By Helen Casey.
Helen Casey, the widow of BECG friend Terry Casey, originally wrote this article for the National Transport Trust magazine Transport Digest.
Continue reading “A Rural Surprise”By Helen Casey.
Helen Casey, the widow of BECG friend Terry Casey, originally wrote this article for the National Transport Trust magazine Transport Digest.
Continue reading “A Rural Surprise”Richard writes: “I was searching for a picture and I came across these photos of Southern, in TVS livery. I took the pictures, they are at Battle of Britain Air Show, Boscombe Down 9th June 1990. They were taken with a proper camera, with real film.“
Continue reading “Southern at the Battle of Britain Air Show, Boscombe Down 1990”Carry on Trucking – Jeffrey Borinsky
While many enthusiasts collect radios and televisions, broadcasting equipment is a more neglected area. The Broadcast Engineering Conservation Group (BECG) is a group of people who rescue, restore and conserve historic UK television equipment, focusing on the engineering aspects. We aim to use this to present television history to the public. Continue reading “Carry on Trucking”
ITV Central News have posted another video to YouTube, this one is a follow-up item about the event at BCU.
It includes interviews with Chris Perry of Kaleidoscope, Michael Steele and Dr Paul Marshall of BECG.
The Central News item has now been posted on YouTube.
PS: The sound problem at the start was not ours, it was fine leaving us (as the saying goes!).
An event that celebrates ’50 years of Colour TV’ on the main terrestrial channels (BBC1 and ITV).
The event will be a mix of showing rare early archive colour footage from the BBC and ITV alongside honoured guests who will be interviewed live on stage in front of the gathered audience, concerning their recollections and any amusing anecdotes of working in TV during the transition period from black and white to colour TV during the late 60’s / early 70’s.
BECG will be supporting the event by showing one of the early OB units built for colour TV outside broadcast namely ‘Southern‘ (Southern TV’s OB Unit 1) along with a chance to view examples of Marconi MK VII’s and EMI 2001 early colour TV cameras!
Click on the following link for more information and to book your free tickets –
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/colour-tv-comes-to-town-tickets-75577425113
Join us on Saturday 16th November 2019 at Birmingham City University for an event that celebrates ’50 years of Colour TV’ on the main terrestrial channels (BBC1 and ITV).
The event will be a mix of showing rare early archive colour footage from the BBC and ITV alongside honoured guests who will be interviewed live on stage in front of the gathered audience, concerning their recollections and any amusing anecdotes of working in TV during the transition period from black and white to colour TV during the late 60’s / early 70’s.
BECG will be supporting the event by showing one of the early OB units built for colour TV outside broadcast namely ‘Southern‘ (Southern TV’s OB Unit 1) along with a chance to view examples of Marconi MK VII’s and EMI 2001 early colour TV cameras!
Click on the following link for more information and to book your free tickets – https://becg.org.uk/event/colour-tv-comes-to-town/
One of the problems that we have always noted with Southern is the lack of space for distribution amplifiers, for both video (VDAs) and pulses (PDAs). Rack space is in very short supply after accommodating four Marconi MkVII camera control units with power supplies, aperture correctors and coders, plus the space required for monitors and the mixer electronics, so we had only fitted one set of distribution amplifiers.
We will be exhibiting Southern TV OOW999G at the “Boating Festival” at Burton Waters, Lincoln on Saturday 15th June.
This is your chance to see a restored Outside Broadcast vehicle with working period equipment dating from 1968.
Did you know that Southern Television also had an “Outside Broadcast boat”? It was a converted WWII motor-torpedo boat with a full TV studio on board!
For more details on the boat, see our Southerner article.
We’ve been involved with “Big Bertha” since “she” was rescued from Meridian TV’s car park in 1995. At that time the truck was just a shell with a few original fitments (power and interior fittings) and was painted in TVS silver.
After a five year program of repairing and refitting, culminating in a re-spray in the original Southern TV colour scheme complete with logos (thanks to Nic Ayling), OOW made her debut at the Newark Vehicle show in 2000 and was featured in “Bus and Coach” magazine.
OOW 999G was bought by Southern TV in 1968 as a “bare chassis” Bedford VAL 70. The coachwork was a custom build by Dell of Southampton incorporating a standard “Plaxtons” front-end (driver’s area and front door) however the vehicle outer is all fibreglass – this was a requirement as a lot of work would be done next to the sea.
After the coachwork was done, the electronics fit was done “in house” by Southern TV engineers with help from the Marconi Company (Broadcast Devision) – this gives the unit a uniquely “home-made” feel in comparison to others in the fleet.
Originally fitted out with monochrome cameras, OOW was quickly converted to colour operation using four Marconi MkVII cameras and was used at the Investiture of Prince Charles at Caernarfon Castle (as was every other colour OB truck at the time!).
The truck was also used for Opera at Glyndebourne and also football matches – some of these jobs still exist in the form of stickers hidden in odd places!
When Southern TV lost their franchise in the 1982 ITV re-organisation, the truck passed to TVS who continued to use it throughout their “reign”, refitting it several times (and re-painting it cream and brown, then silver!).
When, in turn, TVS lost the franchise to Meridian, the new company decided that they didn’t need such a large vehicle and so it was left in their car park at Northam Studios where it came to our attention! A “kick of the tyres”, some new diesel, lubricants and coolant and it was driven away to start its new life in preservation.
Since her first appearance at Newark, we have tried to do at least one event per year – as well as helping us keep up with the maintenance (both vehicular and electronic) it means that she is seen “on the circuit”.
We have attended:
In 2008 we drove “Big Bertha” all the way back to Southampton and parked her outside the Rose Bowl for the celebration of 50 years of ITV in the south. The presenter was Fred Dinenage (who else!).
We arrived the evening before the event so we were set up and ready when they arrived to find their old OB truck parked outside with working MkVII cameras.
The Royal Television Society made a programme about the event which can be found on YouTube:
We have tried to restore her to the original colour fit-out using equipment of the original type (or period where necessary). We have kept the original fitments (power, some woodwork, air conditioning, racks, audio patching etc).
The current complement is: