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TV Breakdown Appreciation Thread

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CO
commseng
Chanctonbury Hill was the worst - a 15 minute drive in a Land Rover over farm tracks that were not forgiving.
At 04:30 on a damp foggy October morning getting up there to switch on for the party conferences, was quite a thing - especially after a night in the pub.
MA
Markymark
Chanctonbury Hill was the worst - a 15 minute drive in a Land Rover over farm tracks that were not forgiving.
At 04:30 on a damp foggy October morning getting up there to switch on for the party conferences, was quite a thing - especially after a night in the pub.


Wasn't Bournemouth a route via Nine Barrow Down (above Swanage) and into Bristol via Mendip used, because the intuitive obvious route of 15 miles into Rowridge was plagued by tidal fading ?
CO
commseng
There was tidal fading, but we did do Bournemouth to Rowridge to Chanctonbury Ring to Crystal Palace a fair bit, as it didn't tie up the only Bristol to London contribution circuit.
The bigger issue was actually the fading due to temperature inversions, which was at a peak in October.
Using different frequencies over long paths helped - as 7GHz faded, hopefully either 12GHz or 5GHz would be OK, and vice versa.
Half asleep and hungry and playing the ProBel matrix like a piano throughout Breakfast Time was such a great way to start the day.

We did once hire a new BT fibre circuit from Bournemouth to London which we only paid for if we used.
When there was some severe fading and we used it in anger - it faded too.
Turns out it was just fibre from the BICC itself, and then followed a very similar path on SHF to our links.......
MA
Markymark
There was tidal fading, but we did do Bournemouth to Rowridge to Chanctonbury Ring to Crystal Palace a fair bit, as it didn't tie up the only Bristol to London contribution circuit.
The bigger issue was actually the fading due to temperature inversions, which was at a peak in October.
Using different frequencies over long paths helped - as 7GHz faded, hopefully either 12GHz or 5GHz would be OK, and vice versa.
Half asleep and hungry and playing the ProBel matrix like a piano throughout Breakfast Time was such a great way to start the day.

We did once hire a new BT fibre circuit from Bournemouth to London which we only paid for if we used.
When there was some severe fading and we used it in anger - it faded too.
Turns out it was just fibre from the BICC itself, and then followed a very similar path on SHF to our links.......


Interesting.

Any idea how your friends from TVS/ITN got their pictures back to So'ton/London ?
CO
commseng
I always ended up on the midpoints for the party conferences - so I didn't see them on site with us.
I did share Bardon Hill on a few occasions with Central's links department.
They had a microwave oven in their truck which we weren't allowed. I was quite jealous.
UKnews and Inspector Sands gave kudos
MA
Markymark
I always ended up on the midpoints for the party conferences - so I didn't see them on site with us.
I did share Bardon Hill on a few occasions with Central's links department.
They had a microwave oven in their truck which we weren't allowed. I was quite jealous.


You all had microwaves Cool Laughing
UKnews and JamesWorldNews gave kudos
CO
commseng
You all had microwaves Cool Laughing

That was the problem!
One of our allocations at 2GHz (channel 1) was on 2460MHz, and was very prone to microwave ovens interfering.
The bosses therefore decided that we were not to have them in our trucks, as warming a curry during transmission would take a link down!
UKnews, deejay and Markymark gave kudos
MA
Markymark
You all had microwaves Cool Laughing

That was the problem!
One of our allocations at 2GHz (channel 1) was on 2460MHz, and was very prone to microwave ovens interfering.
The bosses therefore decided that we were not to have them in our trucks, as warming a curry during transmission would take a link down!


Identified as a problem 50 years ago

https://www.nature.com/articles/282594a0
BE
Bennyboy1984


Anyone got any idea what would cause this?
IS
Inspector Sands
I can't remember the exact details, but it was an issue with the automation system that controls the various systems in the studio.

I know a couple of people who were involved that night, one of whom I think you can see running around in the background. They had all hands on deck running everything - graphics, camera remotes etc manually, with packages played from edit suites
OV
Orry Verducci
I can't remember the exact details, but it was an issue with the automation system that controls the various systems in the studio.

My memory may be failing me here, but I believe it was down to a certain combination of events in the show running order on OpenMedia (the newsroom system). These events triggered a software bug in the BBC's automation system, which prompted all the wrong events to fire at the wrong time. There is a backup system, but as it was a bug both systems simultaneously failed in the same way.


BBC One quickly cut away to the technical fault slide. This recording is from News Channel, which being controlled by the same automation system got stuck on the gallery output until they were able to get it up and running again.
GE
thegeek Founding member
You all had microwaves Cool Laughing

That was the problem!
One of our allocations at 2GHz (channel 1) was on 2460MHz, and was very prone to microwave ovens interfering.
The bosses therefore decided that we were not to have them in our trucks, as warming a curry during transmission would take a link down!

I know of a certain broadcast facility where an engineer warming up some falafel in the microwave set off the fire alarm and forced a high-profile primetime show off air...

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