60 Years Of BBC Television from Sutton Coldfield.

[SWB 18]

Hello,

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the opening of the BBC Television Station at Sutton Coldfield.

On this anniversary, I thought that the following attachments may be of interest to other forum members.

The first two photos are of an invitation to the Opening Ceremony. The third is a few items of SC related literature, the small, scruffy item on the extreme right is a Christmas card that was produced in the early days of the station.

Phil.

[Sammyboy]

I can see that mast from my house, also for miles around! If ever I go on a long journey I know when I see that mast that I'm nearly home!

[MultiDERrentals]

Thank for sharing those!

I've just remembered that Midlands Today were going to do a feature on this topic tonight, but I've gone and missed it DOH!! I'll have to see if its on BBC iPlayer.

Chris.

[Heatercathodeshort]

The Sutton Coldfield transmitter was a miracle of its day. I think I read somewhere that the entire structure is supported on a 2" steel ball. It was the most powerful television transmitter in the world at that time.

This interesting scan from 'Television and Short Wave Review' from December 1936 states that the Birmingham cable link had been completed only a month after the television service opened. I wonder if it worked O.K. and if it did, why was it not put into service together with the Midlands transmitter before 1939? These old books are fascinating. It's all been done before!
Regards, John.

[mickjjo]

In case anyone has not seen them yet, the recollections of Sutton Coldfield by Forum member Ray Cooper:-

http://tx.mb21.co.uk/features/coldfield/index.shtml

A great read.

Regards, Mick.

[SWB 18]

Hello John,

Quite right about the 2" ball, as you will see from the attached photo.
Apparently there were at least two, and from time to time the mast would be jacked up and the 'other' one fitted.
In later years, a used one had a wooden display base made and was on display with other memorabilia at SC. If you looked closely at the ball, you could see several sets of witness marks on it from where it had been in use in different orientations over the years.

The other attachment from the mast designers & manufacturers, British Insulated Callender's Construction Company Limited, makes interesting reading, too.

Phil.

[OldBoffin]

Hi Phil,
Yes I remember the opening of SC very well - Belling Lee had had a mobile caravan transmitter touring the area for a year or so befor the site of SC was established and test signals were radiated from various sites to establish possible coverage .
I had built my own TV from ex WD 1335IF strip, type26 rfunit, a VCR97 green CRT in a type92 GEE RX and a whole varitety of home made PSUs, in about 1946/7
I managed to pick up Belling Lees transmissions from an attic of our house on Tettenhall Road Wolverhampton and was so ready for the offical start.
I seem to remember the opera barber of Seville being used - maybe as the test transmission from SC before the official start.
Those were happy days when £1 bought a lot of ex WD gear!
Kind regards,
OldBoffin.

[Dr-Watts]

Mark (ILikeValvesMe) and I went and had a look at the site earlier this year before I left Nissan Technical Centre.
There were 2 masts up because the original one was having some work done on it.
It was quite a thrill stood right there admiring it. Unfortunately my camera batteries were dudd and I didn't get any pics.
Amazing how built up the area in on one side of the mast, and in the other 3 planes it's still wide open countryside.
Thanks Phil, nice thread.
Dr. Dave

[Ray Cooper]

Originally Posted by OldBoffin

... Belling Lee had had a mobile caravan transmitter touring the area for a year or so befor the site of SC was established and test signals were radiated from various sites to establish possible coverage ...

The Belling Lee caravan was provided purely as a courtesy gesture towards the television trade, and played no part in choosing the site. Excerpt from the IEE paper on Sutton, published 1950:-

"A site a little to the north of Birmingham was chosen because it provided the correct 'centre of gravity' for the Midlands population density and was likely to provide a first-class service in the surrounding towns of Coventry, Leicester, Derby, Stafford, Wolverhampton and Worcester. Normally, the exact location would be selected after a comparison of field-strength measurements made from a test transmitter at each of the several sites in the appropriate area. In the case of the Midland area, consideration was given to several possible sites, and calculations of service area were made. Of the sites showing a good predicted service area, that at Hill Village, near Sutton Coldfield, was the only one where authority could readily be obtained to build a station, and it was thus a work of supererogation* to conduct comparison tests...."

