SNG, Mobile Uplinks, Bonded Cellular and Downlinks

Maidenhead (Theresa May) was a BBC pool (CTV were the OB provider) - 4/5 camera job. Sky / ITV / C4 also had single camera positions of their own. Reuters, CNN, AFP and - I think - AP also there. Sky, ITN and BBC were SNG uplinked. Rest were Live U I think- which would have been interesting as mobile signals inside were awful. BBC Radio (local and national) on ISDN, LBC on Viprinet.


There was an issue with the CTV OB getting off air reception of BBC 1 / News Channel. Eventually they provided 4:3 letterboxed BBC World!

If Maidenhead was pool it would make me think that Corbyn was also a pool but can't say for sure. Not sure if that was multi camera though? If it was then the declaration feed was probably pool.

Outside looking in, Corbyn was definitely pool. Looked like they had a steadicam there and multi-cameras.

The following pool feeds were in operation overnight:

May
BBC Pool
Magnet Leisure Centre, Maidenhead

Corbyn
ITN Pool
Sobell Leisure Centre, Holloway (North London)

Farron
Sky Pool
Westmorland Hall, Kendal

Nuttall
BBC Pool
Peter Paine Performance Centre, Boston

Early Declaration
ITN Pool
Northumbria Universiry Campus, Newcastle

Early Declaration
Sky Pool
Silksworth Community Centre, Sunderland

May, Corbyn, Newcastle & Sunderland were definitley multi-camera mixed feeds, not sure about Farron and Nuttall though. And the BBC, ITN and Sky also had their own cameras at each of the leaders' counts (in addition to the pool cameras).

Corbyn's count (and also Emily Thornberry's) was a Timeline truck, OB16, providing a pool feed with a radio steadicam plus 3 fixed cameras.
There were also dedicated feeds for ITV and Channel 4 provided.
The BBC & Sky also had their own facilities on site.

Sensible to use shared facilities on a night when the whole industry is busy.

I'm not sure if this would be the right thread but where are the Freesat channels uplinked? Are they uplinked together in one location or are essentially the broadcasters responsibility.

There appear to be two large uplink dishes in what I think you guys secretly* call W12 for the BBC. And smaller dishes supposedly for News Access.

*Amazing what you can find with a quick google search. They were really going for redundancy with some systems - installing a sewage treatment plant?

The BBC has s few large satellite operations around the UK.
I would assume that their DSat channels are uplinked from one of those sites.
It is possible that they may have contracts to uplink others as well, but more likely that these are done by other commercial operators.

In short, I don't know the current situation, but you'd imagine it will be very diverse.

Google maps have updated the satellite imagery for where I think is the BBCs main uplink site these days?

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/The+Wood+Norton/@52.1229866,-1.9777273,331m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x2630f6f18890665d!8m2!3d52.122122!4d-1.977234

There are two dishes pointing at 28.2e

My understanding is dishes that large there is actually a difference in alignment needed to uplink to the multiple satellites stationed at 28.2e hence why there are multiple dishes

Depends on the broadcaster. Sky uplink their own services, and those of others from at least one location (which they inherited, or the use of, as part of the BSB merger I think - though I may be wrong)

The BBC uplink their own services, mainly, though they may also use third party uplinks for some services.



Not sure what you think is secret about W12. It's the London post code for the Shepherds Bush area? W1/W1A is the post code for the area that Broadcasting House, and surrounding buildings (like Wogan - formerly Western - House and Brock House) are situated in.

The BBC used to uplink services from the TV Centre site in W12 (still amazed that they got an uplink licence within the M25 - they are tricky to get hold of) - but since then I don't think any 'end user' services have been uplinked from the remaining BBC buildings (Broadcast Centre, Energy Centre etc.) in W12, though they may well downlink on-site there given that Ericsson are based there for playout of a number of BBC and non-BBC channels.



Not sure about sewage - but there was a (slightly ill-fated) on-site gas turbine generator system (commissioned when gas was cheap, in-service when it was less so...)

The BBC's main uplink locations are elsewhere... AIUI there is also a major downlink operation there - remotely controlled from W12 and/or W1.

I thought some people on the forum used that post code to signify a "confidential" site that wasn't TV Centre.

The site I was talking about was the small Wood Norton facility. Over the past decade it's been renovated to handle the services after the BBC alert TVC.

Edit : Thinking about it the confidential remarks were likely referring to the CCA locations.

Yes, and Sky's uplink dishes ( I'm sure it will be the same for the Beeb's or anybody elses) constantly move around a few mm as the particular satellite they are looking at, drift about within the 200 mile 'box' at their orbital position

The transmissions for Freesat and Sky are the same, however there is a bit of a fudge in the metadata of each multiplex that has channels on for Freesat so they don't have to broadcast duplicates.

As for the uplinks, Sky and the BBC do their own and companies like Arqiva and Globecast uplink for other broadcasters

Yes, they have to be very accurate and track the satellite in the sky. All satellites move within their box but the older they get the more they drift, until they end up in inclined orbit. Satellite owners will often sell space on satellites in inclined orbit cheaply as adhoc space as it's not that great for direct to home use and of course professional dishes move


Obviously the bigger the dish the more accurately you have to point it, hence you aren't out moving your Sky dish every few hours. This is the case for downlinking as well as up linking there's three main ways of tracking.

Firstly using the satellites beacon transmitter. This transmits a clean carrier at a known frequency. A reciever tunes into this and measures the signal level. If the level drops then the dish moves in a certain direction and then checks if the signal strength has gone up. If it's gone down it will move back and try another direction, until it finds which way the satellite's gone and 'peaks up' the beacon signal.

Secondly it can use the above with a memory. Satellites move in a regular pattern so after a day or two it doesn't need to do the above it will know where to move the dish to. Problem with this is that if you've a dish that hasn't been on a satellite for a while this will be out of date

Thirdly it can download data on the movement of satellites from NORAD and move accordingly