Leicester Rediffusion Wired Vision System

The Rediffusion wired vision system in Leicester City, as I remember it, was configured as follows:

Off air television signals were received at what was called the Aerial Site. This was a small building at Western Park around 3 miles to the west of Leicester city with a 60 foot tower carrying the receiving antennas which were beamed to receive the local transmissions from Sutton Colfield near Birmingham.
Housed in the building was all the necessary receiving and conversion equipment which prepared the Audio and Vision to be distributed into the wired vision network.
From this point the Vision ( video as it is now called ) was sent down a VTR ( Vision Trunk Route ) and onward to the individual wired areas of the city. The Sound System was distributed as raw Audio using high powered pentode valves such as KT88’s 807’s etc. Because of cable attenuation, many repeater amplifiers were used to “boost” the sound and vision signals around the city.
The installation of the VTR network took advantage of Leicester’s existing rail network of the early 60’s and this gave convenient access to most residential districts and the VTR cables were trunked alongside the railway tracks. There was a sub-station off Saffron Lane where the Burton rail line met the Midland rail line and also at Leicester Rediffusion HQ. just east of the city centre and also at Forest Road adjacent to the old GNR rail track.
The VTR network was all buried underground and many repeater stations ( kiosks ) were located throughout the network to give the neccessary pre-emphasis “boost” to the vision and audio.

The vision sub carriers used were: BBC 5.9mhz vestigial sideband ( with 6mhz bandwith envelope carrying positive modulation )    ITV 8.3mhz ( with 6mhz bandwith - negative modulation ). When BBC2 was introduced it also used the 5.9mhz carrier. There was no need for a sound sub-carrier as this was diffused as an audio signal.
These sub-carriers were about as low in frequency as you could go to include the 6mhz video bandwith and being of low frequency, were not heavily attenuated when they passed through the wires. The wired system multipair cable used individual balanced twin “twisted” pairs to avoid external EMF interference but as these frequencies were in the Shortwave Radio band, the system was subject to some external RF interference from time to time which resulted to a “crosshatch” or a net-like pattern on the TV picture at times.
This multi-pair cable was basically “strung” from house to house and affixed beneath the eaves or gutterings and weaved itself between blocks of homes and across streets and roads like a giant web.
To connect a subscriber to the system, the engineer would fit a Junction Box ( JB101) to the cable and run the feed down the outside wall and into the home at a convenient position. On the inside wall a multi-way Selector Switch was fitted allowing the customer to select the individual Radio and Television programmes by “rotating” the position on the switch. Three television channels were available ( BBC   BBC2   ITV )   and four radio channels ( BBC Third Programme, BBC Home Service, BBC Light Programme and in 1967 BBC Radio Leicester.) These were to be renamed: Radio2, Radio3 and Radio4 in 1967. Radio1 was also added to the system at that time.
During the 1970's all the new council housing developments in Leicester incorporated the Rediffusion wired vision service. Those not wishing to rent a "wired" TV receiver could opt-out and use their existing "aerial set" connected to the system via an "Inverter" which modified the output to a VHF/UHF signal. On most of these properties erecting a standard television receiving antenna was not allowed by the council.