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First TV OBs
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10-03-2016, 08:23 AM
Nice article but the average reader may well get a bit mixed up as to what was done with TV as against radio.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-35752560 Was the BBC TV OB truck really stripped and used for other purposes during WW2?
www.borinsky.co.uk Jeffrey Borinsky www.becg.tv
During the installation of the TV studios at AP, cable ducts were laid under the road in the front of the building to enable the cameras to cover the gardens especially set up for Middleton's Gardening Club program. The first OB vehicle and its attendant links vehicle were bought in the spring of 1937, primarily for the coronation of KG IV and Queen Elizabeth. This famous transmission was followed by Wimbledon, the Lord Mayor's Show, the Armistice ceremony at the Cenotaph and several more OBs. The Post Office laid a cable was around London, linking the programs back to AP and the Radio Link vehicle was used when a cable inject point was not available.
This info comes from the 1938 BBC Handbook and several pictures in the news item were taken from the 1937 BBC Annual. I can find no mention of the vehicles being stripped for the duration!
Cheers
Brian My wide-band IF problems are no more - now I've got others!
13-03-2016, 09:43 PM
The round London cable, later a co-axial cable called "the Loco" was in use well into the late 1980s. It had many joints where it surfaced at venues and if the joints were not all properly tightened could be a bit iffy.
I have heard about the prewar OB vans being redeployed but it may just be a story?. If I find a real reference I will report back. Until recently I had thought that the Super Emitron was a totally virtuous development of the Emitron but.. "Whilst the Super Emitron gave advantages in terms of tilt and bend and a significant improvement in sensitivity, in a paper presented to the IEE in late 1938 McGee and Lubszynski described how this type of camera was chiefly used for outdoor transmissions because a distortion of the image tended to be more obvious in studio scenes where straight lines and rectangular objects were more prevalent. The Super Emitron was first used by the BBC in November 1937 for televising the armistice ceremony at the Cenotaph. The distortion is far from obvious in the screen image." Peter
13-03-2016, 10:50 PM
Nothing to do withthis thread but more a reminder to self. Met Peter Smith today, he with special expertise in mechanical TV. He has a HMV901 which I don't think is on either Peter Scott's nor Steve McAvoy's registers.
www.borinsky.co.uk Jeffrey Borinsky www.becg.tv
14-03-2016, 08:45 AM
(This post was last modified: 14-03-2016, 08:47 AM by peter scott.)
'Would certainly like to add Peter's details thanks Jeffrey.
Peter Code: TRF | T/B|Owner |Model|Data Plate|CRT Metalwork |V8 socket |Other Info.(13-03-2016, 09:43 PM)beamcurrent Wrote: I have heard about the prewar OB vans being redeployed but it may just be a story?. If I find a real reference I will report back.The OB vehicles were used bafter the war. I don't have details of the events covered but EMI were tasked with the refurbishment of the vehicles directly after the war. I have several pictures of one of the vehicles during the work. One of the engineers involved was Phil Parker who became Chief Engineer of Yorkshire Television (after setting up RTE Television in Eire). Unfortunately, I didn't talk to him about the OB vehicles when I had several chances! Here is one of the pictures - is that bomb damage in the foreground?: Edit: I've done a quick bit of further research and have found pictures of one of the units at the Lord Mayor's Show and cameras at the Cenotaph, both in 1936. see below. They come from the 1947 BBC Yearbook.
Cheers
Brian My wide-band IF problems are no more - now I've got others! |
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