London DSO

I know we have a combined thread running about Meridian/London DSO but this is specifically about London's DSO which is fast approaching.

Just wondering, does anyone here know of any broadcaster's plans to mark London DSO significantly, or will that honour go to the Tyne Tees region with it being the last to switch off in England in September?

Looking at the advanced schedules on Digiguide (which don't go up to 18th April yet), it looks like BBC2 could either disappear just before "How God Made The English" at 00:20 or they may wait until it joins BBC News at 01:20.

Do they actually wait for a junction? I assumed it would just be a case of switching BBC Two off whenever they were ready.

Previous DSOs would seem to suggest they do wait for a junction with the signal usually disappearing during the promos or around the ident into the next programme.

There's usually a glitch around 15-20 seconds before the signal finally dies... I understand this is the backup battery power draining.

They do wait, when Winter Hill switched off in 2009 they did it at 12.21am, just seconds after BBC News Channel began on BBC Two, as said the picture quality goes fuzzy and then the signal goes off. From what I remembered they just pulled the plug between 12.00 and 12.30am for the other four channels, I think Channel 5 was the last one to go from Winter Hill.

I wouldn't have thought there'd be a great deal of point in mentioning DSO nationally in that way until the last transmitter goes off -- which is in NI I believe isn't it?

Apparently Channel 5 will be the last off air in London, it's going off the next morning rather than overnight, presumably because it's not from Crystal Palace

They're missing a great opportunity for a charity competition or auction to be the 'last person on analogue TV'

For most of the country though analogue TV ended a long while ago - think it's around 3 years here.

Analog transmissions from Winter Hill finally ceased in December 2009 IIRC ... a little over 2 years ago.

Here's Digital UK's Aerial Installer Newsletter for London. Lots of useful information about exactly what will be happening

It's more to do with the fact C5's UHF allocation not being used post DSO, the four main analogues also have back up facilites at Croydon, so they could stay on longer, while the replumbing is carried out at CP. Most confusing will be ITV taking BBC2's place between DSO1 & 2

I don't know where you heard that from! The glitch you see is the parallel power drive being swiched off first. If you have a weak signal you see a step down in picture quality, the power drop is only 3dB of course so it's only going to be noticable in poor reception conditions, apart from that glitch. I can assure you there are no UPS style batteries used for transmitters, other than for generator starting should the public lekky supply fail