Recently we had a face-to-face trustees meeting (our first one since before the pandemic). This meant that Richard could deliver the video termination panel for Vivat that he made during the pandemic lockdown.
Continue reading “Vivat video termination panel”RetroTechUK 2021
All being well, BECG will have a stall at RetrotechUK (previously NVCF) on Sunday 26th September 2021.
Continue reading “RetroTechUK 2021”BBC P5 Generator NGF728
We are delighted to announce that we have bought a former BBC mobile generator vehicle at auction. It came up at the CVA Doncaster commercial vehicle and plant online auction on 20 October 2020. The auctioneer contacted us because of Ruth Slavid’s article in Commercial Motor. We are grateful for assistance from Mark Forrester and his company, Euromunicipal, who are regular customers of CVA and bid on our behalf. At very short notice we managed to secure enough funding, but with a struggle and only just.
We’re still here!
With the Covid-19 restrictions curtailing our working weekends severely, it’s not been possible to make as much progress on our projects as we would normally manage.
That doesn’t mean to say that nothing is happening!
Continue reading “We’re still here!”Bryant Unlimited
Bryant Unlimited kindly donated a drum of double-screened video coax and their remaining stock of crimp PL259 connectors for our Vivat project.
The owner of Bryant Unlimited has decided to retire and close the company, however some of the staff have formed new companies to continue to supply parts of the Bryant portfolio, the old Bryant website currently has the details.
We wish them well and thank them for their donation.
New articles
We have added some new articles recently:
- Jeffrey and Paul have followed up their BVWS article Carry On Trucking with a new one looking at Vivat in particular: Long Live Vivat!
- Trevor Brown has kindly sent us some more articles from CQ-DATV:
- The Lightweight Revolution looks at the rise of Electronic News Gathering.
- Five go to Amsterdam recalls an earlier life when we took a RCA TR70-B VTR and a Marconi Mk VII camera to IBC in Amsterdam – we billed it as “the world’s largest camcorder”!
- Dan Cranefield continues his reminiscences with Early Location Drama in Colour, which dovetails with Richard’s Roving Eye article as it also discusses the conversion of Roving Eye 5 into the LMCR.
Roving Eye article updated again
Richard’s Roving Eye article continues to evolve, with more history appearing!
Updates include:
- REII photographs at Fairoaks Airfield, Chobham for a stunt flying programme from Brian Balshaw.
- REII photographs from Pat Jessup.
- NYN 286Y is transferred to Pebble Mill, for Top Gear.
- Some re-arrangement of the sections to improve the time-lines.
- More on the proposed CRE rebuild.
Roving Eye article updated
Richard’s article about The BBC Roving Eye vehicles has been updated again, as more information is being brought to our attention!
The latest update includes some colour pictures of REII at Churchill’s funeral and some new pictures of NYN 286Y.
World Radio History
World Radio History is a brilliant resource for US equipment and all sorts of global magazines, and it has a British section too!
It offers all manner of magazines and data sheets, plus some whole manuals.
Topics include Early Radio, DX Amateur, Business and Technical Periodicals, and lots more.
Marconi Mk III TV camera production line is re-born
Paul Marshall reports on an ambitious project – on a small scale
Since the beginning of lock-down, hardly a day has gone past when some aspect of the old main Marconi Chelmsford works hasn’t been re-invented here at our base near Lincoln.
Continue reading “Marconi Mk III TV camera production line is re-born”