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Old 14th Oct 2017, 3:01 pm   #521
paulsherwin
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Default Re: 405-Line VHF Aerials 2013 to the present day.

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By the way did you mean Hannington for VHF? - I thought VHF ITA coverage was 'improved' in Oxford by the opening of the Membury transmitter on Channel B12, Horiz.
Yes, you're right. I had confused Hannington and Membury for a second. Hannington was never a 405 transmitter. I edited my post to correct this, but you'd posted by then.
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Old 14th Oct 2017, 8:35 pm   #522
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Default Re: 405-Line VHF Aerials 2013 to the present day.

These were spotted in Ledbury a few weeks ago.

NB: pic (4) is a different view of the antenna in pic (1).

Guy
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Last edited by Nymrod121; 14th Oct 2017 at 8:37 pm. Reason: reference to two pics of same antenna
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Old 15th Oct 2017, 8:49 am   #523
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Default Re: 405-Line VHF Aerials 2013 to the present day.

Great pictures Guy. It still amazes me how these aerials have stood up to wind, rain, snow, ice and gales for the best part of 6 decades! John.
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Old 15th Oct 2017, 8:12 pm   #524
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Default Re: 405-Line VHF Aerials 2013 to the present day.

I think a lot of these venerable installations may be tested quite severely over the next day or so:

'Ophelia! - you're breaking my heart;
- shaking my an-tennas badly..."

(with apologies to Simon & Garfunkel)
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Old 15th Oct 2017, 10:49 pm   #525
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Default Re: 405-Line VHF Aerials 2013 to the present day.

Damp squib.
It has been all over the front of that daily paper that always gets it wrong.

It could be worse though.
I looked at satellite pictures over a couple of days and the eye was blinking
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Old 27th Oct 2017, 9:43 pm   #526
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Default Re: 405-Line VHF Aerials 2013 to the present day.

Still some old aerials in Taunton, Somerset. These two examples are in the town centre.
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Old 27th Oct 2017, 11:22 pm   #527
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Default Re: 405-Line VHF Aerials 2013 to the present day.

The X elements look small, was it for Chanel 4 or 5?
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Old 28th Oct 2017, 7:03 am   #528
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Default Re: 405-Line VHF Aerials 2013 to the present day.

Probably Wenvoe, ch 5 I would think. Gives 'crossed dipoles' a whole new meaning.

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Old 30th Oct 2017, 10:07 am   #529
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Default Re: 405-Line VHF Aerials 2013 to the present day.

Taunton and much of the surrounding Somerset countryside lies in a major overlap area which on 405 would have been North Hessary Tor on ch2 and Stockland Hill on ch9 or Wenvoe on ch5 and St Hilary on ch10.
It looks like these are Wenvoe/St Hilary aerials.
I think to this day Taunton and large parts of Somerset are covered by local TV news for the southwest and west regions.
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Old 30th Oct 2017, 10:17 am   #530
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Default Re: 405-Line VHF Aerials 2013 to the present day.

Hi Simon and Peter. Thanks for the information, I only every worked in a strong channel 2 Band 1 area so never saw the smaller higher channel aerials or even horizontal band 1 aerials. In fact we stopped supplying band1/3 aerials apart from replacements approx 1970 and those were few in number.

When my job changed and I traveled around the country UHF. Was well established
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Old 31st Oct 2017, 9:55 pm   #531
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Default Re: 405-Line VHF Aerials 2013 to the present day.

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Taunton and much of the surrounding Somerset countryside lies in a major overlap area which on 405 would have been North Hessary Tor on ch2 and Stockland Hill on ch9 or Wenvoe on ch5 and St Hilary on ch10.
It looks like these are Wenvoe/St Hilary aerials.
I think to this day Taunton and large parts of Somerset are covered by local TV news for the southwest and west regions.
Yes that's right Taunton is covered by two regions. Stockland Hill and Mendip transmitters are received with similar signal strength. Before digital many people had two aerials so you could watch either region's news.
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Old 25th Nov 2017, 4:35 pm   #532
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Default Re: 405-Line VHF Aerials 2013 to the present day.