(* Yes, I had to look it up myself... basically, 'doing more than one's duty requires'. English is a wonderfully rich language, and regrettably many fine forms of bafflegab such as this are becoming redundant. A pity, I feel.)

[Heatercathodeshort]

Originally Posted by OldBoffin

I had built my own TV from ex WD 1335IF strip, type26 rfunit, a VCR97 green CRT in a type92 GEE RX and a whole variety of home made PSUs, in about 1946/7.

That set up had incredible gain! I'm surprised you bothered with Sutton Coldfield. You could probably have picked the signal up from A.P. Direct!
I wonder how many receivers were constructed from ex WW2 equipment by keen amateurs. I have no doubt they helped launch the post war television service. The parents of my brother in law bought an HMV 1807 style set for the switch on in 1949. They lived on the outskirts of Birmingham town centre. They told me the set never worked correctly and with a room full of neighbours the wretched thing broke down completely half way through the Coronation. Happy days. Cheers, John.

[Ray Cooper]

Originally Posted by Heatercathodeshort

...This interesting scan ... states that the Birmingham cable link had been completed only a month after the television service opened. I wonder if it worked O.K. and if it did, why was it not put into service ....

Again, one keeps hearing reference to this pre-war achievement, which later slid into complete obscurity. I've never found any hard-and-fast evidence as to what happened to this tube: but there's a Post Office paper on the later (1949) cable which makes an oblique reference to 'earlier co-axial cables'...

In that paper, it said that this earlier cable consisted of an inner conductor, with spacing discs to keep it central within the outer conductor, and avoid the high losses that would be attendant on using a solid dielectric throughout. More importantly, it said that the outer conductor, which seemed to be constructed of wound copper foil, maintained its diameter/circularity using these spacers: but unfortunately this didn't work too well and there were variations in outer diameter along the cable as the outer foil sagged. These diameter variations meant that the characteristic impedance of the cable varied along its length, which would have made it a nightmare to equalise properly for vision signal usage. These variations probably didn't affect its primary purpose too much, which was for carrier telephony.

So my guess (and it is only a guess) is that after the cable was installed, its performance was simply found not to be up to vision circuit requirements. Else, they wouldn't have had to provide the later (1949) cable, which used different arrangements to ensure outer conductor circularity, and in the event worked very well.

[Heatercathodeshort]

Thanks for that Ray. I have often wondered what happened to it. It must have been a VERY expensive cable! Regards, John.

[beamcurrent]

Hi all,

I have a very small section of what is purported to be the 1936 London to Birmingham cable in my Museum.

It has 4 lead sheafed co-axial "tubes" insulated with paper and a spiral cotton string. 4 heavy copper pairs and 4 lighter copper quads. The whole cable has an overall lead sheaf.

I also have a section of the later 1949 cable.

I have not written this up for the museum web site yet. It is about number 467,800,999 on the "to-do" list!

Brian Summers

www.tvcameramuseum.org

[SWB 18]

I thought that the attached photo of a section of the 1949 cable might help the discussion.

Phil.

[beamcurrent]

Here are two pictures of my section of 1936 cable. I need to take some better ones but I am not going to "tidy up" the cable section, best left as it is.

Brian S

[brianc]

These pictures remind me of the early camera cables for cameras of the Marconi MkIII and later, the EMI 2001. In my BBC days, one job I had was to measure the lengths of and order the camera wall cables for Pebble Mill studios and these included runs from an apparatus room to the reception area (for Pebble Mill at One). It was always a worry that this sort of measurement was accurate enough - too short and it doesn't stretch, too long and it's very difficult to lose the excess. The cables were terminated by the supplier, in this case Boston Insulated Wire. The connectors cost £125 per end and the termination charge was about the same, the cable itself being about £1.50 per foot. This was 1969-70 so that was a lot of money. I can imagine that the cost of the 1936 cable must have been astronomic and the terminations very difficult - into a special frame I should imagine - does anyone know? It's great that bits of these cables have survived so that we can appreciate how good our engineering predecessors were.
Cheers
Brian