| 2009 | |||||||
| June 24th |
And, although the material has a chequered history, Ikegami > VPR20 > VPR2 > VHS > DVD you can just about see the gorilla in the circled area of the second picture on theright.! |
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| May 16th | Just got in from holiday in Devon and received this handy tip for all you VT gardeners:- Hello all, So, if any of you have other uses for quad tape (apart from recording on!) drop me an email! (Chris B) |
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| May 3rd | VERA lives!! I've just received this from Tony Carter. Hi Chris - you might remember that some months ago I emailed you to tell you that the name of VERA lives on at BBC Westminster. I took a couple of pictures of it last night for you to see and although it's not terribly spectacular, it is at least good to know that it's always referred to as VERA and appears as such on the touchscreen routing panels.Basically, it constantly records a special feed of News 24 (now called News Channel) at Westminster. It's recording the TVC studio output with Astons but minus the embedded onscreen clock, so that if News Channel ever have to do an emergency evacuation, the last hour of the News Channel is available to maintain channel output. There are two recorders, one in Millbank TX and the other in the Millbank Record Bank, hence TX VERA and RB VERA on the router buttons. The machines  themselves are both Packard Bell EHR 2080 Hard Drive recorders, and incredibly, even though they record 24/7 with the hard drive thrashing away constantly, they just seem to keep going!No men in white coats painstakingly adjusting things on VERA 2009 alas, it just sits there unattended year in year out, but on the couple of occasions it has been used in anger, it did keep News24 running until they could recover! |
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| April 24th | I'm currently updating our movies from Windows Media to Flash. They seem (to me) to play better and load quicker as well. An additional bonus is that the aspect ratio seems to be handled better and they are a larger picture. If anyone has any problems/comments, please let me know! | ||||||
| March 21st | While doing a regular check of the Links page recently, I noticed that the Museum of Editing, Jack Calaway's site, had disappeared. This was a fascinating site describing some of the 'devices' that were used in the early days of editing. As well as Datatron, CMX and Convergence (the ECS103 -"beep ... VTRs not in sync" - unforgettable if you experienced it!) there is a fascinating page on the editing of "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-in". Thanks once more to the Internet Wayback Machine I have recovered 99% of it and restored the item on the Links page. Sadly Jack died eighteen months or so ago, and I have been trying to contact names of collaborators mentioned on the site, but to no avail. So, as a tribute to Jack Calaway who many of you may well have met, it is restored to its original state. | ||||||
| January 9th | A belated Happy New Year to everyone! Regular readers will recall the discovery of the majority of the lost Direct TV from Alexandra Palace website in the Internet Archive in September last year (September 9th's entry is the start of the tale). Subsequently I managed to fill in some of the missing pieces (December 14th entry) and thought that was the best I could do. Just before Christmas I received a letter from Arthur and, after contacting him, received a CD-ROM with the last complete vesion of the whole site. This has now been uploaded with its original format and navigation, so go and explore! |
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| 2008 | |||||||
| December 24th |
The picture opposite is from the "Blue Peter Book of Television". It is part of a photograph of the Blue Peter presenters queuing for a cuppa in the Tea Bar outside TC3 (Red?). However, the face in the back of the queue is also very familiar - it's Doug (Parsons). Quite a surprise and rather nice to have a shot of him - even if it is a bit grainy. The only other picture of him is a blurred frame in Alan Edgington's 8mm film of the area. |
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| December 14th | Thanks to Patrick Collins and Nigel Finnis, I think I should be able to fill in the missing bits of Arthur Dungate's AP website that was salvaged in September. Also I hope to add more Lime Grove pictures in the new year. | ||||||
| November 10th | At the recent Oldboys Lunch at Guildford, Dennis Collett gave me a CD-Rom of photographs he took in Munich in 1972 (That's 36 years ago!). Whilst the main section in Trips desccribes the area and machines, these other pictures bring back many memories to those who actually went there. Additionally I have just got to grips with Photoshop's Web Gallery Automation, and so I have added a Munich Gallery and a Brisbane Gallery. I shall be going through the rest of the vast collection of photographs I have received and add more Galleries over the Winter. | ||||||
| October 1st |  The picture on the right was sent to me by Bernie (Newnham) who has it posted on the Tech Ops site (you can find a link in Links).He asked us if we could identify the VT person on the left of the picture. After an exchange of emails, Ron Bowman confesses to being that man! I quote:- |
