South African TV

[Mike Watterson]

My expert says:

quite simply they wanted to be different* to encourage manufacture in SA. Completely misguided. The 42 to 68MHZ is  or was a military band at the time.

So System I was because of politics.

(* Because if you look at PAL I, EXCLUDING South Africa, hardly anyone used it compared to other PAL versions.)
   

It's not surprising Band I was unavailable for TV broadcasting by 1976 when SABC started TV!

[colly0410]

Seems there was a high power band 1 system I TX in Ireland & it covered a very large area successfully, but was changed over to a band 3 channel for some reason, co-channel interference reason I presume..

[Mike Watterson]

It wasn't co-channel, but to encourage people to fit UHF aerials for TG4 and TV3.

I received that (Maghera in Co.Clare) till 1999 I think when it was changed to Band III only, Analogue Band III closed only in November 2012. There were a few Band I 625 Transmitters, the one closed in 1999 (I think) was 625 from the start of transmission. Only the TX sites near border / east coast used 405, mainly as a political sop to those that had imported UK TVs. (Irish TV started on the evening of 31st December 1961, so the western & South Western 625line might not have been running till later 1962, I don't know. What 405 did exist from the last night of 1961 closed in 1985.

Unfairly people in the West at one stage needed Band I for RTE1, Band III for RTE2 and UHF for the third station, TG4 (TV3 started much later and wasn't carried on most relays as they refused to pay, a violation of their licence that they were never penalised).
TG4 and the later TV3 were UHF Only.
Till the four channel UHF Woodcock Hill (in Co.Clare) was added, Limerick City (the 3rd largest) only had fringe reception from Clare (Maghera) and the Cork / Kerry border (Mullaghanish). Basically in 1960/1961 Radio Eirean picked the highest points that would give maximum coverage with minimum number of transmitters for a single Channel. So reception in the four largest cities (Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway) needed large roof top aerials (Dublin already had large masts for BBC & ITV from Wales or NI depending on location!).
Thus Three Rock (Dublin) and Spur Hill (Cork) were added as relays and became full TX sites.

RTE 1 started about 10pm 31st Dec 1961.
In 1978, the Government of Ireland approved the launch of a second public service channel to be operated by RTÉ, RTE2.
TG4, was third channel, launched on 31 October 1996.
TV3 launched on 20 September 1998 becoming the country's first commercial broadcaster.
Hence transfer of Band I RTE1 services to Band III along side RTE2.

Some areas had all four channels on UHF, but many places still had Band III for RTE1 & RTE2 and UHF for TG4 (Ch68 I think for Maghera!) and TV3 till Analogue closedown (nationwide at same instant!). All DTT is on UHF, though the Saorview approval requires that TVs and setbox and recorders have Band III.
There were some VHF relays.

[colly0410]

Hi Mike. When the 3'rd channel started on UHF in Ireland did people ignore it like BBC2 was ignored when it 1'st started on UHF in UK? It wasn't till 1971 that my parents upgraded to UHF 625 lines, they then said "what a waste of money, there is nothing worth watching on BBC2!" But of course no more co-channel interference on BBC1 ch4 from Sutton Coldfield....

[Mike Watterson]

BBC2 in N.I.
I don't think people ignored BBC2 in Eastern N.I. anyway (Divis and later relays). Not everyone had a dual standard set. Colour a few years later by rental meant nearly everyone had it. We certainly watched BBC2 from when it launched on Divis. Similarly C4 in Nov 1982 (I think).

We moved to MidWest of Ireland from UK in Feb 1983. Going from four mostly decent channels with perfect reception to about "one and a half" channels with fringe reception (RTE1 was not as much hours as BBC1 or ITV and RTE2 only ran from mid or late afternoon to about midnight!) was a shock! Bosco was the only decent Kids TV.

No surprise that EVEN BEFORE BBC ditched Sky "Solas" card on Satellite that Pay TV had reached 82% penetration in Ireland. ITV was 75% in Ireland due to big masts and cable and MMDS before Satellite FTA was available. Channel Five was FTA on Sky Analogue, but initially all the main UK channels except S4C where unavailable in Ireland unless you had a UK (inc N.I.) address for a Solas card.

