Breakdown or Low Power?

I run an internet radio station that runs on 24-hour automation, and the silence detection is SO advanced that it can sometimes resolve the fault itself! If running on the same computer that handles the programming, the single piece of software can play back an mp3 that serves the same function as this tape, then send a text or email to the engineer on duty, wait a given amount of time, and if the silence continues, even restart the broadcast computer. Assuming all the necessary software is programmed to launch and engage at boot, the problem can be resolved before the engineer even sees the email - and then the silence detector will send out an “All OK” message when the system starts playing audio again. This is especially helpful if the fault is due to (or coincides with) an issue with the network card, as the engineer won’t be able to remote into the system for repairs, and thus would otherwise be stuffed until physically arriving at the transmission site. For those of us whose stations are almost entirely solo-operations at our homes while we work full-time jobs and have a family life… this can mean the difference between 10 minutes of downtime and several hours or even days!

Late to the party but I very much enjoyed this - as well as featuring Lewis who I have long appreciated it was also a very interesting insight into the history of TV transmission. I do find it comforting to see and learn about physical objects (of any kind) from the past, especially when in the hands of Mat - thank you!

Really enjoy this sort of content and would gladly welcome more. It's resurrecting a part of history that, at the time, probably seemed to most people to be mundane or even irritating (I mean, after all, this means the radio/TV went out!). But there's something about keeping these sorts of memories alive that scratches a great itch for me, and probably others too. Kind of a "mono no aware" sort of thing. Thanks as always Mat!

Had to watch this in 3 parts as been crazy busy, but I surprisingly found this fascinating. I say ‘surprisingly’ because I never thought that subject would be as interesting as it was. A surprise nugget 😁 Hope you and all the Techmoan community are doing well. Lee

I love this stuff! Yes, maybe more questions than answers come about from looking at these, but I find it intriguing how everything seems to be done a certain way for a reason. Not only does listening to the tape echo the sounds of the past, it also gives one a glance into the minds of the people who worked on the technical end. For example, how the material on the tape was organized, etc..

Thank you! these were the 19 best minutes of my day so far! When I was young I remember there were programs telling you "these are special effects, you don't need to touch your TV settings". But learning that stations sent vertical bars just to tell you your set was OK just made my day. Also loved to learn stations needed to add artificial bird songs during funerals in order not to trigger backup systems. Your channel is the best, Matt!

Time Beat adaptation by Ray Cathode , I really like! It is on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/track/7MaEgX6r91pPKbsnm8Pm2Q?si=bCSso-QTR7yclqjjxjs9OQ&context=spotify%3Asearch%3Atime%2Bbeat

My fiancee and me are a bit of data hoarders ourselves and it has passed my mind that all what we collected over the years would just wander into the trash currently when we some day kick the bucket. Maybe we should make sure that archive dot org gets our medias when that happens so that some digital archeologists can comb trough our collection for stuff that should be preserved, much like we still have the physical mail of some people from hundreds of years ago. Maybe you should do that too so that it gets preserved.

Many years ago I knew Andy Finney who was on BBC Radio London at the time. He was a stickler for transmitting records as they were recorded and not messing about with them. On one occasion, he was playing a track with a long, very quiet passage and the phone rang in the studio. It was the transmitter ops at Crystal Palace saying "Mod up a bit would you, it's so quiet it's setting off alarms". No doubt a result of triggering the "silence detector".

Really enjoyed this one. So true about ‘the cloud’ - no more looking back to childhood holiday photos many many years later.

Fascinating!

"Oranges and Lemons" was the melody on an old U.S. Chef Boyardee Spaghetti and Meatballs ad! https://youtu.be/Zf1NMln6Phs

Always love listening to these “lost” recordings and learning about the history behind them.

Later on in broadcasting, there were fault detection systems which could automatically telephone the engineer in charge with a synthesized voice explaining what the problem was. So I've heard stories of engineers being woken up in the middle of the night by a phone call from creepy robotic voice telling them the radio station had gone off the air or was transmitting dead air. Sometimes they'd entertain themselves by programming it to speak a humorous phrase as part of the message.

Another thought for what the cause of low power might be - problems on the grid. Nowadays the grid is extremely reliable and when it goes it goes off completely. Back then another lever pulled was to simply reduce the voltage carried - most notably during the 3 day week when (while power was on) the voltage was reduced, meaning kettles took longer to boil and tube television sets wouldn't fill the whole frame. Nowadays a great deal of stuff just wouldn't work at all I imagine. Whether the same applied to HV industrial connections I'm not sure, but I feel like the 'beyond the control of the BBC' message wouldn't be needed if it was intended only for stratospheric issues.

