprised me as, in the IBA's handbook, they mentioned that AM radio & UHF TV signals don't work well together at the same site. If anything I thought they would've used the Granite Hill transmitter where Northsound Radio broadcast their FM signal from at the time
I used to watch this at lunchtime on my school dinner break at home!
Oh this is much higher quality!
8:26 Slowest News Day Ever: NORTHAMPTON GETS I.T.A SIGNALS WELL
I remember around late 83 we got our first teletext set and I used to tap in random page numbers to see what came up. One page of Oracle just showed a small text overlay on the TV picture that said something like "This 405 line service will be closing shortly". The word "THIS" confused the hell out of me and had me thinking that teletext was somehow using the 405 line service and that we wouldn't have teletext much longer. Was it just a typo or was this intended for the transmitter sites to overlay on 405 line broadcasts in the run up to switch-off? We did have a dual standard set in another room but I don't remember seeing any on screen messages on 405 prior to closure.
One thing I always like seeing on your videos is that strange "pattern" that moves down the screen at the start of recordings. My grandparent's old VCR (an early 80s ITT model- a massive thing with all sorts of inputs, outputs, knobs, switches and functions you'd never use) did the same thing- along with putting a farting noise on the soundtrack just afterwards (you can see and hear it on both these clips I uploaded- th-cam.com/video/WfMTy5QMoRI/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/ZHP-QgABbNo/w-d-xo.html). I'm guessing it's something to do with the way some VCRs from that era worked. Long lasting machine too, They were still using it until 1999, then I had it for a year or so till it finally died.
It was a primitive form of "skip" feature that you find on DVDs now. When the machine made a new recording it would recording a voltage pulse in the video and audio signals so that when it was in this "search" function it would fast forward or rewind with the tape around the heads, and it would load into play when it found one of these pulses it had recorded.
It was crap not only because of the limitations of VHS, but it would not find recordings that had their start point erased over nor was it compatible even with different models of machine with the same "feature" (as the technology was the same only in theory, in practice variations in the voltage pulse, the length of the pulse etc resulted in incompatibilities when using this feature).
Had my VHS till 2003. A Grundig.
@2001JamesTV I had a Ferguson stereo (pre-hi-fi) VCR which did exactly the same thing. It was an early precursor to the Index Search function that was common on many VHS VCR's during the 90's & 2000's. Thankfully by then, the index signal was neither visible nor audible regardless of whether it were a mono or hi-fi VCR
So this was a "ghost programme" right? Wouldnt it have been beneficial for general consumption in regards to transmitter interruption announcements in particular? How would people have known about outages otherwise before the internet?
I mean, about a year ago my local transmitter (Emley moor) went off at exactly midnight for essential works while i was in the middle of watching an episode of american dad. I went online where i couldnt find any information of an outage on google but then checked twitter/x which confirmed it was down until 6am for maintenance. Nothing elsewhere, especially on tv itself. At first i thought my telly was knackered!
I thought, they never would introduce color to the 405 line standard?
TX 8th January 1985.
Were these actually transmitted over the network, to everybody? Like at 4 in the morning maybe? Or did the IBA send them out on tape to interested parties?
Yes they were. Anyone could watch them, but they were aimed primarily at people working in the radio and television trade, hence when they advertised visits to their HQ near Winchester they restricted it to members of the trade (television/radio dealers, aerial riggers and fitters etc.)
It states at the beginning & end on the captions it would be twice at 9:15am & 12:15pm.
Used to be broadcast to all viewers on the transmitters of the IBA to all of the Independent Television but by the time of this clip it was being shown on Channel 4, when ITV started showing daytime TV.
Wow, they spent a lot of money on an intro that could just have well been some writing on a bit of card!
Believe it or not, that's exactly how it started in 1970.
6:19