London DSO

here's one from a capture card where the camera doesn't shake as the channel cuts to static...

I just re-tuned my grandparent's freeview reciever, they have the original Thomson TUTV reciever and for some reason BBC1,2, ITV, Channel 4 & 5 have been moved to the 800's along with other freeview channel's. Channel's 1-5 aren't even accessible.

Give the box a 'factory reset' and try again. You often have to clear out the old settings from before DSO.

With pedantic anorak's hat on... was Crystal Palace actually the first colour tx or merely one of the first? I thought that BBC2 launched in B/W UHF and the switch to colour occurred at the same time across the country (or as far as the BBC2 distribution had got by 1967?)

There are certainly accounts of Sutton Coldfield transmitting colour from the star

I think you're right, any of the BBC 2 transmitters that had come on line by 1967 should have carried colour. They were linked to London by 5.5 MHz circuits, which should (because that's the whole point of the three composite colour coding systems, PAL, NTSC, and SECAM) have passed the colour encoded signal.

So:-

Crystal Palace,
Sutton Coldfield
Winter Hill
Emley
Rowridge
Black Hill

and possibly Wenvoe ?

The reason is because of those who live in areas which have never had any digital TV - those in fringe areas of the main transmitters or on relays

If it was done in one go then they would have to buy a box which they wouldn't be able to install or test it until analogue has gone, because until then there are no digital services to receive. This of course could leave some viewers with no TV at all on DSO day - either they don't know how to work the box or it's installed wrongly or their aerial isn't up to it.

By doing it in 2 stages there's an overlap for those without a digital receiver to get them up and working for the day when all analogue disappears.

Yes, but the Channel Islands had no DTT service until DSO, yet is the only region to have done the switch in one hit !!

On your theory, if anywhere should have had a two stage process, it would be there !

Yep, according to this they all broadcast colour at the same time when BBC2 tested it in 1967

There were colour test transmissions before that though, first from Alexandra Palace and in 1962 in UHF and NTSC from Crystal Palace: http://www.tvhistory.btinternet.co.uk/html/colour_chronology.html

Yes, but the Channel Islands have always been an oddity. I think the one stage thing there was mainly due to frequency planning issues. Although I think also there was less reliance on terrestrial there due to the lack of DTT.

Having a quick Google, I found this. which seems to confirm it is for both reasons - a warning and an overlap.
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tech/news/a94527/two-stage-digital-switchover-may-be-ditched.html
Interesting that they reduced it from a month and were considering ditching it completely

Fremont Point, was on the original list for OnDigital, as the last transmitter to be switched on, the increasing problems with OnD and it's lack of subscriber growth, put it back in the timetable. Eventually being shelved indefiinately shortly before the ITVD rebrand. With the collapse and subsequent Freeview operation, indefinately became permanent until DSO.

Yes, the 1998 allocated channels for Fremont included Ch 38, the radio astronomy freq, that was never going to get clearance ! When the DTT service did launch, with three PSB muxes in 2010, it used 41, 44, 47, the allocations for three of the four analouges, so no (complex) planning issues.



Yes, I'd forgotten Whitehaven and Selkirk had a 4 week gap !!

The transmitters which broadcast BBC 2 in colour from July '67 onwards were Belmont, Crystal Palace, Emley Moor, Rowridge, Sutton Coldfield and Winter Hill. Wenvoe and Tacolneston were added in earlly autumn but Black Hill and Durris, in Scotland, along with Divis and, I think, Pontop Pike, were black-and-white only until November or December 1967.