"If this was any more up my street, we'd be sharing a letterbox", to quote yourself! The other people who may be able to help out are the Transdiffusion chaps... https://transdiffusion.org/ There's also a chap on YouTube called Paul Sawtell, who recreates these announcements, rather convincingly, and adds the appropriate visuals.

Not much different than the majority of those that have come before us, really.

A real uplifter of a post, this one 🤣

The Sutton Coldfield transmitter was (still is) a very important site for the BBC because it was the first transmission station outside of London (the first being Crystal palace) and it's served a huge community outside of London and into the Midlands. It was also one of the highest power transmission sites, so a very important site indeed.

I had never heard the term “interval signal” before (apparently it wasn't a thing in the USA); it might be helpful to define it, for American listeners.

I can see this video generating some excellent discussion and hopefully a few leads as to how this tape was used. To be honest I'm struggling to reconcile the fact that there used to be techs located at TX sites 24/7, but I guess it was a necessity in the days before automation had become a 100% digital process like it is today. These days, all but the very smallest of radio stations has a silence detector. Either as a separate box located in the TX chain from the studio to the TX itself, or built into another component such as an Audio over IP receiver or digital signal processor. The community radio station I do a bit of tech stuff with uses the latter. Ours is calibrated to kick in after 2.5 minutes of silence (to allow for Remembrance Day, and it's not like we're a commercial station so 2.5 mins of silence isn't a big deal for us). It has an SD card with a bunch of bossa nova tracks loaded onto it. Yeah, I know it's a cliche, but we don't have a bossa nova program on our station so we need something that stands out to alert us something is wrong, and an instrumental of "The Girl From Ipanema" stands out. I'm beginning to bore myself now. Sorry about that.

love these sorts of video where there is more questions than answers it was nice of Nick to help yiu out on this hopfully when this goes out to the general public there wil bemore answeres

I think the long announcement on side 2 relates to relays (local transmitters which receive a main transmitter and rebroadcast, filling in reception gaps) not reserve transmitters. What I don't understand is how these 'low power' warnings would be added to the transmission - would they locally replace the audio of the broadcast during the junction between programmes? I'm not even sure relays would have had the ability to locally generate anything; perhaps they did and they didn't become unmanned until later. Perhaps the warnings were added at the main transmitter sites, accepting that a large part of the audience would have heard them who wouldn't have been affected. Worth a look in to the world of start up sequences of the same era - elaborate daily procedures by which the ITA began their service, introduced the local 'programming contractor' and then gradually handed over programming responsibilities to them, first sound, then after a bit of music the contractor would announce who they were and what their relationship was to the ITA. At that point the ITA would switch the picture over and allow the contractor to complete the procedure and begin their schedule. Some wonderful tunes. They became less elaborate as time went on but the boilerplate vocabulary of "This is [franchise name], broadcasting programmes on the [area name] transmitters of the Independent Broadcasting Authority" stuck around as a fixture marking the start of ITV transmissions way up to the mid 80s.

I love this kind of thing. Imagine coming across some long lost recording, very exciting. That voice sends shivers down my spine though! Great to see Ringway Manchester making an appearance, great channel. Thanks for another interesting video.

You underestimate our adrenaline threshold.

I can understand why they would want to broadcast a message saying it’s not possible to transmit any programme at all but why do the same for reduced power? Wouldn’t it be better to have the intended programme? At least some people would receive it, albeit with a poorer signal.

Great video! As always, well researched and carefully put into context. I can't overstate how much I enjoy content like this. Thank you also for bringing Ringway Manchester to my attention - "controversial" or not.

what Lewis get something wrong.... no surely not! Not a fan of his to be honest but great to see this collaboration.

A lot of comments here and I haven't read through all of them, so if someone has already said this, mea culpa. But Lewis (M3HHY) or Ringway Manchester isn't quite right in his description. Silence detection is common in modern radio studios and transmission sites, but it wasn't when this 5" tape was in use. Each main transmission site had multiple transmitters and multiple aerials. The transmitters would often have shopping cart size modules (on wheels) that could be swapped out, so if there was a fault a module could be (relatively speaking) sawpped out quickly for a working module. The transmitters were manned 24/7 by a crew and they normally had a couple of special phone circuits (S lines) that connected back to the control centre (also manned 24/7). Depending on the fault at the site, the operators could change aerial, transmitter or both. But a given transmitter may have reduced power or a given aerial may have reduced coverage. Regardless, 30 mins would be time enough to restore transmission. Operators were held accountable for the number of programming minutes lost. Very serious business. Today, there's N+1 redundancy for transmission and failover is seamless (unless catastrophic failure) and the viewer never realises that anything changed. All of the above I got 1st hand from a friend who worked at a BBC transmission site at the same time this tape would have been in use.

