Do you mean they weren't always at the Saddleworth site (on something like 97.3MHz)? I thought that was built specifically. The IBA liked things doing properly, you know! The shift to 103.0MHz happened much later when the police moved out of Band II.
I'm reminded of an anecdote in R. V. Jone's book 'Most Secret War', prior to WWII the Germans planned to set up a TV service to rival the BBCs pioneering service. While it never launched due to WWII, much of the preparation work was done. One of these things included the measuring of signal strength from the planned transmitter sites. It was discovered that car ignition systems generated RF noise strong enough to drown out the test signals, so the army was bought in to stop motorists during test periods. This reached the UK in a distorted form where it was claimed that car engines would suddenly fail and then a soldier would come out from the side of the road and inform the driver that they could not try to restart the engine until they were told. This story, post war merged into American flying saucer lore with 'engine stopping' being one of the key features of UFO encounters for a period.
It's a fantastic book. I think the venn diagram of people who watch Ringway Manchester's videos and people who'd like Most Secret War is pretty much just one circle.
Yeah I planned to, anything from back in the day is inaccurate unfortunately. As in not even close. Tried to get some up to date spec but to no avail I’m afraid
@@RingwayManchester any approximation would be welcomed. As you well know any information will be picked apart by bored sofa scientists around the world so ignore them. There are many of us radio nerds out there that really appreciate all you do Ringway.
Those directional array MF (AM) antennas are very common here in the U.S....While stations here have to protect other stations on the same frequency. Some stations use directional antennas on purpose to concentrate their signals into a city or a large metropolitan area. A lot of New York City AM stations actually have transmitters and antennas over in New Jersey and they use directional arrays to concentrate their signal east into New York City.
I think it's KGO-AM that has a similar array next to Highway 84 at the eastern end of the Dumbarton bridge. 3 masts to radiate north-south across San Francisco Bay north and south past San Jose.
I'd expect AM to be more popular in the US because of the larger distances it can cover (until being replaced by satellite radio), particularly in less dense populated areas. In Europe VHF is more common and rapidly being replaced by DAB+ for commercial stations.
@@Stoney3K Exactly. North American 50kW stations at night were basically national networks before TV was. They still have the coverage, but few people outside DXers listen from far away anymore.
I grew up with 261, a great station. Any remember sniffing the car stickers they made? Really wonderful smell (no, you couldn't get off on it but it was a very distinctive smell, loved it).
I’m doing an investigation for the novel I’m writing and that’s why I discovered your channel. I had no interest about all this radio stuff but now I completely love it. Thanks bro. Saludos from Chile
Wow Radio Piccadilly was the best thing since sliced bread when I grew up in Stockport. How things change. I remember us getting stickers for the radio dial to mark which stations were where.
There is a MW station nearby in Manchester, NH, on 1370, WFEA, for many years, with about 5000 watts there, where you can see four towers in a north south line, so it is very directional. If you drive and go a few miles east of the station, you can barely hear it. So I guess that the systems accomplishes its purpose. I see a lot of European and Canadian MW stations 🚉 are disappearing, being replaced by FM and in Europe DAB stations. Ray
That's quite a bit of effort they put into a local station! I'm still fascinated with all the MW broadcasting still active in the UK. All long- medium and shortwave broadcasts in DL stopped ~10 years ago. Still get several UK networks, Absolute, Lyca, BBC, etc. with big signals. I wonder how much listeners there still are - over here even in the 90s few people even knew any radio but FM. And yes, I want to do 160m DX on that array! :)
I just need one of those towers to put on my 300 watt FM transmitters on love to see how far it would go. Radio FREE UK would start up again. LONG LIVE PIRATE radio.
Reminds me of my local AM stations I drove out to see earlier this year in northern Louisiana in the U.S. One a 6-tower array that broadcasts news and talk radio at 50,000 watts during the day and 5,000 at night (710 KEEL). The other, a 50,000 watt clear channel station in a 3-tower array that broadcasts sports (1130 KWKH). In its hey-day KWKH broadcasted the popular radio show, "Louisiana Hayride," that helped boost Elvis Presley into stardom. Both arrays more or less direct their signals in an East/West direction.
That antenna array should be taken over by a pirate. I'm personally just waiting for the Greenside 1152KHz service to die so I can get my grubby hands on it lol.
Fascinating how these things can be tuned to radiate in certain directions - it's one of the things which has amazed me about radio transmitters ever since I learned about electronics. Sadly I only have a bit of knowledge about them, never really understood the theory! It would have been a nice addition to this video to have the radiation patterns superimposed on a map of the area, so we could better visualise what's actually happening. Thanks anyway, great video :)
Yes, I was going to add that comment also. It's fine stating that the radiation pattern went in 'this direction' and 'that direction' but without a map. it does not really make sense? Maybe one for Ringwaymanchester to note!
The voice of the late, great Tom Tyrrell, Piccadilly's Sports Editor, formerly at BBC Radio Manchester. I was still at school when I first heard those transmissions. In its day, the most successful UK commercial radio station outside of London. The IBA engaged an American antenna consultant to design these MF antenna arrays.
Wow. That takes me back to all the test transmissions when Capital and LBC started in London. Then the explosion of local radio, with stations such as Magic, Heart, Jazz. How things have changed.
It amazes me that the engineers can phase the array to create the pattern they want. Especially in more complex systems like ILS for aircraft. All designed without a computer!
