FM stereo

[Nuvistor]

That’s quite possible Colin but I don’t remember that.

It’s interesting that those experiments were carried out and listener feedback requested, a section of listeners were keen to know what stereo was like. Some how I don’t see that interaction with technology working today, perhaps it does and I just haven’t seen it.

[Hartley118]

Originally Posted by ukcol

Wasn't there also an experiment where one channel was on VHF radio and the other on Television sound? Last night of the Proms possibly.

Yes - 1957 I think - on a Saturday morning. ISTR the left channel was on BBC TV and the right channel on the BBC Third Programme - both medium wave and VHF.

I recall my parents being tolerant of my rearranging the lounge to the recommended speaker configuration and being mightily impressed by the novel sense of space in the sound. That was despite what must have been horrendous frequency response and phase differences between the two channels.

I clearly remember some excerpts from 'My Fair Lady' which clearly demonstrated the stereo effect - something that I (and I guess most other listeners) had never ever heard before.

Martin

[ukcol]

Goodness, was it as long ago as that? You must have a good memory for detail Martin.

[Ted Kendall]

I have a tape of this transmission (I wasn't around then - it was recorded by Angus McKenzie), and confirm that a clip of "Wouldn't It Be Luverly" was one of many musical items. Sound effects also featured - steam engines, racing cars and, yes, ping-pong!

The programme was transmitted in Gramophone Week in 1958, the year stereo discs were first made available in the UK. The layout was Home Service (VHF and MW) - left channel; Third Programme (VHF and MW) plus Television sound - right channel. The introduction gave instructions for arrangement of receivers and phasing. As phasing was a difficult thing to change on a boxed receiver, the entire programme was given twice, once "in phase" and once "out of phase".

In fact, the phasing was a bit approximate, even at the transmitting end - in some later two-transmitter experiments, the TV sound was routed via Manchester to get the group delays about even. Nevertheless, some decent stereo effect was achieved, even without the corrections modern sound restoration kit allows.

Some Prom material was used on later transmissions, but the experimental stereo budget didn't run to anything more than audience chants and the like. The usual routine was to piggy-back on a mono transmission scheduled for the Satuday morning and simulcast in stereo. Even the Rolling Stones appeared on one show, in 1964, shortly before the two-transmitter programmes ceased on the introduction of the Music Programme, which was the first beneficiary of regular multiplex transmisssions.

The reason for this, incidentally, was that a lot of serious music could be transmitted with relatively simple studio equipment - Mahler's Symphony of a Thousand was quite successfully recorded at a Prom in the early days on one pair of microphones. There was an initial reluctance to use stereo for drama, as the introduction of a "half reality" with the stereo stage was thought to smack of the proscenium arch and thus rob radio drama of its imaginative impact. This objection faded with experience. Light music and pop, even then, was a multi-mic, multi-effect business, and the necessary equipment was slow in arriving. Many early "Friday Night Is Music Night" shows were balanced on a mono desk, using the echo send for the right channel output.

[Hartley118]

Originally Posted by ukcol

Goodness, was it as long ago as that? You must have a good memory for detail Martin.

I've been a geek from an embarrassingly early age.

Martin

[Graham G3ZVT]

Originally Posted by Brigham

That was the 'buzz' word at the time, 'beacon'.
All other indicator lights were just 'lights', but the Stereo indicator was a 'Beacon'.

I think it must have been, there was a subconscious urge to use that particular word.
Can anyone else recall "stereo beacon"?

Google returns lots of hits pertaining to the two NASA STEREO spacecrafts.


Ah look, "Hunts smoothing bomb" used it in 2011. It's not just me then.
https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...ad.php?t=74092

[Ted Kendall]

I think the usage was partly to do with the rarity of stereo transmissions and the long waits many endured before the stereo service reached their area. Peter Turner ("Dropout") related building a Heathkit tuner, installing a better aerial and fuming at the asterisks in the Guardian broadcasting supplement. The excitement when he received a Prom performance of the Bach B minor Mass is evident.

[dave walsh]

Ted you mentioned experimental transmissions from 1962 in post 7* and that very much chimes with my recollection of listening to one channel via TV and the other on the Radio [both being Radio 3 ie the Home Service circa 1963]. It was quite well publicised at the time, if not understood or garnering much interest! Most people couldn't understand what was wrong with mono at that stage!