Loved it! I have a bunch of searches for odd tapes like this on eBay, but I never manage to snag one.

I know about silence protection, specifically on BBC Radio, but only because Mark and Lard used to play about not saying anything for a certain amount of time on their afternoon show but never up to 15 secs. I’m sure some DJ did trigger it once unless my memory is playing tricks with me and I can’t find anything after a quick search on Google.

Funny to muse about the fact that a recording made for TV transmitters 5+ decades ago (& probably considered more of an annoyance than anything else) is being heard here all these years later in the 21st century for edutainment purposes.

I'm a sucker for historical radio stories, so I found this really fascinating. Particularly enjoyed the shots of the various towers while he narrated his information about the recordings. A very enjoyable video. And I've already subscribed to his channel as well.

When I worked at a Los Angeles radio station we had a silence sensor at the transmitter site. If the signal from the studio went silent for a determined amount of time, a cassette tape at the transmitter would be put on the air until the signal from the studio returned. As soon as the audio returned from the studio the cassette tape would stop. Fortunately the station was a classic rock radio station and pretty much played the same music all the time. I now work at a much smaller cluster of radio stations but we still have silence sensors. These don't trigger audio, but instead send a text and an email message to a special email account which then alerts me that there's a problem. The silence sensor is usually set to about 15 to 30 seconds. I can log on to any of our computers via the internet and usually correct the problem. In most instances it's just a matter of a computer locking up and a quick reboot will get the station back on the air.

I'd love to be able to listen to the whole tape if a download can be made available.

Just Another Excellent Video, Mat. Being from across the pond, the first thing that struck me was the voice of the announcer - and WHY was that particular voice so familiar? Having grown up in the 70's, for some reason I remember hearing that particular announcer before. The voice, to me, was as fascinating as the content of the messages! Any idea who it was? The music was also very interesting, an aural time capsule from the 60's is pretty cool.

Not seen the video yet but have to say this description text is in the top three of best Techmoan descriptions! Very true what you write, going thru someones stuff when they have moved on can show you new things about them you never knew. Makes me wonder how you react when you find out someones dark war history haha. Anyways those moments will probably be replaced by an AI generated video of all your content as a final goodbye. Btw have that weird spot on your back checked out please! :-)

Always enjoy it when you share random recordings like these from a long lost era. That doom-laden BBC voice is riveting. I'm sure it would amuse the announcer if he were around to read all these comments, but to me, he may as well have been a messenger from ancient Atlantis. Also count me as one of those who will likely leave this mortal coil without any or very little evidence of their existence. Much of the "content" of my life could be saved on a couple of hard drives, and not particularly high capacity ones. I live alone and am more or less estranged from family, and so really haven't acquired a lot of material possessions to pass onto others. I just live and work, and enjoy my time with my technological gadgets until I can't anymore. There's an idea: have a poll to ask how many of your subscribers lead solitary lives. Hopefully, most of us are simply content to live peacefully in our alone time, and are not serial killers in the making. Sorry for that morbid line of thinking. (I'm Canadian and therefore exercising my right to apologize for everything.)

Interesting, yes, I guess there is a lot to tell and learn about radio and television broadcasting, I'll definitely check out the Ringway Manchester channel! I also got a few of those BASF tapes from the era (and a lot of the other big German brand of the time, Agfa, in the same type of cardboard "cassettes"), I like that they printed the tape type and batch number on the back side of the tape at that time! By the way: it might be better to talk about 5" reels instead of 5" tapes, as, well, 5" tape at 7½ ips will be... less than a second?

I thought that was really interesting, although I'm still not entirely clear at what point you'd hear the 'side 2' content - would the reduced power broadcast be interrupted, or was the tape played over it or...? Kind of related, I wonder if anyone remembers BBC2 tv 'Trade Test Transmissions' from back in the late 1960s and 1970s. Long before day time television was a thing in the UK, short films were repeatedly broadcast on BBC 2, presumably to enable people setting up television sets to have something to tune them into. I remember one film about the design of oil tanker ships - quite technical about how the hull designs were kept rigid, and another more whimsical one about a man restoring a very old car and ending with his daughter running after him with the number plates which he had forgotten to attach. I obviously had too much time on my hands back then......

Bless this charming piece of history.

