Early Cable Television

[Wendymott]

In the sixties I worked for Smiths TV shop in Ilkey, West Yorks. Rank had a Band 1 coax system in the town, but decided it was "not viable" and was going to shut it down.
The local council requested Mr Smith to take on the system, which he did, thankfully.
At that time the amps were valve "Teleng", 50V AC line powered, with isolating boxes and "tappers" into the coax. BBC2 was added on channel "R1". The system was being updated continually, with Thorn transistor amps and more RF converters, eventually ITV being sent down on CH 5 and CH10. The "subs" were one shilling a week (5p) and an army of collectors called each fortnight, even then there were some cut off in arrears.
Otley, my home town had a BRW "British relay Wireless" radio system, which was upgraded to Multicore system for TV. I remember listening to BBC1 sound just above 2 Mhz on my 19 set.
After the Wharfedale relay transmitter came into service, overnight the relay in both Otley and Ilkley were closed down.