Captured this one in Cranleigh Surrey a few days ago.

It is situated on one of the roofs of a terrace of gas workers cottages that were built for the employees. The gas works closed in the 1960's.

Guildford relay, Midhurst and Crystal Palace UHF aerials. Ch1 & 9 405 John.
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Old 27th Dec 2017, 6:35 pm   #533
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Default Re: 405-Line VHF Aerials 2013 to the present day.

Spotted some classic 405-line antennas in Newbury this afternoon: all are within a few hundred yards of the Robin Hood roundabout, behind the fire station.

First, on top of what look likes a cluster of old-people's bungalows we have a BI/III setup which is encroached-upon by a few UHF antennas.

The BI is a dipole-and-reflector pointed due East, clearly for the London BBC1 transmitter.

The rather-sad-and-losing-its-elements BIII array again aims due=East straight down the Thames Valley for ITV1.

What intrigues me about this one is the feedpoint [shown in high resolution] - it seems that the BIII coax and the downlead run into a sort-of horizontal thing attached to the end of the boom right where the BI dipole is, and there are little straps connecting the inner ends of the BI dipole elements to whatever lives inside the horizontal thing.

I've never seen this before - is the horizontal-thing with the feeders coming out its 'nose' some sort of balun?? Whatever it is it looks to have been designed to take two feeders, rather than being an example of the alas-too-common "enlarge the hole in the cover and shove two coaxes through' approach which often appeared with UHF antennas when the customer wanted two TV outlets and the rigger didn't want to use a splitter.

Also it looks like there's a joint of some kind on the coax from this balun-thing to the BIII folded-dipole. I remember some BIII antennas came with a short coax 'pigtail' fitted as standard, the connection-point to the dipole being a moulded/sealed unit - is this an extension of such an item to reach the BI 'nose' ??
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Old 27th Dec 2017, 6:42 pm   #534
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Default Re: 405-Line VHF Aerials 2013 to the present day.

Here's the next one: a traditional BI dipole with a 'parasitic' BIII aray attached, pointing again down the Thames Valley to London.

I wonder just how effective the 'parasitic' approach to coupling the BIII signal into the third-harmonic resonance of the BI dipole really was?
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Old 27th Dec 2017, 6:47 pm   #535
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Default Re: 405-Line VHF Aerials 2013 to the present day.

Last: a classic Dipole-and-reflector [missing one leg of the dipole] points East down the Thames Valley while the horizontally-polarised BIII antenna is slightly 'skewed' because it is aimed at Membury.

[I doubt the Magpie was a part of the original BIII antenna's design equations.]
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Old 27th Dec 2017, 10:31 pm   #536
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Default Re: 405-Line VHF Aerials 2013 to the present day.

How about the aerial rigger being on steroids?
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Old 28th Dec 2017, 4:38 pm   #537
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Default Re: 405-Line VHF Aerials 2013 to the present day.

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How about the aerial rigger being on steroids?
Either that or the owners of the house are boasting about how many TVs they've got...
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Old 28th Dec 2017, 7:52 pm   #538
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Default Re: 405-Line VHF Aerials 2013 to the present day.

I think it was a block of flats. I didn't have my camera so I went back with street view for the photo.
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Old 28th Dec 2017, 8:29 pm   #539
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Default Re: 405-Line VHF Aerials 2013 to the present day.

I think that what happens is that tenant A pays to have an aerial put up then when tenant B's fitter sees there's already a mast up simply and lazily just bolts the next twig onto tenant A's mast and so it goes on with tenant C, D ad infinitum.

Had it happen to me in a block of flats once. I just got my fitter to chuck the lot off and when the other tenants moaned about it told them to go back and demand their fitter did the job properly and fit the masts they had no doubt paid for.
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Old 29th Dec 2017, 3:45 am   #540
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Default Re: 405-Line VHF Aerials 2013 to the present day.

The lazy fitters for tenants B on-wards just treat the mast as part of the block of flats and not property of tenant A.
I am amazed that the wind did not blow it over with that many aerials on it.
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