Transmission Operations - Reminiscences
Collapse of ITA Emley Moor mast on 19 March 1969 (Used to broadcast BBC2 at the time.)
Click here for pictures and information about the collapse (on Mike Brown's excellent web site - MB21).
Mike Salmon, ex-BBC Transmission, remembers.....
"After the collapse the first service to be restored was BBC2 using an Eagle Tower on loan from one of the BBC regional bases, Leeds or Manchester, I believe. In a matter of days a single UHF antenna panel was hoisted up on the tower along with a temporary length of feeder coupled into the output of a very much reduced Pye 25kW UHF transmitter. The service was only available in the Leeds direction but allowed BBC2 to be restored weeks before the emergency ITA zip up mast and months before the emergency BBC lattice mast were brought to site and erected.
I was sat in a bed and breakfast in Huddersfield along with several colleagues having an early evening meal when the mast collapsed. We quickly finished eating and drove to the site to see if we could offer any assistance. The police made us park outside the cordon but allowed us to walk through on production of our BBC Club Cards (no ID card in those days). We gathered on site and were asked by the AEiC Joe Eastwood to go outside and locate the small rebroadcast antenna and amplifier from its new location amongst the extensive wreckage. It was then used to get a programme feed into the station for the temporary service some days later."
| If you are wondering what an Eagle Tower
was, here is a picture of one - in the form of a Dinky toy:
|
It was another toy in this set, the Roving
Eye camera vehicle that set Mike on a BBC career, as he was originally
interviewed for a post as cameraman! |
Pictures provided by James F Middlemiss, ex-BBC Transmission:
The name of the photographer is not known.
Click on a thumbnail to enlarge and use the browser's Back button to return.
James recalls that when the Readymix concrete rep' came to the site he couldn't believe the large order for concrete. When James showed him the hole in the ground for the new tower base he was convinced...!!!