It Wall Roll-Up And Queue-Up For The TV Look-In (21 June 1974)
During my first two or three weeks in Bletchley in 1946 I was mildly curious about the di-pole (letter H-type) aerials attached to a number of houses in the town. I had seen many similar aerials before, but they had been on army masts and vehicles, not on civilian buildings.
By some means which I have forgotten it was then borne in upon me that these aerials were for the then comparatively new television broadcasts. The broadcasts had begun a few years before the war, but had been interrupted and had now either started up again, or were about to.
During the war I had become acquainted with radar screens, but television as such was new to me. So far there hadn’t been any in the north, though it had been at Leeds in the 1920’s at a meeting of the British Association that J.M. Baird had given the first-ever television demonstration. Years elapsed before the BBC began telecasting and then I believe it was by a different system.
When it did begin, however, Bletchley radio dealer, the late Mr. Bert Weatherhead, was quick to realise its possibilities.
Although Bletchley was on the outer fringe of the London television area, he demonstrated the new scientific wonder at St. Martin’s Hall at the 1937 exhibition of the Bletchley Chamber of Commerce and repeated it the following year. No doubt some of the local di-poles dated from that time.
In June, 1946, Bert gave a third demonstration. This was held in connection with Bletchley’s victory celebrations and was their most popular feature. Several sets were installed in the assembly room at the Conservative Club, each of which could be watched by about 20 people at a time.
The London victory parade was part of the programme and the queue of would-be viewers was so large that people had to be rationed to 20 minutes’ viewing each.
The demonstration went on for two days and at the end it was estimated that over a thousand had attended. Reception had been “extraordinarily good” apart from interference from the ignition systems of motor vehicles.
I was reminded of this little saga of how the telly came to North Bucks by the Gazette’s recent feature on the cable-vision experiment in Wellingborough and the possibility of a like experiment in Milton Keynes.
The system of “piping” television to housing estates from a central aerial mast is nothing new in Bletchley, of course, though the injection of purely local “hours” would be. Quite a number of years ago Bletchley council became concerned at the forests of individual aerials covering their estates.
The aerials were unsightly. A good deal of damage was also being done to property through aerials being brought down by high winds. To avoid this on the latest of their North-western estates, they adopted the single mast system from the start, with lead-ins being built-in to every house. (A great many, possibly all, new houses had had medium and long-wave radio aerials built into them).
From the start, the “piped” television system was beset by troubles of one kind and another, but apparently they calmed down enough for a similar system to be adopted for the Lakes Estate when building began there.
According to Gazette reports troubles are still being experienced. All this, however, does not get away from the fact that many houses in Bletchley are already wired up for the reception of television by cable on a larger and better scale.
Whether the experiment would be worthwhile is another question. First of all, would not be Wellingborough timing of 5.30 to 6.30 each weekday evening miss out on about half the viewing potential here? And for the other half would it not face unbeatable competition from such programmes as Nationwide on the other channels?
There is also another side to it. Perhaps as a newsman of 50 years standing I have come to have too great a fear of writs for alleged libel or slander. Yet it seems to me that a very hard and independent editorship of content would have to be maintained, both to avoid this and at the same time give programmes impact and ensure they did not lapse into puerility. For that you would need professionals and where would you find for such a limited term? It is the question I would like to have asked Wellingborough.
While on the subject of radio and television, I note with interest and pleasure that a Milton Keynes amateur radio society or club has been formed. I have always had a great admiration for the enthusiasm and dedication of “radio hams,” so-called. Having passed their tests and obtained their licenses they spend hour after hour in solitude.
Yet they are not lonely, for those hours are spent in communication with other “hams” all over the world and in for ever trying to improve their own transmission and reception. I recall direction-finding hunts over the Yorkshire moors well before the war.
And I note that even today it is frequently a radio “ham” who picks up the first – and sometimes the only – signal of distress from sea or air and duly alerts the authorities.
It reminds me of how in June, 1954, four Bletchley men won the Radio Society of Great Britain’s contest for the number of different contacts made and authenticated over a period of 24 hours. They set up their station on Bradwell Common and worked it in shifts. One to four points were awarded according to distance from the contact and they set up a new record of 627 points.
They lived a few doors from each other in the Newton Road area and the contest was a kind of busmen’s holiday for them, since they were all normally employed with the Diplomatic Wireless Service.
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