Holme Moss service area.

[colly0410]

After reading the very interesting 'Alexadra Palace service area' thread I thought I'd start this one on Holme Moss. I'm presuming channel 2 was almost as good as channel 1 for for reception distance & went far coast to coast. I could receive HM in Nottingham northern outskirts with a Sutton Coldfield channel 4 aerial, bit snowy though. I understand it was received in the Irish republic, whether that was on a regular basis or lift conditions I don't know. I've heard that on the Lincolnshire coast they had big problems with co-channel interference, I lived in Skeggy around 1961 & remember the strange noises & patterning on BBC..

[MALC SCOTT]

It was possible to get Ch2 up here in Co Durham during certain weather conditions. Came in loud and clear, Malc.

[Hybrid tellies]

If you look on the MB21 site then go to info you will see under analogue television VHF 405 lines details of the BBC transmitter network, There you will find the coverage map of the BBC TV Holme Moss ch2 transmitter. Being the highest of all the UK sites it did cover a large part of northern England coast to coast plus large parts of north Wales.
The only fly in the ointment was during Sporadic E openings when its coverage, and that of other ch2 transmitters, could be reduced somewhat due to high levels of co channel interference from other European TV networks especially during the summer months.

[paulsherwin]

It certainly used to get to Dublin. Back in the 80s, a journey on the DART towards Bray would pass dozens and dozens of huge band I arrays pointing at HM. These were the biggest domestic aerial installations I've ever seen with big guyed masts. They're all gone now.

[Nuvistor]

We were in a strong signal area for Holme Moss channel 2 so co-channel interference did not trouble us very much.
HM definitely had a large service area, in the 60's I remember being a pub in Windemere and BBC1 was on the TV with a nice amount of snow on the screen. I don't know what the aerial was but quite a few 3 element aerial about. It's possible that the set was not giving its best, low emmision RF amp, poor downlead etc but it was watchable.
Frank

[grampy2]

Used to get HM in 1954 in south of Sheffield distance about 18 miles,inverted V antenna in loft (home made) feeding a Pye V4 through about 25 ft of twisted lighting flex,it reproduced test card C to about the 2.5 Mc/s bars without ghosting or interference!!!.

[KeithsTV]

We used to receive Holme Moss in Bangor in the early 70s along with Winter Hill with the Welsh services from Llanddona and Arfon.

Keith

[ms660]

Granada (Manchester) used to say goodnight in both English and Welsh...Nos Da (plus something else that I can't quite remember)

Lawrence.

[grampy2]

Phonetically "goodnight" in presumably Irish which is the third bit said sounded like "ecky va" to my teenage ears.

[stevehertz]

I want to see geographical field strength charts - like the AP one!

[colly0410]

I'd speculate that Holme Moss had the biggest band 1 footprint in the world, also read that a New Zealand TX that carried TV 1 & 2 on band 1 claims the same. I'm thinking the lower bandwidth of system A (405 lines system) would help it go further than system B, (625 lines) others will probably have other views..

[Nuvistor]

No doubt the narrow bandwidth helped the early sets that had less gain and higher noise factors than the frame grid valves that arrived in the 60's, PCC89, EF183/184.
Frank

[1955APREN]

here in Mkt Drayton we used to stock a ch 2 X type for the few who liked BBC north better than S/C midlands. The HM signal was weaker then S/C ch 4. One of these customers next door neighbour in 1969 installed a thorn 3000 colour tv, this caused a problem for ch 2 HM signal 2 rope effects down the screen when the colour tv was on. A slight improvement was made when the aerial leads were moved further apart. Customer did not need a UHF aerial as at that time he did not watch BBC 2 and insisted that he should have BBC1 HM. Problem was solved by a Thorn TLO who a mark two power supply which cleared the fault. A small bead was fitted on the base terminal of the chopper transistor original power supply was refitted to the 3000 and all was well.
Regards Derrick

[colly0410]

When my car radio is on BBC Radio 2 it switch's between 88.3 (Sutton Coldfield) & 89.3 (Holme Moss) all the time, & when I go to East Notts it even go's to 88.8 (Belmont) now & again..

[stevehertz]

But can you get BBC1 on it? I bet not

[Synchrodyne]

Originally Posted by stevehertz

I want to see geographical field strength charts - like the AP one!

