how hard would it have been to get LDN or Manchester to do the morning update on BBC1.... seems that they could have done this, and it would have saved embarassment, and we would have all got excited.....
Hang on, isn't Birmingham second base??
( Manchester trying to take the secoind city crown from Bham again)
"I am told the cause of the problem was an electrical fault - a 'buzz bar' on the Universal Power Supply (UPS) blew, which took out all technical power and also prevented the diesel back-up generators from working."
...er, translation anyone? What's a "buzz bar" when it's at home? Sounds like a place for bees to get legless...
I think it's a big thick metal bar used instead of wires for high voltages in substations etc. Usually go wrong when people drop metal tools across them!
For those of us outside of the UK and not able to view, what is happening now at Noon. IS 24 still in Westminster? and is there a Noon update on BBC1???
A "buzzbar" is what you find in telephone exchanges and other places that are powered by DC (direct current).
Because they supply such a huge load, they use exposed thick metal bars to carry the current, rather than wires. They are usually mounted over 2m overhead for safty.
They have to be treated with care, because a serious short will blow the whole system, not just a fuse.
Its amazing how badly they "seem" to be coping, with what seems to be one mainly small fire resulting in power problems the entire BBC News output goes to pot. Also not so long ago when the power took everything BBC off air again. If there were a major terroist attack blowing up half of TVC how on earth would they cope?
After what sounds like a minor fault seems to have resulted in chaos, threating normal output such as the One o'clock, are there no major backup plans, can they not use a normal generator to power the lights/cameras etc...
Let me just point out again, that the managment consultants that the BBC had in the 1990s did a "risk assessment" and decided that it's better to have these problems once in a while, rather than pay for backup systems that may never get used.
It's the same logic that allows our railways to have hundreds of deaths a decade, whereas others (say Japan) have none.
Just to make it clear to newer members. Breakfast shares the same studio space with Working Lunch, Newsround, Newsnight, and Breakfast with Frost.
They normally remove one set and bring in another everyday, but with the extended breakfast, they obviously did not have time to complete the removal and reconstruction of the WL set, and so a compromise was met...
Manchester trying to take the secoind city crown from Bham again)
