Rememberance coverage

I've got one question to ask, then you can use the thread for general Rememberance comment, if you want.

Where do BBC Local Radio get their London 2 minute silence from?

Is it Radio 4?

I believe it's on their GNS circuit from London which earlier in the hour would be sending news and sports reports for use by the local stations.

That's the one - it's called LDS1 (although I have absolutely no idea what it stands for!) - and it's also used for, amongst other things, live updates from big sporting events such as England football and rugby internationals. These are always at pre-arranged times, so stations just opt in.

The GNS audio may still use that circuit - although it now uses quite a fancy system where it gets automatically saved (with the right name) on local stations' audio servers - and bulletin clips are even published to ENPS, so you can drag the audio straight onto your scripts.

As for the 2-minute silence, I suspect many local stations will have done their own thing with their own radiocars, instead of using the London one.

So are you saying that there are dozens of employees across the nation going out recording the sound of silence today?

In a word, yes! Although obviously they'll be doing inserts into the various shows as well, describing the memorial services that are going on - and in some cases they might be going on to report from other events too.

Also - radio stations taking the silence have to remember to inhibit their "silence detectors" - which kick in with an automatic recording normally (as in most cases "silence = loss of incoming feed") - which you don't want kicking in...

It's a bit ridiculous having the silence again before the afternoon football matches IMO, considering the 11am silence is supposed to be a national mark of respect.

Does the BBC still have a permanent open mic fixed to Big Ben? I seem to recall Chris Moyles saying that there is always an audio channel coming from Big Ben?

Yes, I remember Chris Moyles playing with the Big Ben mic too - trying to get people to honk their horns if they were driving past.

Libby Purves also talks about it in her book about working in radio. When she was a studio manager at the World Service, she used to pass the time by opening the big ben fader just before the chimes, and closing it just before they crashed in over the programme.

On the subject of silence detectors during remembrance services, there's normally enough background noise to keep the needles wagging a bit - so it's not too much of a problem.

Actually, a lot of stations don't have any kind of emergency tape hooked up - if the station's silent for too long, the transmitters just shut down and sooner or later you get a call from Crown Castle telling you you're off air!

I believe there are actually two - one goes to Broadcasting House, the other to Bush House (World Service). In the event of one failing, there are lines between BH and Bush so a feed can be obtained at either location from the "other" mic.

A former studio manager for the World Service once told me that if there was a party of visitors in the bell tower at the top of the hour, they had to be particularly careful because you could often hear people shouting "f*ck, that's loud!".

Apparently, it's mic'd up with a hanging ribbon-microphone and is on a permanent circuit to the London Control Room at BH.

Indeed it is - and I've seen it - well, the protective box that it's in.

That was way back in 1977 when it was just pointed out to us by the guide. Since then there have certainly been instances of 'noises off' from people on guided tours (always at mid-day by the way. The private tours start at 11.30 giving the party time to be in the clock room to see 11.45 chime and in the belfry for 12) and I believe the guides do now ask visitors to refrain from expressing themselves vocally. There is no way for anyone in the tower to know whether or not the mic is live - no red-light from either BH or Bush!!

On Remembrance Sunday there is also an army radio link between the clock room and Hyde Park so that the gun salute can be given an accurate count-down to 11 o'clock, otherwise they'd be a second or two late with the single shot which marks the start of the two minute silence.