• This is amazing to hear, and it's doubtful it has been archived by the BBC for posterity's sake. This is what I love about old tape and video recordings. They are a window into humanity's past that are a split-hair away from being lost forever. • Lovely video editing. I appreciate your efforts to show us something interesting while the audio is playing, it works. • The tape contents gave me a very solemn feeling. Perhaps it's because I've started re-watching 'The Walking Dead' and it gives me apocalyptic vibes for absolutely no reason. Or Chernobyl announcement vibes: https://youtu.be/yW6ryRYPRCE • Hello again there, Uher 4000. 🤍 • 'We are sorry that we have a breakdown. We're trying to put things right just as quickly as we can' is a message that is sure to be sampled in the future. • Thank you to Mat & Mart for letting us experience this tiny moment in history. Thanks also to Louis/Lewis for broadcast signal expertise - Ringway Manchester is an interesting channel that I must explore. • "Reduced Power or Standard Breakdown; sounds like my typical week." You and me both, buddy. You've got a good point about physical objects, Mat. If an archaeologist were to dig up our current civilization, they would find nothing little more than plastic garbage, circuit boards, our bones, and leftover pollution. Good luck to them in figuring out who and what we were as a society. Take Care 🤍

I do like it when you present us with an artifact like this then take us on a journey through its life and use. As you say something that won't be possible when everything is digital.

Historically, a huge amount of cuneiform and other early writings are inventories. In some ways, it's better than some of the printing days, when you can find so many Bibles versus anything else.

Just speculating, but perhaps that's a master tape, from which individual working tapes would be produced? Those working tapes could be, as you suggested, identical on each side, letting the engineer just flip the tape during an extended outage. To get further out on this limb...maybe the "M" in the catalog number is for "Master"?

Wonderful, low-key video; also, well-done. It seems to me to be very British. Across the pond, I don't recall our broadcasters having exactly the same system, although I could easily be mistaken. It's fascinating that you could even zero the holding music down to a particular artist. I was a bit confused, however. Was this a tape for a television broadcaster, or did it also apply to radio? Maybe this is the one thing we yanks don't quite grasp. In the states we had different tv and radio stations, owned by different companies. In the UK wasn't everything just the BBC? The interruption tape seemed to be either TV or radio, while the reduced power was definitely TV. Maybe it's clearer on the tape, and I didn't quite catch it. I'll have to rewatch. Thanks for a great video.

I love this sort of video. It's always interesting to see what may turn up after all these years.

Great to see the Uher given an outing - wish I'd bought one of those (even though I probably have no use for one). The tone of voice of the announcers suggests we are about to hear about a matter of national crisis or impending nuclear war, rather than "your telly might be out for a little while".

I was reading this the other day from Nasa, "Magnet Tape Recording for the 80's". Ironic. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19820021703/downloads/19820021703.pdf I think you may find it interesting (if you've not already read it). I became interested in try to find a mathematical formula for tape degradation - for something entirely different - AI language models. As they degrade over time without new human creative input. My crazy thinking. But found this very very interesting. :-)

This may sound a stupid question, and for that I can only ask for forgiveness. The tape runs at 7½" a second. Does it monitor the speed at the head and adjust the spindle speed,or does the spindle just turn at a set speed? Apologies again

That was a great video. I discovered Ringway Manchester a few months ago, so a nice surprise to see this collaboration, and very interesting content.

The interval signal has some strong "Cuba Baion vibes" to it. Could it possibly be the next great viral Techmoan hit?

Really love these history of technology pieces. Very reminiscent of the Beans, Beatles & Bond Master Tape video. Oh and don't think I didn't notice your proper usage of the term "raises the question" rather than the incorrect "begs the question" which is used nearly all the time. Also a very astute observation about the decreasing amount of physical objects that can be used to understand history.

For anyone who didn't understand the "Journey into sound reference" https://909originals.com/2019/07/15/this-is-a-journey-into-sound-the-sample-that-made-hip-hop-history/ Personally i didn't realise this was categorised as Hip Hop.

Indeed those announcements will be sampled into my Fairlight ASAP. Not sure if I will use them or not but will let you know if I do :D

This is a journey into breakdowns :-) Regarding the second side of the tape it explains on it how even some of the larger transmitters relied on picking up the signal from others closer to London. Later Microwave links (typically fanning out from the Post Office Tower) were used. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Telecom_microwave_network. If anything in the link broke then there would be nothing to broadcast except for the line mentioned, although I am a bit surprised they didn't have a camera they could point at a caption at each transmitter.

Blooming lovely that you synchronised the longer announcement tape footage with the pcm recording. Nice video as always.

One of the best videos you’ve ever done, Mat. Thanks. Is there any chance we can hear the full tape? Surely it’s something that should on the Internet Archive or something.