Sutton Coldfield transmitter - when it was new

[Skywave]

An article dating from early 1950, detailing the technicalities of the Sutton Coldfield TV transmitter and the microwave link to & from London, Broadcasting House.

I found this article quite fascinating: pure vintage; enjoy!

Al. / June 16, 2013.

[Joe]

This may be a bit easier:-
  Sutton Coldfield.pdf (Size: 405.89 KB / Downloads: 116)

I'd be very interested in how the television service (both BBC and ITA) spread from London.

- Joe

[pwdrive]

Thanks Al and Joe.

Girt valves in there then.

Lawrence.

[Tedzed1]

[Skywave]

The Sutton Coldfield transmitter, 1950: the article states 35 kW peak vision and 12 kW sound. Assuming a mean vision power of 20 kW, that's a total power of 32 kW: call that 30 kW, as a convenient figure.
Just for fun, I did a quick calculation: that is enough power to boil one litre of water (from 20 °C) in just under 10 seconds.
O.K. you might not put all of one litre of water in your kettle when you want to make a cup of tea, but even half of one litre takes a lot longer than that. The calculation just gave me a 'real world' idea of what 30 kW would 'feel like' - and that 30 kW is R.F. watts. too!

Al.

[Tedzed1]

The final report from the BBC research dept, about the Sutton Coldfield mast dated Febuary 1950.

[Tedzed1]

Also a report on the service area from June 1950.

[Yorkie]

Very interesting, and not just from a technical angle - well not to my mind, at any rate.

I find these old newsreels a fascinating prism through which to view society as it was when I was a child, as compared to how it is today. Back then, you could judge someone’s background and education the instant they opened their mouths, but that isn’t the same today expect at both extremes of the spectrum. From the footage of the opening ceremony, it was immediately evident by the excruciating strangled vowels of ‘received pronunciation’ as spoken by the TV announcer and the lady Mayor, and by how they were ‘dressed to the nine’s' – the mayor in her fur stole, that they were out to make an impression.

‘Hendreds of thise-ands of vee-oohers’. (Hundreds of thousands of viewers).

‘E-Alex-e-arndra Pee-alass’ (Alexandra Palace) and so on.

That’s how it was back then, and it all seemed quite normal. Today, anyone who spoke like that would be laughed off the face of the planet - even the Queen doesn’t do it.

In contrast, it was evident that though he had risen to high office, the Postmaster General was cut from very diferent cloth – ‘tek paart in’, ‘omes of the peepul’ etc, so out of curiosity I googled him. Quite a guy! Wilfred Paling (7 April 1883 - 17 April 1971) was born near Ripley, Derbyshire, one of eight children of a coalminer. He left Ripley Elementary School at the age of 13 started work at a colliery and attended night classes organised by the Workers Educational Association in politics, economics and trade union history. He won a scholarship to study mining at University College Nottingham. Returning to the Nottinghamshire Coalfield, he became an official in the local miners' federation and a member of the Independent Labour Party.

In 1912 he left Nottinghamshire as his union and political activities meant that he could not find employment in the area. He moved to the West Riding of Yorkshire to work at Bullcroft Colliery near Doncaster. He entered local politics in 1919 when he was elected to the West Riding County. He was a Junior Lord of the Treasury 1929-1931. He was defeated at the 1931 general election, when the Labour Party lost many seats to candidates of the National Government.

In 1933 he returned to the Commons and was re-elected at the general elections of 1935 and 1945. He had the largest majority of any MP of any party in the 1945 general election: 35,410. He joined the wartime coalition government as a Lord Commissioner of the Treasury in 1940 and was Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions from 1941–1945. He was appointed a Privy Counsellor in 1944. In the labour Government formed after the war he was Minister of Pensions, from 1945 – 1947; and Postmaster-General from 1947 – 1950. He retired from parliament at the 1959 general election. Paling married and had two children. He died at his home near Doncaster in April 1971, aged 88.

The office of PMG was abolished in 1969 by the Post Office Act 1969. A new public authority governed by a chairman was established under the name of the "Post Office” and the position of "Postmaster General" was replaced with "Minister of Posts and Telecommunications". The last PMG was the infamous John Thomson Stonehouse (28 July 1925 – 14 April 1988) a Labour Party politician and junior minister under Harold Wilson. Stonehouse is best remembered for his unsuccessful attempt at faking his own death in 1974. He was arrested in Australia by police who suspected that he was Lord Lucan because he was reading a British newspaper! More than twenty years after his death it was publicly revealed that he had been a spy for the communist Czechoslovak Socialist Republic military intelligence. In December 2010 it was revealed that then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had agreed in 1980 to cover up revelations that Stonehouse had been a Czech spy since the 1960s as there was insufficient evidence to bring him to trial.

TV, social mobility, the internet, extensive travel, the decline of the ‘RP’ accent and the softening of regional accents have created a situation over time whereby it’s often hard to judge a person’s background and education from the way that they speak, and where regional accents are apparent, that’s no drawback to success. Consider Stephanie McGovern, BBC News main business presenter, with her Geordie accent. At the age of 19 she was awarded 'Young Engineer for Britain', after saving Black & Decker over £1m on a design she did for their Leaf Hog product. She studied science at University College London, and was a champion Irish dancer. But back in 1950, it’s inconceivable that someone with her 'Geordie lass' accent – regardless of her abilities – would - of all things - have been put in front of a BBC TV camera!

Change for the better in my opinion.

Rambled and dribbled Yorkie, about as far off topic as can be.

[Tedzed1]

Apparently the delay at the start of the transmission was caused by a switching error, it was designed so as transmissions could be sent from Alexander Palace to Birmingham, or vice versa from Birmingham to Alley Pally, but at opening they only had one feed available, which was configured in the wrong direction, which probably caused a bit of panic and a quick switch over.

I also found this bit of information about the link:

The London Birmingham Radio Relay System (IJS)
The Sutton Coldfield station was opened in 1949 and was connected to London via an experimental 900MHz Radio Relay system supplied to the Post Office Radio Branch by the General Electric Co.Ltd. Originally, to meet BBC requirements, the specification called for simultaneous transmission in both directions between London and Birmingham. However it was not possible to provide the full two way installation in time for the opening of Sutton Coldfield and it was agreed that the BBC would, in the beginning, accept one channel provided that the direction of transmission should be 'capable of being reversed at will in less than ten seconds'. The BBC carried out acceptance tests from the old TV Switching Centre in BH Room G28. All went well until, at the end of the London to Birmingham tests we asked for the direction of transmission to be reversed (according to the specification, in under 10 seconds) .This proved to be a great mistake as the system collapsed and it was well over three hours before it was back in service! The 90OMHz links could not meet the BBC performance requirements and late in 1950 they were replaced with a 0.975in. coaxial cable system which provided more reliable simultaneous two-way transmission between Alexandra Palace, Broadcasting House London, Birmingham and Sutton Coldfield.