Third Channel in Ireland:
TV3 is "officially" the third channel, but started two years after TG4 (called TnaG then, Gaelic Television)
TG4 is mostly in Gaelic. It might be better and more distinctive than S4C, though Wales has local councils that use Welsh, no Irish council meets in Gaelic. Non-Irish speakers will watch the sport!
RTE1 & RTE2 are mostly English and became more so after TG4 started.
Unfortunately it was easiest to receive in "Western Britain" (South Dublin) which by then was all cabled and all UHF off air. Ironically Three Rock works with indoor aerials. Though badly on indoor aerials in North Dublin, and north of Blanchardstown (I solved that with a Yagi on the balcony rail). Dublin was the most cabled city in Europe then.

Out in Gaelic speaking areas the RTE1 was Band I or Band III and RTE 2 was Band III. They had to get a UHF roof top aerial, and reception was terrible (as you'd imagine with TX sites chosen for maximum Band I coverage!). Gradually relays were added (with four channels UHF, but TV3 was never on them as they refused to pay!)

So ironically TG4 was most welcome outside of cabled Cities (only free Satellite was Five and the German stations, even with an analogue Sky sub no main UK channels) but where it was most wanted you needed a new roof aerial and even then you might not get it.

There was never UK level of signal quality of reception or coverage in Ireland before Digital (Roll out mostly 2010 to 2012). RTE's claimed coverage assumed a massive yagi (or two or three!) and acceptance of noise.
Here only 13km from the TX I needed a big outdoor aerial for the four analogue channels (100W per channel!). The DTT is some KW per mux and HD works on 4" of wire on aerial socket.
As well as DTT, RTE1, RTE2 and TG4 are on Irish Spots of Ka-Sat (FTA), so people in the 1% to 2% of no terrestrial reception can get TV FTA (TV3 won't pay to be on it, maybe the new owners will).

Still, BBC maybe has more viewers on average than TG4, but some programs are popular.

[Hartley118]

I do recall working with SABC On the audio side of their TV engineering. In general terms, they chose to work with Neve 'because that's the BBC choice'. In some ways, however, their technical specs were more critical than BBC or IBA, owing something to German (IRT) or Dutch standards. As ever, one sought a technical compromise to avoid an unaffordable design problem. Compromise, however was not part of the SABC approach in the mid- 1970s, which was a bit of a struggle.

The paradox was that, whilst their high technical standards were clear in the transmitted programmes, the production standards were way way behind. Every evening's programming was transmitted sequentially in English and Afrikaans, alternating with either English first or Afrikaans first on alternate evenings. Apart from imported recordings, the production would have disgraced the average village amateur dramatic society - there was a problem that SABC had a policy of not employing members of the professional Equity performers' union, with predictably amateurish results!

So disappointing!

Martin

Martin

[Terry]

... Irish TV started on the evening of 31st December 1961 ...

In 1960. I was one of a large Scout Group who camped at Mornington, Co. Meath, on the mouth of the Boyne.
I had cause to use the village Post Office on a number of occasions, run - as the Irish would say - by a 'little old widder woman".

On the last day of our stay I had cause to visit the Post Office and was asked "Could I be after asking you something? How much do you pay for the Television licence in England?"

"Four pounds", I replied.

"Ah!" she replied, "We're only after paying the seventeen shillings and sixpence for the wireless licence and we don't have the television licence!"

As I left it was obvious that she was highly delighted by this ...

The following day we had a break in Dublin on our way to the ferry.

The Dublin evening papers proclaimed in bold headlines: "£4 Television licence from January. Wireless licence up to £1."

I've always wished I could have had a brief glimpse of that woman's expression as she saw the headline 30 miles back up the coast ...

[Mike Watterson]

Politics!

[colly0410]

I wonder if there is any TV system in the world that didn't have politics come into it. I read somewhere that New Zealand almost adopted the British 405 line system. I wonder how that would have evolved if they did?

[Synchrodyne]

Very badly, I’d say.  The colour issue would have reared its ugly head within a decade of the start of the NZ TV service, and would almost certainly have required a change of transmission standards.  Fortunately, sanity prevailed, and 625/50 was chosen.  In the early days, the 1960s, standard-sized TV screens (23 inches) were much preferred in NZ, with small screens (19 inches, etc.) being in the minority.  I can’t imagine that 23-inch screens and 405 lines would have been an inspiring combination.


Cheers,

Steve