SP
Didn't seem to help them to turn the bloody thing off after a travel bulletin though, IIRC 
MA
There was a chap in the 1990s who was more or less, ' BBC Head of RDS'. BBC Eng Info got so fed up with me ringing them with RDS observations and questions, and having to go off and check with him, that in the end they just gave me his direct landline phone number.
He'd always be happy to talk to me, and was glad to learn of any RDS related 'crimes' by the LR stations.
Didn't seem to help them to turn the bloody thing off after a travel bulletin though, IIRC
There was a chap in the 1990s who was more or less, ' BBC Head of RDS'. BBC Eng Info got so fed up with me ringing them with RDS observations and questions, and having to go off and check with him, that in the end they just gave me his direct landline phone number.
He'd always be happy to talk to me, and was glad to learn of any RDS related 'crimes' by the LR stations.
IN
I don’t recall ever seeing one, unless it was on the wall covered by the newer part of the building.
It's there on the west side, but you have to look up!
Streetview:
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5184451,-0.1442467,3a,53y,97.41h,117.01t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sbz5swu4ve9KO9urgdUxTeQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
Probably makes sense as it's on the new part of the building. Was there one in/on the original BH?
I don’t recall ever seeing one, unless it was on the wall covered by the newer part of the building.
It's there on the west side, but you have to look up!
Streetview:
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5184451,-0.1442467,3a,53y,97.41h,117.01t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sbz5swu4ve9KO9urgdUxTeQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
SP
There was a chap in the 1990s who was more or less, ' BBC Head of RDS'. BBC Eng Info got so fed up with me ringing them with RDS observations and questions, and having to go off and check with him, that in the end they just gave me his direct landline phone number.
He'd always be happy to talk to me, and was glad to learn of any RDS related 'crimes' by the LR stations.
When I worked at Radio Leeds in the late 90s, there was one listener who got so fed up with the RDS traffic flag being left on that he complained to the Director General. This resulted in a telling-off for the station from on high, and presenters being instructed on no account to leave the TA flag on. I’m not sure if the customised Canford light was as a result of all this.
Didn't seem to help them to turn the bloody thing off after a travel bulletin though, IIRC
There was a chap in the 1990s who was more or less, ' BBC Head of RDS'. BBC Eng Info got so fed up with me ringing them with RDS observations and questions, and having to go off and check with him, that in the end they just gave me his direct landline phone number.
He'd always be happy to talk to me, and was glad to learn of any RDS related 'crimes' by the LR stations.
When I worked at Radio Leeds in the late 90s, there was one listener who got so fed up with the RDS traffic flag being left on that he complained to the Director General. This resulted in a telling-off for the station from on high, and presenters being instructed on no account to leave the TA flag on. I’m not sure if the customised Canford light was as a result of all this.
Last edited by Spencer on 14 March 2021 5:13pm
SP
I don’t recall ever seeing one, unless it was on the wall covered by the newer part of the building.
It's there on the west side, but you have to look up!
Streetview:
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5184451,-0.1442467,3a,53y,97.41h,117.01t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sbz5swu4ve9KO9urgdUxTeQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
Interesting, although I thought we were talking about Broadcasting House, Leeds.
Probably makes sense as it's on the new part of the building. Was there one in/on the original BH?
I don’t recall ever seeing one, unless it was on the wall covered by the newer part of the building.
It's there on the west side, but you have to look up!
Streetview:
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5184451,-0.1442467,3a,53y,97.41h,117.01t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sbz5swu4ve9KO9urgdUxTeQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
Interesting, although I thought we were talking about Broadcasting House, Leeds.
MA
There was a chap in the 1990s who was more or less, ' BBC Head of RDS'. BBC Eng Info got so fed up with me ringing them with RDS observations and questions, and having to go off and check with him, that in the end they just gave me his direct landline phone number.
He'd always be happy to talk to me, and was glad to learn of any RDS related 'crimes' by the LR stations.
When I worked at Radio Leeds in the late 90s, there was one listener who got so fed up with the RDS traffic flag being left on that he complained to the Director General. This resulted in a telling-off for the station from on high, and presenters being instructed on no account to leave the TA flag on.
Ha. I promise you, it wasn't me!
Didn't seem to help them to turn the bloody thing off after a travel bulletin though, IIRC
There was a chap in the 1990s who was more or less, ' BBC Head of RDS'. BBC Eng Info got so fed up with me ringing them with RDS observations and questions, and having to go off and check with him, that in the end they just gave me his direct landline phone number.
He'd always be happy to talk to me, and was glad to learn of any RDS related 'crimes' by the LR stations.
When I worked at Radio Leeds in the late 90s, there was one listener who got so fed up with the RDS traffic flag being left on that he complained to the Director General. This resulted in a telling-off for the station from on high, and presenters being instructed on no account to leave the TA flag on.
Ha. I promise you, it wasn't me!
IN
Interesting, although I thought we were talking about Broadcasting House, Leeds.
Ah yes, sorry. I jumped into the thread and thought the conversation had switched back to London.
Interesting, although I thought we were talking about Broadcasting House, Leeds.
Ah yes, sorry. I jumped into the thread and thought the conversation had switched back to London.
SP
There was a chap in the 1990s who was more or less, ' BBC Head of RDS'. BBC Eng Info got so fed up with me ringing them with RDS observations and questions, and having to go off and check with him, that in the end they just gave me his direct landline phone number.
