BBC at Ally Pally - recent video

[ppppenguin]

Not hugely informative:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/c888m8g9724o

[Doodlebug]

How naked the AP tower always looks without the 405 sound and vision dipoles. :-(

[Panrock]

Thanks Jeffrey.

Why no natural silent spaces in the narration? A small point, but whenever I encounter this, I find it annoying.

It would be interesting to know the periods over which the AP tower was shorn of its outriggers/spikes. I recently noticed they were missing in a piece of newsreel film about 'Dunkirk', presumably made in 1940.

Wouldn't it be nice to have them back! I'm no longer involved with the 405-back-on-the-air project and to be honest I can't see the point of it unless it could serve as a 'bolt on' feature to finish off a working museum of television at AP, with the spikes of course!

I'll dream on.

Steve

[Doodlebug]

I think that the dipole supports were made of wood?

This may not be true as I cannot recall where I read it but......
.......On one stormy night the wind tangled up one dipole section
and the chief engineer Mr Birkinshaw M.A. climbed up the tower to fix them.
Some studio spot lights were brought to bear to illuminate the aerial for him
to see.
Is all this true?

[Mike Watterson]

Maybe a tall tale?
I've no idea if true, but today a Chief Engineer (or any engineer) is unlikely to be allowed to climb a step ladder for work purposes. The people that fit Sky dishes are not engineers, or usually even trained as technicians. They are usually riggers only trained to do that specific job.

[Panrock]

From "Here's Looking At You", page 120.

The top of the mast looked rather like the spokes of an umbrella with two tiers of eight arms hinged and radiating and, between the arms, the wires of the aerials. The whole mast was designed to move in the wind several inches out of the perpendicular and was 'proof against the heaviest gale', except the gale in the winter of 1936-7 when the wind got under the arms of the umbrella and blew them shut. The wires were twisted together in an impossible tangle and transmission, until they were untangled, was impossible. Birkinshaw:

Now, normally, if you want to do something on the aerial, you must select a calm day. You don't do it in the dark in a gale. But the strong principle underlying BBC engineering is that the show must go on. So, I thought, I must go up and make my own impression as to whether it's safe and, if it is, I'll ask the riggers if they're willing to have a shot at repairing it. So that I could see what I was doing, I asked Campbell if he could mount a group of 8-kilowatt spotlights on the roof and illuminate the mast from top to bottom. Which he did. And there it was, standing out like a beacon all over north London. And I began to climb. Two hundred and fifteen feet with the wind clawing at me and the rain dashing against me. It was The most frightening experience I've ever had in my life and we lashed the aerials so that it could never happen again.

[Doodlebug]

Thanks for all that Steve. Maybe some one in the AP area took a night time shot of the
tower all ablaze with light. Or a member of staff?
Where is that 'maybe' photo now?

I also seem to recollect that part (wood?) of the aerial was kept somewhere after
it was dismantled. It would be a nice artifact for BECG.

[peter scott]

Sounds like the aerials were on wooden supports.
http://marconiintelevision.pbworks.com/w...Palace.pdf

Peter

[LENINGRAD T2]

In 1935, the Lorenz AG company from Berlin built a 111 m high radio mast in the south of Poland in Gliwice. Its structure is entirely made of wood - larch without impregnation. The mast has survived to this day and is the largest wooden broadcast tower in the world. The wooden structure allowed the radio antenna to operate without interference.

Adam

   

[Doodlebug]

That's quite amazing and beautiful.
I wonder if it was bolted or screwed together ?
Should be a heritage protected site.

I have a large Larch in my field.
Now I know what to do with it. :-)