Rediffusion Nottingham...... Ray Harby

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In the early 1950's learning about television was difficult, night school was at Blacks factory and we sat at benches previously occupied by, if I remember correctly, by armature winders.
There was no Patchet, no Spreadbury, no Poulton, we had the Admiralty Hand Book and Sroggie " Foundations Of Wireless" Hooray for Sroggie"and a couple of magazines Cams Comic and an Eletronics magazine.
We did however have some brilliant teachers not only at night school but our own senior service engineers, who fortunately would freely pass on their knowledge, for which I will be forever grateful.
Looking back I wonder where they obtained their knowledge, (television was very new). I probably knew at the time but have since unfortunately forgotten. I joined the Royal Signals in February 1955 [National Service], which helped me to establish a broader understanding of the whole Radio/Television spectrum. but when I returned to civvy street and Rediffusion I realised that I had lost 2years experience of television. Rediffusion had moved rapidly from 9" and 12" TV's to 14" and 17" TV's, new valves and shorter brighter CRT's had appeared, as well as new test equipment. The wired system had improved and expanded to most of the suburbs of Nottingham.
ITV the commercial channel had also appeared and transmission times had increased. I had a lot of catching up to do. The lovely (but heavy) wooden TV cabinets were being replaced by plastic which meant our skilled french polishers were losing their jobs, There was now more staff in all other departments, there was so many changes, but that it seems in hindsight, is the electronics industry.
It was exciting times and there was so many new innovations coming on stream, I am sure everyone was involved whether they knew it or not. Rediffusion was like huge family and the first photograph was part of a bus trip to the Lichfield transmitter in the early 60's. Note the wide variety of jobs, it's not just TV engineers who are seeking knowledge.
BUS PHOTO:
Left hand side Stuart Wright TV engineer, behind him Chick Chiltern ex apprentice, jump a seat and there is Ken Bud -Wired Maintenance, next to him by the window Loll Leach Wired maintenance, then on the back seat a young TV engineer and the man in the corner both names I unfortunately cannot recall. Pete in the centre is a TV, engineer and the smiling face in the aisle is a wireman /installations. The right hand profile was also an ex apprentice.
AERIALS:
The other photograph is showing the reason for our outing, the new 1000ft high powered transmitter replacing the 450ft transmitter. It was a superb day seeing all the latest technology of the day,
The transmission staff allowed us in all parts of the building explaining as they went. We saw the tele-cine equipment preloaded with a film ready to roll if the line was lost between studio and transmitter, we saw the camera aimed at the test card, (I think the test card was burnt on to the camera tube), and of course the water cooled transmission equipment pushing kilowatts into the aerial and having explained to us how the height of the aerial increases the power ERP (Effective Radiated Power).
The one thing I don't think anyone expected was being shown the equipment used to measure the accuracy of other TV transmitters frequency! (using their 1000ft transmitter as a receiver), checking stations from the London transmitters to the Yorkshire transmitters. The result of this increase in the TV signal in Nottingham was that we had much more Aerial TV sets sold and to maintain. TV sets in the 50's and 60's were still unreliable even with the new frame grid valves, Acorn valves and even transistors which were making their appearance, I think there must have been about 200 TV service repair orders per day.
Rediffusion engineers contributed greatly to the education of television engineers in Nottingham, first by teaching evening classes (making an exhausting 13 hour day for them), and many going on to teach full time, for instance Bill French, Ted Sands, Jack Pool, and others.

Ray Harby