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| September 18th | Excellent lunch at The Stag today with a very good turnout. I'm afraid pictures will not be available for another week. The date for the next Lunch, at Guildford, will be Thursday, November 6th - details are in Future Events. | ||||||
| September 13th | Direct Television from Alexandra Palace is now as complete as it can be at the moment. Navigation should now work properly and we have managed to recover some more pictures. Do visit the Internet Archive which is a fascinating project and has enabled us to recover these valuable memories. | ||||||
| September 12th | The Direct Television from Alexandra Palace web site that I mentioned below has now been relocated to its own domain. I managed to get www.bbctv-ap.co.uk which mimics fairly well its original home with Freeserve. I have tidied up the formatting and navigation and found a few of the missing pictures from our own archives. I have already received offers of more information and, possibly, some of the pictures that are missing. The link from here is as before in Links, but I have renamed it to Direct Television from Alexandra Palace. There are a lot of familiar names (and experiences) that VT Oldboys will recall. | ||||||
| September 9th | Ed Wooden has just reminded me that, for several of us, today marks the 45th Anniversary of joining the BBC at Wood Norton...... Also, I have just posted a new link in Links - doesn't sound that exciting, but it marks the successful conclusion of a search that has taken Howard and I a couple of years or so! Visitors may remember that we had a link to a fascinating site by Arthur Dungate which chronicled his BBC career at AP and Lime Grove in TK and Film Dubbing. Some time ago I received emails reporting the link to his site as broken and, after emails and much searching, realised it had disappeared and all those memories with it. A week ago John Dickenson passed onto Neil Pittaway the URL of an organisation who have been "archiving the internet". A search there discovered the majority of Arthur's website which I have downloaded and re-assembled as best I can. Visit the link Memories of Alexandra Palace and have a look. Apologies for missing images, broken links and random formatting, but I felt the site was too valuable not to publish as it is. I shall return to tidying it up later on ...... honest, Geoff....:-) |
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| August 29th | Neil & I have spent the last couple of weeks sorting through Don Kershaw's collection of books, manuals, memos, brochures and machine records. Don was always planning to write the definitive history of the department, but, sadly, never managed it. Mark you, seeing the vast amount of raw material he kept, it would have been a herculean task! Brochures marks the start of publishing this material and, today, while going through another box, we found this at the head of a list of machine acquisitions.
An innocuous document which recalls the fact that BBC week numbers did not match normal week numbers!!! |
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| August 4th | Obituaries section added to The Credits. As well as the Bryan Cowgill obituaries below, I have placed Neil's appreciation of Don Kershaw and two old obituaries of Ian Macnaughton and Dennis Main Wilson. | ||||||
| July 23rd | Neil Pittaway has found two more Bryan Cowgill obituaries at the Times online and the Independent. I have also (hopefully) grabbed the pages for posterity as Bryan's BBC career was so closely intertwined with VT. | ||||||
| July 22nd | Ian Williams has just pointed out to me this page in the online Guardian recording the passing of Bryan Cowgill. | ||||||
| July 14th | I have finally added the real TA19 photograph to ETD, thanks to Dave Baldwin who sent me a copy which had the original typed list of names on it. So, perhaps, our old TA19 really was C52 Part 1? | ||||||
| June 1st | Dave Rixon has found the missing page of his cartoon "Computer Catastrophes". Afficianodos of Dave's work can now see JV339 (John Vigar) utter the imortal phrase "Christ I'm screwed" (I have that in Russian somewhere!) and visit Chad's Caravan Sales (sorry Chad). For those who haven't looked at the cartoons, do so for they are not only funny but an inspired piece of social history (honest!). | ||||||
| May 30th | A wonderful turnout of Oldboys attended Don's funeral today at Hemel Hempstead. Although the circumstances were very sad it was good to see so many 'old' faces. I have now moved Neil's appreciation of Don to a permanent place in Thoughts attached to his "History of Tel Rec". |
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| May 23rd | A sad day for the VT Oldboys with the death of Don Kershaw who many of us knew and respected all our working lives and into the days of retirement. Neil Pittaway has written an appreciation which you can find from the main menu pages. Rest in peace Don. | ||||||
| May 16th | A major update with the first 50 (or so) of the course photos from the Wood Norton DVD. This has also meant a major rejig of the ETD section with separate sections for TA Course, C Courses etc. I have also removed the jump menus which became totally unmanageable. | ||||||
| May 1st | Finally the DVD from Wood Norton has arrived - thanks to John Paroussi and Royal Mail! Just to give a taster of the course photos, here is C Part 2 Course 125 Group C - no dates, but at least two familiar faces for VT Oldboys..............