He'd always be happy to talk to me, and was glad to learn of any RDS related 'crimes' by the LR stations.
When I worked at Radio Leeds in the late 90s, there was one listener who got so fed up with the RDS traffic flag being left on that he complained to the Director General. This resulted in a telling-off for the station from on high, and presenters being instructed on no account to leave the TA flag on.
Ha. I promise you, it wasn't me!
Steve’s my top suspect now.
There was a chap in the 1990s who was more or less, ' BBC Head of RDS'. BBC Eng Info got so fed up with me ringing them with RDS observations and questions, and having to go off and check with him, that in the end they just gave me his direct landline phone number.
He'd always be happy to talk to me, and was glad to learn of any RDS related 'crimes' by the LR stations.
When I worked at Radio Leeds in the late 90s, there was one listener who got so fed up with the RDS traffic flag being left on that he complained to the Director General. This resulted in a telling-off for the station from on high, and presenters being instructed on no account to leave the TA flag on.
Ha. I promise you, it wasn't me!
Steve’s my top suspect now.
HC
When I worked at Radio Leeds in the late 90s, there was one listener who got so fed up with the RDS traffic flag being left on that he complained to the Director General. This resulted in a telling-off for the station from on high, and presenters being instructed on no account to leave the TA flag on. I’m not sure if the customised Canford light was as a result of all this.
ILR 'generally' did it the correct way with the 'beddle-ipp' tones tagged onto the top and tail of the travel intro/outro and bed. Most stations also had a dry set of the tones to fire off incase the 'RDS On' failed to go to 'RDS off'.
I spent a morning at Radio WM in the early 90's, and they had a RDS TA On 'light' in the studio back then.
RDS TA was fired on and off manually, and it was this, that was used correctly or abused spectacularly over the years.
Yes, in the enviroment of live radio with various distractions, the presenter or t/o could forget to switch them off after the travel, but it is difficult to ignore a glowing light straight in front of you for much longer than needed. In some cases, curiously long and someone only noticed after a long station announcement about what was coming up in the next quarter of an hour.
Couple of weeks later, I mentioned that one to the t/o of the show I was sitting in on (he is still broadcasting today, so won't mention him) and he just giggled, and said "well, the button wasn't working correctly, was it, if anyone complains."
When I worked at Radio Leeds in the late 90s, there was one listener who got so fed up with the RDS traffic flag being left on that he complained to the Director General. This resulted in a telling-off for the station from on high, and presenters being instructed on no account to leave the TA flag on. I’m not sure if the customised Canford light was as a result of all this.
ILR 'generally' did it the correct way with the 'beddle-ipp' tones tagged onto the top and tail of the travel intro/outro and bed. Most stations also had a dry set of the tones to fire off incase the 'RDS On' failed to go to 'RDS off'.
I spent a morning at Radio WM in the early 90's, and they had a RDS TA On 'light' in the studio back then.
RDS TA was fired on and off manually, and it was this, that was used correctly or abused spectacularly over the years.
Yes, in the enviroment of live radio with various distractions, the presenter or t/o could forget to switch them off after the travel, but it is difficult to ignore a glowing light straight in front of you for much longer than needed. In some cases, curiously long and someone only noticed after a long station announcement about what was coming up in the next quarter of an hour.
Couple of weeks later, I mentioned that one to the t/o of the show I was sitting in on (he is still broadcasting today, so won't mention him) and he just giggled, and said "well, the button wasn't working correctly, was it, if anyone complains."
CO
In the control room at BH there was access to the RDS computer, and we could manually reset the TA flag back to off.
Sometimes there were issues with the data path back to the system, although they ought to time out if not switched off (either by cart tones or manually at the local radio station), we would have to force them off.
Sometimes there were issues with the data path back to the system, although they ought to time out if not switched off (either by cart tones or manually at the local radio station), we would have to force them off.
MA
I don't think the BBC ever used the inband DTMF tones ILR used? Many ILR stations used a home brew DTMF system devised I think by Essex Radio's engineering dept?
Their system fired decoders with DTMFs embedded into the traffic jingle at the Tx site, to raise and lower TA directly on the RDS encoder.
The BBC LRs I think used either teritary tones on NAB jingle carts, or just a contract closure button on the desk.
That went down a control line to the RDS server at BH, and the appropriate local tx RDS coders were fired off by being addressed via a data channel within Radio 2's RDS stream
The timeout for some of ILR's coders seemed a lot longer than the Beeb's 3 mins!?
In the control room at BH there was access to the RDS computer, and we could manually reset the TA flag back to off.
Sometimes there were issues with the data path back to the system, although they ought to time out if not switched off (either by cart tones or manually at the local radio station), we would have to force them off.
Sometimes there were issues with the data path back to the system, although they ought to time out if not switched off (either by cart tones or manually at the local radio station), we would have to force them off.
I don't think the BBC ever used the inband DTMF tones ILR used? Many ILR stations used a home brew DTMF system devised I think by Essex Radio's engineering dept?
Their system fired decoders with DTMFs embedded into the traffic jingle at the Tx site, to raise and lower TA directly on the RDS encoder.
The BBC LRs I think used either teritary tones on NAB jingle carts, or just a contract closure button on the desk.
That went down a control line to the RDS server at BH, and the appropriate local tx RDS coders were fired off by being addressed via a data channel within Radio 2's RDS stream
The timeout for some of ILR's coders seemed a lot longer than the Beeb's 3 mins!?