No drone was used. Our fearless Ringway swung across using his own ad hoc system he devised fashioned after Doctor Octopus and Spider-Man. What a mensch!
Interesting. Funnily enough, our little group of Topband operators has taken an interest in this site since it was built, and just a few weeks ago we were discussing why one of the masts was out of line. Various ideas came up, from it being just a mistake or maybe avoiding something underground, to perhaps enhancing the 'null' towards BRMB in Birmingham. But as each mast had a 'tuning hut' at the base, we thought the null could easily be steered by tuning each mast. So perhaps the offset is indeed to point a better null to Birmingham than could be achieved by tuning. The offset is only a tiny fraction of a wavelength - would this have a significant effect?
Dear Lewis, on a serious note this video has sent me down a couple of rabbit holes. The first was what happened to all the ILR stations, and the other has led me to Arqiva, the private company that operates the majority of broadcast stations in the UK. Keep up with the great videos, and I like the general sub ten minute approach. It makes them so much more watchable. All the best Phil.
Sorry to hear the AM service has been discontinued. Any idea why they had so many different stations on the same frequency in the first place? Also some amazing and daring drone shots, looks like you had a few very close calls.
The former Langley Mill 1152Khz site for BRMB used a Redifon 1Kilowatt transmitter set to give a power of 800Watts. The EMRP of the four mast system was 3Kw which gave a narrow beam across Birmingham. I was always amazed at how far in a south westerley direction the signal travelled. The BBC still uses the site for the Asian Network on 1458Khz at an EMRP of 5Kw and the site is still used for Radio XL on 1296Khz using a seperate monopole antenna with a slopping wire reflector to give a null towards Leicester which has its own Asian station on 1260Khz. I was responsible for the repair of modules used in the transmitters and I was always struck by how stable the directional aerial systems were with very few problems.
Hi. I also used to look after some BT500/1000 transmitters years ago. I disliked the horrible power supplies and the DC coupled modulator (which quickly taught me not to debug by swapping cards between groups) with that weird power darlington. But I was (and still am) very impressed by how efficient they were and how good they sounded for a late 70s design and no blowers! Much nicer than the Eddystone units. I've just realised I have a Redifon module (No.8 - BT500 output matching unit) sitting about 2 meters away from me 😆 I really think we need a museum to preserve some of this stuff for posterity!
@@rashidmustapha4946 Yes Class D operation and the performance of the Redifon transmitters always impressed me in terms of efficiency, reliability and performance. The BBC designed HCD and the Canadian Nortel AMPFET series transmitters were good too. I remember the Eddystone BE6038 Class B modulators were not comfortable with high density processed modulation.
@@stevewebb7882 I have an S125 HCD. I wanted an S250 but a 125 watt model came along. I like them as they're a 'luggable' standby. Not found an excuse to deploy it, so to the museum it shall go! I'm surprised to learn they're a BBC design, as the manual made no mention of it and no design number. Now you say it, I can kind of 'see' it. I guess the hi-stab drives are too? I've never seen an Eddystone, but I can 'hear' them. The mod transformers yield poor LF response and they sound 'mushy'. I've also noticed the mod depth dropping as the AF amps fail and the RF end still delivers full carrier to the combiner. The Nautel AMPFET series were built like tanks. I worked on one in Gibraltar, then some friends in Switzerland rescued a couple but never found a use for them so they donated them to community radio. One is at ORF (now in standby service) and it still works.
@@rashidmustapha4946 The HCD was either a BBC design or designed by former BBC staff or so I was led to believe. I know Eddystone built BBC designed equipment under licence, namely the 1700 series FM band 2 transmitters and associated TM4 drive units. I also worked on some similarly designed FM repeaters known as 'The Tardis'. I'm not sure but I think the Eddystone BE6038 1Kw MF transmitter was their own design. There is a good article on the BBC engineering website called 'third time lucky', written by the Redifon MF 'BT series' transmitter designer, David Birt. He describes how he designed the Redifon BT 500/1000 and how he came to work in the design department at the BBC. I can't post the link. but if you Google Redifon BT1000 you will find it.
@@stevewebb7882 That FM design was (is) a clever system... Thanks for the interesting tip - I'm looking for things to do whilst confined with covid (which is why I am lurking on here!). I will look and read it now!
As a young boy growing up in Walsall west midlands, Beacon Radio 303 was my favourite station. BRMB was at that time "sketchy" I believe the transmission mast was at Sedgley Beacon outside wolverhampton, and the station itself was based at 267 Tettenhall Road in Wolverhampton. I may be wrong, but I think Beacon 303 was the first independent to broadcast for 24 hours in the uk.
Talking about the use of a phased array to limit signal intrusion between transmitters sharing the same frequency made me think of the Hannington incident, now that would be worthy of a video and a good investigation by yourself.
That ks this is interesting. I've wondered the deal with a station near me in the US. A teacher told me about the array of antennas on a hill over near the school that had a very strong station. He always said only one of the four was an antenna and the others were active reflectors. It was one of the original if not the first radio station set up by Merv Griffin.
I remember hearing this test transmission here in north Shropshire, I had just left school and thought it was very exciting in comparison to the radio we had, excluding Caroline of course.