Over the next month, or so, the ETD section will therefore be expanding ........... quite a bit!! |
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| April 30th | AP Reunion 2008 If you saw the article in Prospero and then
emailed Norman Taylor, you will have discovered
that the address is printed incorrectly.
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| April 22nd |
Chris Dymond has sent me the picture here - it might well bring a few smiles and remind Shift 1 VT folk of Edgie's "Detweak" tests.....! Click the poster for a bigger picture. I have also added a new page to Programmes, VT on TV, featuring stills and an excerpt (1'53") from a film made by Peter Bruce about Match of the Day. I must apologise about the quality as it come to me via a devious route. If anyone has a good quality version, please let me know. |
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| March 24th | Our document archive is increasing by the day. I've just added Dave Braithwaite's notes on the HS-100 from 1968. Like all paperwork in those days, it was produced in foolscap format, so the 'modern' version doesn't look quite the same, as the original wouldn't fit fully in my scanner! These old instructions and memos do provide a valuable historical record of the developments in the department, but I will not be scanning the Intersync manual by the way. |
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| March 22nd | I mentioned documents of interest a few days ago on this page and, today, I have added what is probably the definitive document on the art of videotape editing. It was written in May 1966 by Alan Watkins and marked the beginning of the departments editing service and the appointment of Engineers (Editing). It's in Downloads and is entitled Principles & Practice of Video Tape Editing. | ||||||
| March 21st | The Martin family(!), who organise the annual Christmas Lunch at Surbiton and other events for Radio, now have a dedicated website at www.40sand50sreunion.co.uk which has contact details and information on forthcoming events. Do pop over and have a look as their contribution to the continuing contact between 'us oldies' (and the newer retirees) is enormous. Do come to an event - you never know who you might meet! | ||||||
| March 18th | We seem to be getting quite a few documents of interest. I have just added a pdf of a handout by Jeremy Brown on the AVR2 Time Base Corrector which is in the Downloads section. Also I have added a link (in Links) to a website that features vintage tape recorders including our much loved TR90. More documentation to follow in the next few days. | ||||||
| March 13th | Excellent A40 Faction lunch at Chorleywood today with a very good turnout. Pictures available soon. | ||||||
| February 12th | Howard Dell has discovered a fascinating website, from the University of Hull, which has very detailed information about the "Play for Today". Many of the (erm) older visitors will find this very interesting indeed. | ||||||
| February 5th | From Cliff White via John Vigar comes this picture of PTA1 - it's their 50th Anniversary this year.
