MCR21 comes back to life

[MB]

A feature on the BBC website




MCR21 comes back to life

https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/research/mcr21

[Bill Wright]

Wonderful.

Bill

[Dave Liquorice]

On Sat, 20 Jul 2019 01:54:49 +0100, Bill Wright wrote:

>> MCR21 comes back to life
>>
>> https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/research/mcr21
>>
> Wonderful.

Did you spot the link to North 3?

https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/research/bbc-tv-colour

and then:

http://www.vintageradio.co.uk/htm/tvprojects2.htm

and then LO23:

http://www.vintageradio.co.uk/htm/tvprojects1a.htm

--
Cheers
Dave.

[tony sayer]

In article <qgtool$1l6c$4...@gioia.aioe.org>, Bill Wright
<wrights...@f2s.com> scribeth thus

Indeed and a very good site that is too! You'd think the BBC would
persevere some of its own equipment wouldn't you?.

I mean will our children’s childrun ever know what a 20 kW Klystron amp
was like on the go;?..

--
Tony Sayer


Man is least himself when he talks in his own person.

Give him a keyboard, and he will reveal himself.

[Brian Gaff]

Very good, but how come its taken all this time? I think we are guilty of
not treating broadcasting history with enough love and care as we do for
older historic devices.
Even the Original Colossus was left to rot or indeed n most cases broken up
by government dictate after the war.
Bletchley Park was within Months of closure when it was rescued.
What about all our old transmitters and aerial sites? I think only one has
been preserved at Daventry if memory serves me. Its not just here either. I
heard a Ham operator in Greenville at the site of the old VOA short wave
site using one of the Rhombic, and wondered quite why he was there, one
assumes the site is now derelict?


And so it goes on.
Brian

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[SimonM]

On 20/07/2019 14:24, tony sayer wrote:
> In article <qgtool$1l6c$4...@gioia.aioe.org>, Bill Wright
> <wrights...@f2s.com> scribeth thus
>> On 19/07/2019 12:29, MB wrote:
>>> A feature on the BBC website
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> MCR21 comes back to life
>>>
>>> https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/research/mcr21
>>>
>> Wonderful.
>>
>> Bill
>
> Indeed and a very good site that is too! You'd think the BBC would
> persevere some of its own equipment wouldn't you?.
>
> I mean will our children’s childrun ever know what a 20 kW Klystron amp
> was like on the go;?..
>

I'd settle for them having kept the tapes of the
coverage of Apollo 11. In the Sky At Night special
last night, James Burke explained the 2" masters
were wiped and reused

[MB]

On 21/07/2019 10:28, SimonM wrote:
>
> I'd settle for them having kept the tapes of the coverage of Apollo 11.
> In the Sky At Night special last night, James Burke explained the 2"
> masters were wiped and reused

But it was expensive and storage itself is expensive. Perhaps they
could have kept a copy of the soundtrack.

How many things have you archived from 50 years ago - we have TV
programmes and "experts" encouraging people to throw everything away or
sell on eBay.

They knew that NASA would have kept copies of everything they had.

Unfortunately you would probably find more people wishing the BBC had
kept copies of all Dr Who programmes than their coverage of the Apollo
missions.

[Dave Liquorice]

On Sun, 21 Jul 2019 10:17:54 +0100, Brian Gaff wrote:

> Very good, but how come its taken all this time? I think we are guilty
> of not treating broadcasting history with enough love and care as we do
> for older historic devices.

Well the BBC is a broadcaster (publishing house nearer the mark these
days with almost everything technical outsourced) not a museum. There
perhaps ought to be more thought put into the disposal of old kit so
things that took a key role in major events are preseved. But there's
quite a bit of just "junk".

Came across a series of YouTube videos yesterday "Apollo AGC Part n:
..." Documenting the restoration of one of the Apollo Guidance
Computers, the one they are doing was part of two tonnes of Apollo
"scrap" that the owner spotted in a warehouse when looking for
something else.

And I tell you one thing it's a bit weird wandering around a museum
with broadcast kit on display and thinking I remember operating
that...

--
Cheers
Dave.

[Mike]

In article <qh1f67$er7$1...@dont-email.me>, MB <M...@nospam.net> wrote:

>They knew that NASA would have kept copies of everything they had.

Agreed, NASA kept copies of all the source material.