Thanks for the great video Lewis. For interest re the Valcom 1377 kHz antenna, one of these was tried for Caroline's 819 kHz Dutch service in around 1988. I say tried because it didn't last long at sea (a matter of a few days). 73.
Having had to use 261m with transmitters carrying different programmes only 100 miles apart, the IBA spent a lot of time getting the transmitters in the right area compared to the required service area. Manchester firing west away from Birmingham and Newcastle needed to be to east of the city, Birmingham needed to fire south-west away from both London and Manchester, so the transmitter was to the north east of the city. The IBA Technical Reviews no 5 page 45 onwards has detailed information about the arrays and the masts as they were installed for some of the initial 19 ILR stations. Tech Review 14 has a later update. They are available online if anyone is interested.
I don't know about the UK, but I know here in the US, most AM (aka MW) stations have to reduce power at night and usually go to a directional signal. The station I worked at was 5kW daytime, and 1 kW and directional nighttime. Because we had to power down and power up at the same time each month, there were situations in the winter where we could legally switch to our daytime power right before sunrise. With it being nighttime over the entire Northern Pacific, a friend of mine who was in Okinawa could pick me up for a few minutes before the Sun rose here and the D layer scattered the signal. I didn't believe him until he sent me a cassette tape of me on the air.
Nice video - with an extra treat. I didn't know there is a Valcom antenna being used in the UK and (for various reasons,) I really should have! Thank you 😆
I remember my dads car having a Piccadilly 261 Car sticker in the 80's, never knew 1152 had gone, as I remember my parents used to always listen to it.
Wot! No amiable guy in a beanie hat wittering on about the M60? And I agree with Shayne Jones comment below, about the plethora of local IBA stations of the 1970's and 1980's with a bit of local variety. I hope if I tell you my local station was 194 Radio City, you won't block my comments. ;-)
Not only that the tubes are usually specialty made for MW. One of our local AM stations was in low power for weeks because they didn't have spare tubes. I believe this resource needs a big investment beyond corporate marketing purposes, and local HAMs should be the ones tasked to maintain them. Once they no longer mandate any AM its done, they will take it.
Interesting to hear Dechmont getting a mention, I was there a few weeks back: ) The mast being in line is not a major issue as 90 deg at MF is a big distance. You just need to supply the correct phase to each mast and you can get the correct pattern.
That mast is purposely out of line, so as to make a null in the pattern towards another co-channeller. I visited one station in the US that has 12 masts in configuration to get an odd-ball pattern. Over near St Petersburg I once visited a 22 mast array, but that was to get forward peak power to the west (Radio Moscow, beamed at Scandinavia and the UK, on 1493). They fed it with a 500kW unit, but it wouldn't modulate above about 55%, and that was + peaks. Horrible old thing it was, needed 6 men to start it up, a right palaver of "wait 20", etc.
One of the problems with these sites was audio distortion arising from the directional arrangement of the masts, off the main beam, the signal was not good and areas behind the site would suffer audio distortion and a similar effect to tuning your radio off frequency slightly.
all the great old stations i remember from my misspent youth are all gone now replaced by highly formulaic crap that seems to be run by about 2 or 3 company's mostly on band ii FM the old MW allocations seem to be a few oldies stations or devoid of uk signals sad!!
Interesting how the station jingle at the end sounds like American English. Perhaps it was created by a company in the USA, or perhaps the jingle was done "with an accent" to imitate the plethora of the same going on in the US?
@@FNUKSTER1366 As that is a very active site radiating a lot of power to cover the whole of South East England, it won't be quite as easy to do as a site that is not transmitting anything.
Interesting video, bearing in mind that they weren't using computers to figure all this out. You missed out Plymouth Sound, also on 261 / 1152. Back in the day, living in Wigan, I used to use the directional capability of my AM / ferrite rod receiver to 'eliminate' the local Piccadilly AM signal, and recieved in the evenings Radio Clyde Glasgow. Metro Radio Newcastle was another station often coming in. London's LBC was very rarely heard, and Birminghams BRMB came in occasionally. 194m was another shared frequency (sic) , also 257m. No local completition for the 257, so Swansea Sound was the most heard at nights with occasional Ipswich Radio Orwell. Similar to the LBC, Capital's 194 very rarely was recieved when Liverpool's Radio City was "eliminated". Radio Forth from Edinburgh dominated at nights.
Nic. I used to use a home built directional loop antenna to null out transmisions in favour of signals from different directions on medium wave. It gave me good daytime reception of many distant ILR stations. I could put any radio within the loop keeping the radio 90 degrees to the loop and rotating the radio and the loop together. It always pulled in the offshore stations well too.
Plymouth Sound didn't require a directional array like the others did, it was an omni directional pattern using a BBC site. At over 200 miles from either Birmingham or London and using 320W and with Dartmoor to the north, there probably wasn't a lot of point spending the money on a system similar to Ashton Moss. Later Radio Broadland in Norwich also used 1152kHz, again that was a low power omni directional site.
@@andyhame6685 That might explain why Lewis didn't mention Plymouth Sound, and why it was so easy to pick up with the evening skip. The IBA always said the MW service was a 'backup' to the FM and the IBA yearbooks had the FM and MW coverage maps where it was stated they attemped to match coverage area. I relatively often phoned in (for competitions etc.) and stations didn't seem to mind out of area listeners participating in a local radio station's programming. Hereward radio (Peterbrough) on 225m was pretty unique and when it started I could receive it during the day.
