The journey towards Channels 1, 2 3 etc

Sadly you're incorrect LWT ran from 1900 on Fridays from the 1968 franchise change, as mentioned previously here.

Yes as I understand it a lot did. I do quite like the way they organise their 'sub-channels' with the main channel on 9 and the sub channels on 9.2, 9.3 etc. It would be a nice way to organise our EPGs, though I imagine the decisions about whether to have a channel like More4 or BBC2 is a channel or a sub channel would be quite tricky

So if that happens they're going to be forced to share transmission facilities between stations in a market? A lot more efficient but I imagine not too popular with the engineers working at the stations, I assume there'll be a lot of redundant masts etc too

Can someone confirm a suspicion of mine that the early pre 1965 ish VHF only receivers actually used the channel selector knob back end as part of the RF Intermediate Frequency tuning circuitry? So as you turned it you physically retuned the receiver using the knob, Whereas when the joint VHF UHF receivers used a relay arrangement which was less drastic, but even so caused more often than not visible Vertical and Horizontal hold issues for a second or two, whilst the receiver settled on the new channel.

As I understand it 3 of the 5 main terrestrial television networks in Australia owe their names to the legacy of their original VHF channel numbers. Seven Network, Nine Network and Network Ten alongside ABC and SBS. Perhaps any Australian members could enlighten me as to which LCN these generally took in the analogue days when remote control TVs became the norm? Did people use button 7 for Network 7 etc or just order them on channels 1-5?

Windows Media Center in Windows 7 allows you to manually edit the EPG (or third party apps do - I can't remember now) - and allocate channels to .1, .2 etc. variants.

I did this with the FTA satellite stuff at one point : BBC One HD on 1, BBC One SD London on 1.1 etc. but I didn't really get on with it. You get so used to surfing up and down in a certain order that changing that order gets a bit odd.

Did the London weekday and London weekend stations share the same VHF channel number, or did viewers actually have to change channels at 7pm on a Friday to continue watching ITV?

It was the feed that fed the transmission chain that was swapped. The viewer did nothing.

In Wales they had the complication of many areas being able to receive both the Welsh flavour of HTV and the "General Service" that was a hybrid of Wales and West, in channels 7 and 10 respectively from the same transmitter site at St Hilary.

http://tx.mb21.co.uk/info/405/itv/wales_west.shtml

However note the number of relay stations - identifying as a single channel number on air was likely to cause confusion.

And then from 1970 HTV West, which was UHF only, and initially only from Mendip (until relays followed shortly afterwards).

I suppose you could argue that HTV West, was the UK's second 'UHF Only' service !

They were broadcast on the same frequency from the same transmitter - which was operated by the ITA/IBA. The switch happened between the outputs of the two franchises playout operations.

There was also a daily switch for TVam when that started in every ITV franchise area - though by then it was UHF. (Or did TVam also go out for the last little bit of the ITV 405 VHF simulcasts? I guess it might / must have?)

TVam did, indeed, go out on 405 line VHF. The last 405 line transmitters were switched off in January 1985 so there was an "overlap".

I remember, by the way, visiting someone who stayed near Bonchester Bridge. When the 405 line services from Ashkirk and Selkirk were switched off in January '85, they were unable to receive any TV signals until the Bonchester Bridge UHF relay entered service later that year.

Then someone messed up there. The VHF switch off should have been scheduled for after the UHF service launched. I bet the residents there were furious.