What the BBC lost was their own personnel commenting and presenting
*around* that source material, as I'm sure the BBC didn't send copies
of it to NASA and say "add that to your archives for posterity!"
--
--------------------------------------+------------------------------------
Mike Brown: mjb[-at-]signal11.org.uk | http://www.signal11.org.uk

[MB]

On 21/07/2019 13:50, Mike wrote:
> Agreed, NASA kept copies of all the source material.
>
> What the BBC lost was their own personnel commenting and presenting
> *around* that source material, as I'm sure the BBC didn't send copies
> of it to NASA and say "add that to your archives for posterity!"

As I wrote, audio recordings of all the BBC coverage would have been
good to have kept and would not have had the complexities of standards
conversions. Perhaps they should have sent some boxes of the tapes to
NASA and they could have archived.

Video recordings were not kept because of the high cost but also they
did not know how long they would last so that would be one more cost to
add to the cost of the tape, storage and maintenance. They probably
realised that the recording standards would be changing over time.

They could have gone to all that expense then found that they could not
get permission from NASA to use the material!

Presumably everyone appearing on the programmes would have to sign
agreements to allow future use and be paid more. If one refused then
again they might not be able use the recordings

[Ashley Booth]

In the North 3 article there was mention of a master key. Early ITN
links trucks used the same key! I still have mine!

--


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[Graham.]

>Very good, but how come its taken all this time? I think we are guilty of
>not treating broadcasting history with enough love and care as we do for
>older historic devices.
> Even the Original Colossus was left to rot or indeed n most cases broken up
>by government dictate after the war.
>Bletchley Park was within Months of closure when it was rescued.
> What about all our old transmitters and aerial sites? I think only one has
>been preserved at Daventry if memory serves me. Its not just here either. I
>heard a Ham operator in Greenville at the site of the old VOA short wave
>site using one of the Rhombic, and wondered quite why he was there, one
>assumes the site is now derelict?
>
>
>And so it goes on.
> Brian

This is the Voice of America transmitter, Greenville, North Carolina,
signing off. #Yankee Doodle went to town a-riding on his pony# &c

--
Graham.

%Profound_observation%

[MB]

From what I remember Colossus was designed to assist in decoding FISH
or TUNNY (some of the traffic from Lorenz) - it did not actually do the
decoding. The breaking of the Lorenz code was kept secret long after
the work on Enigma was well known which is one reason why Turing gets
all the glory when the real heroes are largely unknown to the public.

[SimonM]

On 22/07/2019 07:15, Ashley Booth wrote:

> In the North 3 article there was mention of a master key. Early ITN
> links trucks used the same key! I still have mine!

I think I have my BBC one somewhere TX[just in
case they still use it!].

Ours did radio vans too.

[charles]

In article <Pu%%E.312211$Qv2....@fx38.am4>,

A friend found it fitted Egyptian OB Vans. (BBC spec unit was ordered)

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

[MB]

You didn't need complexities like that with old Land Rovers. Any key
would open any Land Rover! :-)

[Chris Youlden]

On 30/07/2019 18:53, SimonM wrote:

Ah, I wondered where all our double-enders went....

--

Chris

[Mark Carver]

On 30/07/2019 19:38, charles wrote:
> In article <Pu%%E.312211$Qv2....@fx38.am4>,
> SimonM <some...@large.in.the.world> wrote:
>> On 22/07/2019 07:15, Ashley Booth wrote:
>
>>> In the North 3 article there was mention of a master key. Early ITN
>>> links trucks used the same key! I still have mine!
>
>> I think I have my BBC one somewhere TX[just in
>> case they still use it!].
>
>> Ours did radio vans too.
>
>
> A friend found it fitted Egyptian OB Vans. (BBC spec unit was ordered)

It was the 'default' key used by UK coachbuilders ASGB and Spectra for
many vans, I've got one on my keyring, it still works on older vans to
this day

[MB]

In the latest issue of PROSPERO



MCR21 receives lottery funding
The MCR21 project, to restore the 1960s BBC TV outside broadcast unit,
has received a big boost from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.


http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/mypension/en/prospero_august_2019.pdf

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

That Prospero is a good read! (Even for me, who has never been in
Television Centre, and only once in Broadcasting House [for an interview
around 1980].)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Everything will be all right in the end. And if everything isn't all right,
then it isn't the end. - The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011)

[Paul Ratcliffe]

On Thu, 8 Aug 2019 07:58:35 +0100, Mark Carver <mark....@invalid.invalid>
wrote:

> I've got one on my keyring

Likewise, although I haven't used it for 27 years.
Sometimes I do wonder...

[Mark Carver]

If you ever find yourself in Kazakhstan, you'll be able to get into
their state broadcaster's 2007 built trucks, (there's probably still a
burn mark in the floor of one of them where I discovered a UPS can never
be *completely* switched off)