@@nicc5122 Hello Nic, the IBA only claimed the MW service matched the FM service area in the daytime if I remember correctly. Once the night time came in heaven only knows what you might hear, a mix of stations, one miles away, or maybe something from abroad. Radio 1 on 247m / 1215kHz before 23rd November 1978 when it was trying to cover the UK on that one frequency from 17 transmitters some of which were 50kW was certainly a phasey mess when it was dark. MW was fun to listen to and most stations liked to know that people were tuning in from outside their official coverage area. Make the most of AM listening while it lasts!
Surely Piccadilly Radio WAS Manchester in the 1970s (as Capital was London , etc). Stations I got the feeling you had to be a student at University or Polytechnic to listen to (BBC Local Radio was for Parents, BBC R4 for Grandparents Radio 2 for Drivers). Is it better that niche (large niche in some cases) have their own full time stations to listen to now, (rather than some allocated time on the BBC networks or local independent/BBC ones ?) Has everyone really all gone fully national independent local now ( Virgin and I forget the other one ) was the licence to print money a myth from local ads for double glazing car sale discount furniture warehouses ? )
Great video Lewis I used to hear a test transmitter in 1980 from North London on mw around 540khz firing up every 30 ins or so with a chime ident stating its range as Chesham in the west and Southend in the east...I would imagine in readiness for local and regional expansion.......Great flypast of the masts and insulators with the drone well done lewis
If anyone knows where the Piccadilly FM transmitter site was when it launched I’d love to know!
Do you mean they weren't always at the Saddleworth site (on something like 97.3MHz)? I thought that was built specifically. The IBA liked things doing properly, you know! The shift to 103.0MHz happened much later when the police moved out of Band II.
Tomsk? ;D
Co-sited with the Saddleworth TV transmitter, originally on 97.0 FM, changed to 103.0 FM around 1986.
@@christopherhulse8385 Lyme Regis? xD
I'd expect the FM transmitter to be just an omnidirectional dipole?
That's a mightily fine looking motorway ya got there.
Maybe Lewis will let you have a cameo role in the future if you speak nicely to him.....
We have them up North, you know.
Is your name Jon? How the devil are you?
Thank you my boy, it is definitely something we are rightly proud of!
A girl could feel special on any such like...
I'm reminded of an anecdote in R. V. Jone's book 'Most Secret War', prior to WWII the Germans planned to set up a TV service to rival the BBCs pioneering service. While it never launched due to WWII, much of the preparation work was done. One of these things included the measuring of signal strength from the planned transmitter sites. It was discovered that car ignition systems generated RF noise strong enough to drown out the test signals, so the army was bought in to stop motorists during test periods. This reached the UK in a distorted form where it was claimed that car engines would suddenly fail and then a soldier would come out from the side of the road and inform the driver that they could not try to restart the engine until they were told. This story, post war merged into American flying saucer lore with 'engine stopping' being one of the key features of UFO encounters for a period.
It's a fantastic book. I think the venn diagram of people who watch Ringway Manchester's videos and people who'd like Most Secret War is pretty much just one circle.
It would have been really helpful if you had overlayed the top down map-view with the radiation pattern.
Yeah I planned to, anything from back in the day is inaccurate unfortunately. As in not even close. Tried to get some up to date spec but to no avail I’m afraid
@@RingwayManchester any approximation would be welcomed. As you well know any information will be picked apart by bored sofa scientists around the world so ignore them. There are many of us radio nerds out there that really appreciate all you do Ringway.
Must have been a pain in the ass to maintain that array, with it straddling the motorway!
The IBA got a lot of help from the US before building these DAs, they’d never done it before. Fascinating. I’ve only ever worked on one.
@@andylinton2798 The area was just a huge acreage of marshland and peat bog when they were built.👍
Those directional array MF (AM) antennas are very common here in the U.S....While stations here have to protect other stations on the same frequency. Some stations use directional antennas on purpose to concentrate their signals into a city or a large metropolitan area. A lot of New York City AM stations actually have transmitters and antennas over in New Jersey and they use directional arrays to concentrate their signal east into New York City.
I think it's KGO-AM that has a similar array next to Highway 84 at the eastern end of the Dumbarton bridge. 3 masts to radiate north-south across San Francisco Bay north and south past San Jose.
*_"JOISEY??!!"_*
😊😊😊
I'd expect AM to be more popular in the US because of the larger distances it can cover (until being replaced by satellite radio), particularly in less dense populated areas. In Europe VHF is more common and rapidly being replaced by DAB+ for commercial stations.
@@Stoney3K Exactly. North American 50kW stations at night were basically national networks before TV was. They still have the coverage, but few people outside DXers listen from far away anymore.
@@Stoney3K DAB never took off here in the states, but Sirius XM Satellite radio has. It costs between $11 to $22 a month.
I grew up with 261, a great station. Any remember sniffing the car stickers they made? Really wonderful smell (no, you couldn't get off on it but it was a very distinctive smell, loved it).
Auto shenanigans video was so funny, when you popped up out of nowhere. His reactions were amazing.
Haha yeah! Was please he asked me to cameo
@@RingwayManchester New friend
which video was that one ?
@@WX4CB link to the section ua-cam.com/video/LW0ISeQB07c/v-deo.html
@@james-5560 HAHAHA, ironically that was a couple of videos down the list to watch.. go figure
This video is very informative! Radio has changed a lot since I lived in the UK in the 1970s.