The attached map might help - no more detail than on the mb21 map (http://tx.mb21.co.uk/info/405/bbc/holme-moss.shtml) but perhaps a little easier to read.

Cheers,

[PaulM]

Thanks for posting the map - it suddenly brought back a long forgotten memory of being a child of maybe 8 or 9, going round our housing estate in Scunthorpe logging TV aerial types on squared paper against road name/house number. It sure beat train spotting! I think that I may still have the loose-bound booklet that I created - actually quite an interesting record now if I could find it. The odd gaps on the roof tops were down to a comprehensive wired Rediffusion service with very thick cables strung on all of the houses. Very few people took the service as everywhere was festooned with ironmongery. I especially loved the exotic combined Band I/III/IV creations that some people had to show that they could receive the 'posh' new BBC2!

Curiously, Scunthorpe isn't on the map, despite being much larger than Gainsborough and the same size as Lincoln. No wonder nobody knows where it is . . .

Cheers,

Paul M

[Synchrodyne]

Originally Posted by colly0410

I'd speculate that Holme Moss had the biggest band 1 footprint in the world, also read that a New Zealand TX that carried TV 1 & 2 on band 1 claims the same. I'm thinking the lower bandwidth of system A (405 lines system) would help it go further than system B, (625 lines) others will probably have other views..

That New Zealand transmitter was probably Te Aroha, which carried TV1 on channel NZ1 (44-51 MHz) and TV2 on channel NZ3 (61-68 MHz). It has a something like a 120 metre tower atop a 950 metre mountain peak, and has service areas to both its west (Hamilton/Waikato) and its east (Tauranga/Bay of Plenty). I can’t find a service area map for the TV transmitters, but have attached the RNZ Concert FM map, whose footprint one should expect to be a bit smaller than that for the Band I TV case.

Of course, the site’s elevation was a big factor in its reach, which in most directions was probably limited by the presence of hills, although perhaps in the case of the southern lobe, it was the earth’s curvature that was limiting.

Still, the effect of elevation was brought home to me back in 1964 when I visited the Auckland TV transmitter at Waiatarua, at something a bit under 400 metres elevation. At that time the new 100 kW erp transmitter and 120-metre tower were under construction, with the interim 10 kW transmitter and 27-metre tower still in use. Te Aroha at the time had a 1 kW erp interim transmitter and a 27-metre tower, and was operated as a relay (off-air, I think) of the Auckland transmitter. At Waiatarua was a channel NZ1 aerial (around 4 elements) aimed at Te Aroha and an associated domestic receiver used as a simple check that Te Aroha was on-air. Its picture was virtually indistinguishable from that on an adjacent receiver which had an Auckland channel NZ2 feed, apart from occasional impulse interference. (I imagine that the 3 MHz gap between channels NZ1 and NZ2 helped minimize upper adjacent channel interference to Te Aroha reception.)

I’d expect that, pari passu, System A would go a bit further than System B, partly because of its lower bandwidth, and partly because System B, with its negative vision modulation, would probably run into synchronizing difficulties from impulse interference a bit earlier than System A, with its positive modulation.

Cheers,

[paulsherwin]

Originally Posted by 1955APREN

here in Mkt Drayton we used to stock a ch 2 X type for the few who liked BBC north better than S/C midlands. The HM signal was weaker then S/C ch 4. One of these customers next door neighbour in 1969 installed a thorn 3000 colour tv, this caused a problem for ch 2 HM signal 2 rope effects down the screen when the colour tv was on. A slight improvement was made when the aerial leads were moved further apart. Customer did not need a UHF aerial as at that time he did not watch BBC 2 and insisted that he should have BBC1 HM. Problem was solved by a Thorn TLO who a mark two power supply which cleared the fault. A small bead was fitted on the base terminal of the chopper transistor original power supply was refitted to the 3000 and all was well.
Regards Derrick

When I was a kid in Stoke there were serious playground arguments (and even fights) between people whose parents used C2/9 and C4/8. When UHF arrived there was huge disgruntlement in the northern part of the city when the new Fenton relay was allocated to BBC Midlands / ATV. In the 90s there was a serious dispute as to whether the new Leek relay should carry Granada or Central (it eventually carried Central).

[crusher19860138]

There are still some examples of Band 1 aerials around the Black Country,at the top of the hill by me in Stourbridge,I have it on good authority by an old TV engineer that HM was receivable there.