ETD Information Sheets

Scanned and contributed in 2019 by Stephen Craig and Jeff Bottom, with additional processing by Nick Cutmore.

Information sheets previously contributed by Nick Cutmore and John Sykes are also included.

The Information Sheets linked from this page were created by staff at BBC Engineering Training Department for use on various courses.  They were produced between 1963 and 1996 and they provide a good record of that era's broadcasting technology. Massive changes have taken place due to the advent of digital broadcasting so, apart from fundamental principles, they no longer provide information on systems that are in use by the BBC.

The sheets were only intended for use by people attending courses and their format reflects the fact that they were not intended for general publication.  BBC technicians and engineers found them very useful and tended to hang on to them for many years as they provide succinct information on the most relevant aspects of each subject.

Without the huge amount of work done by the contributors named above it is likely that the content would eventually have been lost.   It took about 250 hours and this effort is gratefully acknowledged.

406 Information Sheets, Exercise Sheets and Practical Sheets are listed on three pages under the headings and subheadings shown below.  384 of the entries link to a PDF file of the relevant document.  Please request further information if one of the other 22 Information Sheets is of particular interest to you.

Some ETD training books are also listed here, with links to PDF files.

Acknowledgement and Restrictions

The BBC has given permission for many technical documents from the above era to be published on bbceng and this support for the preservation of BBC engineering heritage is gratefully acknowledged.

As broadcast engineering has developed a great deal since since these Information Sheets were produced, the documents do not represent present techniques.  However, you must adhere to the following Terms and Conditions:

Any intellectual property rights in these documents are owned/licensed by the BBC. They are made available for private study use only and on the understanding that no warranties are provided by the BBC (in relation to third party intellectual property rights or otherwise) and that all liabilities relating to the individual's use of this material rest with the individual and not with the BBC.  The information must not be used for commercial purposes unless express permission is obtained from the BBC.

If you have any concerns about the publication of information on this web site, please refer to the web site's Policy