I’m doing an investigation for the novel I’m writing and that’s why I discovered your channel. I had no interest about all this radio stuff but now I completely love it. Thanks bro. Saludos from Chile
Wow Radio Piccadilly was the best thing since sliced bread when I grew up in Stockport. How things change. I remember us getting stickers for the radio dial to mark which stations were where.
I remember those. They were sent out when Radio 1 moved from 247 to 275/285.
There is a MW station nearby in Manchester,
NH, on 1370, WFEA, for many years, with
about 5000 watts there, where you can see
four towers in a north south line, so it is
very directional.
If you drive and go a few miles east of the
station, you can barely hear it. So I guess
that the systems accomplishes its purpose.
I see a lot of European and Canadian MW
stations 🚉 are disappearing, being replaced
by FM and in Europe DAB stations. Ray
Great stuff, Lewis. But I have to say, the flybys of the top of the antennas mere inches away gave me a bit of anxiety! 😄
You and me both 😂
That's quite a bit of effort they put into a local station! I'm still fascinated with all the MW broadcasting still active in the UK. All long- medium and shortwave broadcasts in DL stopped ~10 years ago. Still get several UK networks, Absolute, Lyca, BBC, etc. with big signals. I wonder how much listeners there still are - over here even in the 90s few people even knew any radio but FM. And yes, I want to do 160m DX on that array! :)
Man you are killing it with this awesome videos . And the music in last 90 seconds was groovy
Thanks mate!!
I just need one of those towers to put on my 300 watt FM transmitters on love to see how far it would go. Radio FREE UK would start up again. LONG LIVE PIRATE radio.
I live around here and now I finally know what these things are! Thank you!!
Reminds me of my local AM stations I drove out to see earlier this year in northern Louisiana in the U.S. One a 6-tower array that broadcasts news and talk radio at 50,000 watts during the day and 5,000 at night (710 KEEL). The other, a 50,000 watt clear channel station in a 3-tower array that broadcasts sports (1130 KWKH). In its hey-day KWKH broadcasted the popular radio show, "Louisiana Hayride," that helped boost Elvis Presley into stardom.
Both arrays more or less direct their signals in an East/West direction.
That station identication music, is also something that has disappeared forever. LoL
That antenna array should be taken over by a pirate. I'm personally just waiting for the Greenside 1152KHz service to die so I can get my grubby hands on it lol.
Fascinating how these things can be tuned to radiate in certain directions - it's one of the things which has amazed me about radio transmitters ever since I learned about electronics. Sadly I only have a bit of knowledge about them, never really understood the theory!
It would have been a nice addition to this video to have the radiation patterns superimposed on a map of the area, so we could better visualise what's actually happening. Thanks anyway, great video :)
Yes, I was going to add that comment also. It's fine stating that the radiation pattern went in 'this direction' and 'that direction' but without a map. it does not really make sense?
Maybe one for Ringwaymanchester to note!
This was truly fascinating, thanks so much!
You’re drone flying is much better then mine, ur so daring especially going past those aerials..
Great video and aircheck, I've never seen any of the IBA's original TX sites. That first breakfast show was presented by Roger Day!
The voice of the late, great Tom Tyrrell, Piccadilly's Sports Editor, formerly at BBC Radio Manchester. I was still at school when I first heard those transmissions. In its day, the most successful UK commercial radio station outside of London. The IBA engaged an American antenna consultant to design these MF antenna arrays.
Thanks Steve I did wonder who it was!
I used to work at Piccadilly and remember Tom as a true professional and gentleman 🙂
Wow. That takes me back to all the test transmissions when Capital and LBC started in London. Then the explosion of local radio, with stations such as Magic, Heart, Jazz. How things have changed.
Thanks Lewis. I enjoy ALL your videos and appreciate your efforts to share the knowledge and passion you have for all things radio!
Thank you!
It amazes me that the engineers can phase the array to create the pattern they want. Especially in more complex systems like ILS for aircraft. All designed without a computer!
These drone shots are phenomenal, great work!
even though he nearly hit the top of one of the towers lol
No drone was used. Our fearless Ringway swung across using his own ad hoc system he devised fashioned after Doctor Octopus and Spider-Man. What a mensch!
A.M.Radio Nostalgia. Not just in Canada and USA but England too!
Piccadilly Radio was the soundtrack of my youth. Mike Sweeney, Timmy Mallett, Steve Penk, James H. Reeve, Mark Radcliffe and many more.
Interesting. Funnily enough, our little group of Topband operators has taken an interest in this site since it was built, and just a few weeks ago we were discussing why one of the masts was out of line. Various ideas came up, from it being just a mistake or maybe avoiding something underground, to perhaps enhancing the 'null' towards BRMB in Birmingham. But as each mast had a 'tuning hut' at the base, we thought the null could easily be steered by tuning each mast. So perhaps the offset is indeed to point a better null to Birmingham than could be achieved by tuning. The offset is only a tiny fraction of a wavelength - would this have a significant effect?
I agree.
Dear Lewis, on a serious note this video has sent me down a couple of rabbit holes. The first was what happened to all the ILR stations, and the other has led me to Arqiva, the private company that operates the majority of broadcast stations in the UK.
Keep up with the great videos, and I like the general sub ten minute approach. It makes them so much more watchable.
