I remember one  Boxing Day whilst I was having my lunch at my Grandmothers house with the family, a knock came at the door it was Syd who wanted some help with 8 or 9 large  faults on the lines and systems. He had been out since 10.00am and cleared 3 or 4 but wanted help, so finishing my lunch, I went with him to pick up another van and equipment. We cleared the faults by 4.00pm. Many of the faults were on the communal systems were sound on vision and noisy signals and some were due to the atmospheric conditions with signal conditions changing.
Around 1966 BBC2 was spoken about; this required a major change the systems, we had to have UHF to VHF converters   type T4C. These were brought in from T I S who were based at Mansfield. People with Dual Standard televisions had an advantage over those with just the 405 standard by having their TV's modified to receive BBC2.   When the switch was turned to 625 lines it put the voltage on the VHF tuner so as to receive the converted signal. Later the 625 UHF Transmitters began to put out the other programmes   ITV and BBC1.
Lakeview on the Kettering Rd  was the second site on a large scale (302 dwellings) to use the U60CW and the U40AW. The rent for this system was 10½ d  per week but this was paid by the council not the individual  as every dwelling had to have the system . A separate audio system was also installed in every dwelling and had a loud speaker giving them  radio 1.2.3 and 4.
The signals that this system had to distribute were:
       625 line       BBC2 ch40      was converted to ch G which was between ch10 and 11 Band  III
       625 line       BBC1 ch31        from Sandy Heath was converted to ch F -1/2 MHz  Band III
       625 line       Anglia ch24      from Sandy Heath was converted to ch A + 1/2 MH      Band I
plus the normal 405  line channels BBC ch3     ANGLIA ch 6 and    Midlands ch 8
With this system in place, subscribers with 625 sets had to use an invertor and these proved difficult to tune as I remember  having to go to one house regularly.

The council would not let anyone put aerials up outside their house, not even one for the system. A temporary one was installed  on the last dwelling near the park whilst the permanent was being installed over in Eastfield estate across from the park .The equipment used was an U60CW, U40AW, 3 TIS, T4C  UHF  converters to Band  I & III.  4 radio receivers & A623 audio amplifiers all in a double kiosk with shutters.On a wet day one could just crawl in and work inside.
Each dwelling had a free loudspeaker from Rediffusion.  With this installation complete the HF system started in service over different parts of the town and included the Central Area where there was 5 vhf systems. When the HF system was installed the change-over began.
On odd occasions with unusual atmospheric conditions, Northampton could receive signals from Russia on band 1  625 lines but with no sound as it was 4.5 MHz away instead of the normal standard in Britain of 5.5MHz. This could be monitered on a Murphy V489 with 2 tuners and a simple 405/625 switch. Sometimes  ch3  was received  from the Isle of Wight, giving co-channel interference. Sometimes causing parallel lines across the screen or even a picture in the background.

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When the workshops and offices were at St Katherines Terrace there was a  telephone direct line to the showroom. Telephone calls had to go via the showroom. All customer calls were taken by the showroom staff and booked on red cards for the network side and black for the TV side. At night the phone was switched through to the control room at St Katherines.
Other systems that were covered bu the branch were
REDITUNE with  types  ' TP1'  TP42' and TP48A.
The TP1 single tape, TP 42  2 track tape that was manually changed and the TP48A, a four track machine that changed the track automatically when it came to the end of the sequence. Some local factories such as The Chicken Farm at Brackley, The Grosvenor Dress Company and Lincoln Models had audio system with a small 50 watt valve amplifier using the KT66 as output valves and  there was also a CTV system at the local Building Society (drive in system) which is now the site of Radio Northampton.

UHF.
These systems started in conjunction with the old 405 system like St David's and Delapre. The systems were with Conway equipment 3 VHF modules  ch 3,  6 &8  and 4 UHF modules ch 24  27 and 31 with the addition of a Midlands module ch 43 or ch60 depending on which part of the town. This system was on a rack with a separate power supply allowing easily access
for modification and could be used either as aerial-site or repeater equipment. This type of system was for sites with more  than 20 -30 dwellings. On those of around 30 or less WISI wideband  amplifiers were used. When these systems arrived  the input signal levels had to be close otherwise cross modulation would occur and with the transmitters from Sandy heath being 22 miles away and Sutton Coldfield being 60 miles away, this was difficult as customers were use to receiving Midlands as well as Anglia. Combining them was not difficult because Sandy Heath was band A and Sutton was band  B . When Oxford  (Midlands) and Waltham (midlands) were needed in parts of the town, the system required different filters for the input. Band  C / D were required  and in some cases a mast head amplifier with more cavity filters.

Remembering Rediffusion Northampton by Tony Popple   Page 2
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