I am attaching a photograph of a group of young men who joined the BBC back in
1958. We were among the first ever school-leavers in this country who did not
have to do National Service. This happened on Monday 13th October 1958, when what became known as “Junior PTA Course Number One” were given a weeks introductory tour of all the engineering departments in London, then dispersed to London and the Regions to become pioneers (and guinea-pigs!) in the task of educating youngsters to the highest levels of BBC Engineering standards. Half a century later, of course, a very special anniversary is looming, and
some of us were wondering if the BBC itself would be interested in helping us
to celebrate this momentous occasion by organising a grand reunion. We would
obviously need a lot of assistance from the BBC and the BBC Pensioners
Association to track down the whereabouts of all the (surviving) members of In the first instance I would be grateful if you could publish this letter and
photo in Ariel, Prospero, and on the Heritage website and then, depending on
the response we get, we will take the project up to the next level. |
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Cliff White cliffwhite27@hotmail.co.uk |
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| And, of course, one name in the middle row is very familiar to VT staff of a certain age!! | |||||||
| January 28th | Tony Vincent (Shift 2 1981 to 1986) would love to hear from anyone who remembers him - email address in Contacts | ||||||
| January 22nd | Ed Wooden is after a Technical Instruction (or circuit) for an MNA/3 or PTM/9 valve driven PPM and test box. Details and a contact are in Wanted. | ||||||
| January 14th | Keith Graham (see entry for December 16th) has sent me a couple of pictures of the Ampex sign from ground level. You can find a link to them from Beginnings, Ampex, and click on AMPEX sign at the bottom of the page, or go direct from here! | ||||||
| January 1st | Happy New Year to All! Remember that 2008 marks the 50th Anniversary of VERA's first transmission in April 1958. | ||||||
| 2007 | |||||||
| December 20th | May I wish all Oldboys and visitors a very "Merry Christmas, VT!", and put on record my thanks to Howard Dell & Geoff Higgs for their stirling work in checking (and finding) errors and typos on the website. Also, a big thanks to all of you, worldwide, who have sent me stories, pictures, clips and reminiscences - without you there would be no oldboys website. | ||||||
| Those of you who are already members of the BBC Pensioners Association may have seen the reference to this website in the latest Newsletter. Nick Whines, who is the Association's Secretary, has asked if I can point out the advantages of being a member, and to this end I have added a link to their website on the Links page. | |||||||
| December 16th | Apologies to any visitor getting strange Search results (see also December 14th). The deletion of the old website files didn't totally solve this problem, but I think/hope that it has now been fixed. The odd results appear to have also been caused by the failure of the search facility to erase old cached data. I've had a serious word with it and things should be improved - but it may take a few days to sort itself out. | ||||||
 In the Guest Book, Keith Graham mentioned the original Ampex factory in Redwood City and the sign. I have asked Keith to get a ground level photo of it in the New Year for the record, but, for the time being, here it is courtesy of Microsoft Virtual Earth. Its actual location is at 1228 Douglas,
Redwood City, California. |
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| December 14th | Today marks the end of the link to the original Oldboys website, and all its files have been removed from the server. This has been causing problems with our search engine and producing rather weird results. The old link button had been renamed Happenings, and I hope to provide a, sort of, diary here recording the odd contacts and information that has no specific place on the website. So do check in regularly! New information will be added at the top so there shouldn't be too much scrolling. Everything will be kept. |
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 Howard (Dell) reports that, on Thursday, he had a very good lunch with, amongst others, Syd Lotterby (right) On the subject of lunches, the next A40 Faction lunch has been set for Thursday, March 13th 2008 at the usual venue, The Stag at Chorleywood. You can find full details in Future Events. |
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| At the recent Christmas Lunch at Surbiton, John Martin asked me to promote the next 40s & 50s (and others!) lunch at Glenmore House on May 22nd 2008. More details when we get them. Nick Martin is hoping to produce some pages for this website detailing future events. | |||||||
I've just added Bob Abraham's Obituary to the website. A sad item to read, as are all obituaries, but it does bring back memories of the Moscow Olympics in 1980. The security was very tight - VT had a mini rebellion over cameras (film) being x-rayed every time we entered or left a building, but Bob spent the entire games with a photograph of a gorilla on his Olympic ID. The VT movie, "Carry of Cosmos" captured the moment when Bob gives the IOC President, Lord Killanin, with a BBC pin (left).
First of all, to all those of you of a 'certain' age...... MERRY CHRISTMAS VT! and, to everyone who doesn't know the phrase, Happy Christmas and the very best for 2009!
Having forgotten to wish VERA a Happy Anniversary on Monday 14th (the 50th Anniversary of the Panorama Transmission), I have since applied myself to catching up with the photos I have been recently sent, and trying to tidy up some of the errors that have come to light on various pages - I must thank Howard once more for his input here. I have added a News section to the 1960s and more course photos to ETD.