All the best Phil.
Thank you Phil!
Incidentally the original trading name of Piccadilly Radio was Greater Manchester Independent Radio, anagram for GRIM so they quickly changed it!
So many different station names on some of those 1152 frequencies. In the NE, it started out as Great North Radio in the late 80's, owned by Metro.
Great bits of nostalgia and technical info.
Great video and excellent drone shots of the masts! Happy memories of Piccadilly Radio.
That footage and theme-song are so great to end the vid! Good work
Thank you!
Sorry to hear the AM service has been discontinued. Any idea why they had so many different stations on the same frequency in the first place? Also some amazing and daring drone shots, looks like you had a few very close calls.
I pass these regularly and always thought they were never aligned, but put that down to an optical illusion. Glad to see I was right.
The former Langley Mill 1152Khz site for BRMB used a Redifon 1Kilowatt transmitter set to give a power of 800Watts. The EMRP of the four mast system was 3Kw which gave a narrow beam across Birmingham. I was always amazed at how far in a south westerley direction the signal travelled. The BBC still uses the site for the Asian Network on 1458Khz at an EMRP of 5Kw and the site is still used for Radio XL on 1296Khz using a seperate monopole antenna with a slopping wire reflector to give a null towards Leicester which has its own Asian station on 1260Khz. I was responsible for the repair of modules used in the transmitters and I was always struck by how stable the directional aerial systems were with very few problems.
Hi. I also used to look after some BT500/1000 transmitters years ago. I disliked the horrible power supplies and the DC coupled modulator (which quickly taught me not to debug by swapping cards between groups) with that weird power darlington.
But I was (and still am) very impressed by how efficient they were and how good they sounded for a late 70s design and no blowers! Much nicer than the Eddystone units.
I've just realised I have a Redifon module (No.8 - BT500 output matching unit) sitting about 2 meters away from me 😆
I really think we need a museum to preserve some of this stuff for posterity!
@@rashidmustapha4946 Yes Class D operation and the performance of the Redifon transmitters always impressed me in terms of efficiency, reliability and performance. The BBC designed HCD and the Canadian Nortel AMPFET series transmitters were good too.
I remember the Eddystone BE6038 Class B modulators were not comfortable with high density processed modulation.
@@stevewebb7882 I have an S125 HCD. I wanted an S250 but a 125 watt model came along. I like them as they're a 'luggable' standby. Not found an excuse to deploy it, so to the museum it shall go!
I'm surprised to learn they're a BBC design, as the manual made no mention of it and no design number. Now you say it, I can kind of 'see' it. I guess the hi-stab drives are too?
I've never seen an Eddystone, but I can 'hear' them. The mod transformers yield poor LF response and they sound 'mushy'. I've also noticed the mod depth dropping as the AF amps fail and the RF end still delivers full carrier to the combiner.
The Nautel AMPFET series were built like tanks. I worked on one in Gibraltar, then some friends in Switzerland rescued a couple but never found a use for them so they donated them to community radio. One is at ORF (now in standby service) and it still works.
@@rashidmustapha4946 The HCD was either a BBC design or designed by former BBC staff or so I was led to believe. I know Eddystone built BBC designed equipment under licence, namely the 1700 series FM band 2 transmitters and associated TM4 drive units.
I also worked on some similarly designed FM repeaters known as 'The Tardis'.
I'm not sure but I think the Eddystone BE6038 1Kw MF transmitter was their own design.
There is a good article on the BBC engineering website called 'third time lucky', written by the Redifon MF 'BT series' transmitter designer, David Birt. He describes how he designed the Redifon BT 500/1000 and how he came to work in the design department at the BBC. I can't post the link. but if you Google Redifon BT1000 you will find it.
@@stevewebb7882 That FM design was (is) a clever system...
Thanks for the interesting tip - I'm looking for things to do whilst confined with covid (which is why I am lurking on here!). I will look and read it now!
Ringway Manchester I love your video so much
As a young boy growing up in Walsall west midlands, Beacon Radio 303 was my favourite station. BRMB was at that time "sketchy" I believe the transmission mast was at Sedgley Beacon outside wolverhampton, and the station itself was based at 267 Tettenhall Road in Wolverhampton. I may be wrong, but I think Beacon 303 was the first independent to broadcast for 24 hours in the uk.
I knew it was for a null in the pattern to protect another station. Such a thing is very common in the US; the FCC usually requires it.
Talking about the use of a phased array to limit signal intrusion between transmitters sharing the same frequency made me think of the Hannington incident, now that would be worthy of a video and a good investigation by yourself.
This would make a great site for a Radio Caroline North service.
That ks this is interesting. I've wondered the deal with a station near me in the US. A teacher told me about the array of antennas on a hill over near the school that had a very strong station. He always said only one of the four was an antenna and the others were active reflectors.
It was one of the original if not the first radio station set up by Merv Griffin.
I remember hearing this test transmission here in north Shropshire, I had just left school and thought it was very exciting in comparison to the radio we had, excluding Caroline of course.
Thanks for the great video Lewis. For interest re the Valcom 1377 kHz antenna, one of these was tried for Caroline's 819 kHz Dutch service in around 1988. I say tried because it didn't last long at sea (a matter of a few days). 73.
piccadilly
PICCADILLY
*PICCADILLY*
261
love that tune at the end, man!