I gained credibility as a teenager by re-wiring the lounge so the experiment went ahead but 1957/8 would have been a bit too early for me! Did that really happen-it seems to have? Maybe somewhere in the South perhaps? I have mentioned 63 on previous threads so it seems significant that many people working in the Industry at the time either can't recall what happened or, sadly [a proper use of sadly] are no longer with us!

Dave W

[emeritus]

I well remember the experimental stereo broadcasts (FM + TV) being advertised in the Radio Times in the 1950's. We did have a radiogram with FM then, but never bothered listening to the stereo experiments.

[Ted Kendall]

Originally Posted by dave walsh

1957/8 would have been a bit too early for me! Did that really happen-it seems to have? Maybe somewhere in the South perhaps?

The first two-transmitter broadcast was in the BBC's Gramophone Week, 1958. The programme was available over the whole of the country, as the national networks were used. These continued on a pretty regular basis until 1964.

According to David Stripp, who was involved in the development of stereo in the BBC, part of the purpose of these transmissions was to give point to the various experimets which were going on in the Corppration to establish the right way of making stereo programmes. Even though there was no immediate prospect of a regular stereo service at the time, the BBC was mindful of developments in the record industry and wanted to "speak the language" and develop its own philosophy on the subject.

The development of multiplex systems raised the prospect of a practical stereo service, and experiments with the eventually-adopted Zenith-GE system took place from 1962. The beginning of a stereo service had to wait until the EBU had formally agreed to use the system across Europe.

BBC Engineering Information had to cope with more queries about stereo radio than colour television for much of the sixties - there was plenty of interest about.

[dave walsh]

Thanks Ted that clarifies it for me. I suppose I only had the limited domestic
view point to go off at the time.

Dave

[red16v]

Originally Posted by rambo1152

The 4.43MHz burst was turned off during monochrome TV programmes too.

Sometimes. When we were due to tx a monochrome film you went up to the relevant machine's PAL encoder and switched off the colour burst ready for tx - at least 2 other pair of eyes were watching you. This was in case you accidentally switched the burst off on Telecine 1 - which was the machine loaded up with the 35mm commercials and to accidentally transmit those in monochrome would have been a career defining moment. All the telecine machine encoders were in the same bay one above the other hence all the eyeballs.

Channel 4, being a law unto themselves and knowing so much more about telly than the BBC or ITV never removed the colour burst whenever they transmitted mono material. Hope the mods will allow this little swerve OT.

[rontech]

I recall the 1958 test broadcast. Our TV set was an Ekco and was moved from the living room to the "Front Room" to provide one channel and my mono hifi with Pye Mozart FM tuner there was used for the other channel. The more overt stereo effects were very impressive at the time.

[dglcomp]

The process of using the radio for a second channel for the TV was also used on a 90's edition of 'Tomorrows World', to show off Roland's new RSS spatial sound system, which created virtual surround sound with just two audio channels/output transducers.

[Dai Corner]

I may be imagining this, but didn't they try experimental quadrophonic broadcasts using two of the stereo networks some time in the 1970s?

[Ted Kendall]

Indeed so - a scene from Oedipus Rex, among other things - around midni9ght, if I recall.

[MrElectronicman]

Originally Posted by Hartley118

Yes - 1957 I think - on a Saturday morning. ISTR the left channel was on BBC TV and the right channel on the BBC Third Programme - both medium wave and VHF.

I also remember the BBC test on a Saturday morning , we had a Vidor portable on one side and a Bush TV 24C on the other. Was it that long ago?

[Ted Kendall]

Saturday morning transmissions continued until 1964.

[Reelman]

Crikey!
I remember using a transistor portable for one channel and the TV for the other one Saturday morning. Was quite impressed but due to our kit the quality was not wonderful. Still, at least both channels were the same; AM rather than AM and FM.
Could not have been more than 8 years old at the time, I wonder how I got to hear of it? Tomorrow’s World?
Peter

[m0cemdave]

Originally Posted by Ted Kendall

Indeed so - a scene from Oedipus Rex, among other things - around midni9ght, if I recall.

I think that must have been in 1973 or 74. I remember setting up a system to listen to it with some fellow audio enthusiasts at university, and it ran from midnight until around 1 am. It was interesting, but definitely not impressive...