Having had to use 261m with transmitters carrying different programmes only 100 miles apart, the IBA spent a lot of time getting the transmitters in the right area compared to the required service area. Manchester firing west away from Birmingham and Newcastle needed to be to east of the city, Birmingham needed to fire south-west away from both London and Manchester, so the transmitter was to the north east of the city.
The IBA Technical Reviews no 5 page 45 onwards has detailed information about the arrays and the masts as they were installed for some of the initial 19 ILR stations. Tech Review 14 has a later update. They are available online if anyone is interested.
I’ll have a look at that Andy cheers
congratulations on the 60k+
Thank you!
That's the boppin'est radio jingle I've ever heard
Wow, what a jingle!
Interesting video!
You should take a look at WKGE-AM in the US. 9 towers to create a directional array.
i lived on the cheshire derbyshire boarder near Whaley Bridge. it never got to us very well
I don't know about the UK, but I know here in the US, most AM (aka MW) stations have to reduce power at night and usually go to a directional signal. The station I worked at was 5kW daytime, and 1 kW and directional nighttime.
Because we had to power down and power up at the same time each month, there were situations in the winter where we could legally switch to our daytime power right before sunrise. With it being nighttime over the entire Northern Pacific, a friend of mine who was in Okinawa could pick me up for a few minutes before the Sun rose here and the D layer scattered the signal.
I didn't believe him until he sent me a cassette tape of me on the air.
Nice video - with an extra treat. I didn't know there is a Valcom antenna being used in the UK and (for various reasons,) I really should have! Thank you 😆
I've been waiting for this one it seems a long time since I asked you about that site cheers Lewis thanks for covering it
I remember my dads car having a Piccadilly 261 Car sticker in the 80's, never knew 1152 had gone, as I remember my parents used to always listen to it.
Love it!
Love your material
that intro slaps!!!!
Classy. I'd play that all day.
I like that small 80 watt transmitter.
I use more power on my amateur radio 📻
73 de W2CH Ray New Hampshire USA 🇺🇸
Another brilliant video
Wot! No amiable guy in a beanie hat wittering on about the M60? And I agree with Shayne Jones comment below, about the plethora of local IBA stations of the 1970's and 1980's with a bit of local variety. I hope if I tell you my local station was 194 Radio City, you won't block my comments. ;-)
Phil that’s the beauty of radio, there’s no boundaries 😂
Damn you are smart! I'm still figuring out how to increase propagation on my FT 65. 😂 WA3WAT 73.
I notice this array every time I pass it.👍
Another well researched video, the opening drone footage is excellent
Nice one Lewis. Those masts are just asking for someone to connect an FT 857D and have a crack on Top Band or 80m.
Interesting test transmission voice over, god how things have changed beam me back to the 70s
In the US, 12 tower arrays (daytime and nitetime beams) are not uncommon. Not cheap to keep up.
@@guyintenn Yes not many and probable less than there were. Usualy only six at a time are used.
Not only that the tubes are usually specialty made for MW. One of our local AM stations was in low power for weeks because they didn't have spare tubes. I believe this resource needs a big investment beyond corporate marketing purposes, and local HAMs should be the ones tasked to maintain them. Once they no longer mandate any AM its done, they will take it.
Interesting to hear Dechmont getting a mention, I was there a few weeks back: )
The mast being in line is not a major issue as 90 deg at MF is a big distance. You just need to supply the correct phase to each mast and you can get the correct pattern.
Cheers joe, the major issue here is did I pronounce it correctly?! 😂
Yes you got it : )
Interestingly that’s the first I’ve seen that site down there, it’s an interesting video.
Another factor which may want to be considered is curvature of the earth at higher latitudes.
@@larryellisreed280 Isn't it equally curved at lower latitudes?
That mast is purposely out of line, so as to make a null in the pattern towards another co-channeller. I visited one station in the US that has 12 masts in configuration to get an odd-ball pattern. Over near St Petersburg I once visited a 22 mast array, but that was to get forward peak power to the west (Radio Moscow, beamed at Scandinavia and the UK, on 1493). They fed it with a 500kW unit, but it wouldn't modulate above about 55%, and that was + peaks. Horrible old thing it was, needed 6 men to start it up, a right palaver of "wait 20", etc.
Just one of those would be just great at the bottom of my garden, but as always, my wife would block it at the planning and permission stage!
Yawn, tell us more about that motorway at the beginning of the video 😉
😂😂😂
Fantastic content, and great videos!
Keep them coming, such an interesting topic in my subs.
One of the problems with these sites was audio distortion arising from the directional arrangement of the masts, off the main beam, the signal was not good and areas behind the site would suffer audio distortion and a similar effect to tuning your radio off frequency slightly.
Yes I remember that effect when driving home from work passing the rear of the Langley Mill 1152Khz array
all the great old stations i remember from my misspent youth are all gone now replaced by highly formulaic crap that seems to be run by about 2 or 3 company's mostly on band ii FM the old MW allocations seem to be a few oldies stations or devoid of uk signals sad!!
@Shayne Jones >>> Do remember not many radios carry MW even very few LW more scary numbers SW/SSB. Many FM or DAB
don't feel alone: 3 or 4 major US radio monopolies have homogenized radio here for decades to the point few people under 45 listen to radio anymore.
Fun Frequensy to listen to :
5400 Khz
4600 Khz
8000 Khz
261MW now that takes me back
Thats got to be Tony Wilson opening voice over
Interesting how the station jingle at the end sounds like American English. Perhaps it was created by a company in the USA, or perhaps the jingle was done "with an accent" to imitate the plethora of the same going on in the US?
That test song slaps
Lewis another great video, where was the video posted on Wrotham radio mast in Kent, can't find it . Many thanks
That was a special voiceover I recorded for John mate. I’ve not done a video here
Lewis can yo do a video on the South East Wrotham site in Kent, big aerial covering us down below .. many thanks 😊
Never say never
@@FNUKSTER1366 As that is a very active site radiating a lot of power to cover the whole of South East England, it won't be quite as easy to do as a site that is not transmitting anything.
Awesome Lewis
Amazing
Love the Asian antenna setup, so miniature that most cheap Asian built receivers would not even find it!
Hey! Good music at the final.
Still receive greatest hits radio in fm 107.4 in Derbyshire 👍
Interesting video, bearing in mind that they weren't using computers to figure all this out. You missed out Plymouth Sound, also on 261 / 1152. Back in the day, living in Wigan, I used to use the directional capability of my AM / ferrite rod receiver to 'eliminate' the local Piccadilly AM signal, and recieved in the evenings Radio Clyde Glasgow. Metro Radio Newcastle was another station often coming in. London's LBC was very rarely heard, and Birminghams BRMB came in occasionally. 194m was another shared frequency (sic) , also 257m. No local completition for the 257, so Swansea Sound was the most heard at nights with occasional Ipswich Radio Orwell. Similar to the LBC, Capital's 194 very rarely was recieved when Liverpool's Radio City was "eliminated". Radio Forth from Edinburgh dominated at nights.
Nic. I used to use a home built directional loop antenna to null out transmisions in favour of signals from different directions on medium wave. It gave me good daytime reception of many distant ILR stations. I could put any radio within the loop keeping the radio 90 degrees to the loop and rotating the radio and the loop together. It always pulled in the offshore stations well too.
Plymouth Sound didn't require a directional array like the others did, it was an omni directional pattern using a BBC site. At over 200 miles from either Birmingham or London and using 320W and with Dartmoor to the north, there probably wasn't a lot of point spending the money on a system similar to Ashton Moss.
Later Radio Broadland in Norwich also used 1152kHz, again that was a low power omni directional site.
@@andyhame6685 That might explain why Lewis didn't mention Plymouth Sound, and why it was so easy to pick up with the evening skip. The IBA always said the MW service was a 'backup' to the FM and the IBA yearbooks had the FM and MW coverage maps where it was stated they attemped to match coverage area. I relatively often phoned in (for competitions etc.) and stations didn't seem to mind out of area listeners participating in a local radio station's programming. Hereward radio (Peterbrough) on 225m was pretty unique and when it started I could receive it during the day.
@@nicc5122 Hello Nic, the IBA only claimed the MW service matched the FM service area in the daytime if I remember correctly. Once the night time came in heaven only knows what you might hear, a mix of stations, one miles away, or maybe something from abroad. Radio 1 on 247m / 1215kHz before 23rd November 1978 when it was trying to cover the UK on that one frequency from 17 transmitters some of which were 50kW was certainly a phasey mess when it was dark.
MW was fun to listen to and most stations liked to know that people were tuning in from outside their official coverage area. Make the most of AM listening while it lasts!
Surely Piccadilly Radio WAS Manchester in the 1970s (as Capital was London , etc). Stations I got the feeling you had to be a student at University or Polytechnic to listen to (BBC Local Radio was for Parents, BBC R4 for Grandparents Radio 2 for Drivers). Is it better that niche (large niche in some cases) have their own full time stations to listen to now, (rather than some allocated time on the BBC networks or local independent/BBC ones ?) Has everyone really all gone fully national independent local now ( Virgin and I forget the other one ) was the licence to print money a myth from local ads for double glazing car sale discount furniture warehouses ? )
They use a similar setup at Saffron Green near Barnet to transmit Gold (London): 1548kHz
They did, I mentioned this in the vid :)
Nice one Lewis Great video Interesting stuff👍
The copper straps on one leg of each tower ensured there was perfect conductivity. Very nicely done. Sad to see MF radio in decline.
Yeah I saw those! Thanks for confirming what I wasn’t 100% on Scott. And yeah it’s a shame!
The copper straps would also provide lightning protection.
Before Howard Sterns XM Channel went live they put it on the air with a fan blowing in a room for a few days. It has not changed much.
The sad death of British local radio :(
Great video Lewis I used to hear a test transmitter in 1980 from North London on mw around 540khz firing up every 30 ins or so with a chime ident stating its range as Chesham in the west and Southend in the east...I would imagine in readiness for local and regional expansion.......Great flypast of the masts and insulators with the drone well done lewis
Sure that wasn’t the Carfax tests? Down on 530kHz or so? Now THERE’S a subject for a vid!
I’m listening?
@andylinton2798 tell us more andrew........
Yes i used to be able to hear those carfax signals even up here in Cambridgeshire
@@jonathaneastwood2927 I actually got a QSL card from them for those Carfax tests!
I love me a high power M. F. antenna!
What is the DAB frequency as I am interested in listening to it just wondering if it might be 231Mhz
A ham radio operators dream..
Line arrays, like a rock concert.