Morse interference on old BBC tapes

[G4YVM David]

This is an odd one. I like listening to the old BBC recordings of Hancocks Half hour but this morning, in my car, listening to The Stolen Petrol from 1957 I heard the distinct sounds of Morse code over the audio.

The recording is here https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/play/b007jrry

And if you listen to the latter half of the recording you will hear what sounds like the scratchy crackle of interference on a radio station. Specifically at 19:54 you will sear som, but there is a lot of it. On my PC it is not so clear but in the car which has a different audio balance it is quite distinct. As I was driving I couldn't concentrate too hard so couldn't make out whether there were callsigns, but I certainly copied a few letters.

I downloaded it direct from the BBC iplayer so it has come from their end.

Let me know what you think

David

[paulsherwin]

Maybe it's been recovered from a domestic off air recording.

[unixmanuk]

I'd agree with Paul - the audio quality suggests a direct off-air recording.

The interference would be of a different magnitude if you tried to do that these days on MW with broadband, TV's, computers and thermostats to contend with.

[turretslug]

I'm sure I can remember as a kid hearing faint, slightly ghostly Morse in the background of AM transmissions sometimes- perhaps breakthrough from marine transmissions around the IF frequency, or translated into the IF passband by oscillator harmonics mixing with HF morse, or just possibly marine VLF Morse breaking into sensitive but inadequately screened AF stages? Quite a few archived recordings were domestically recorded off-air finds, the BBC seems sometimes to have been a little naive and/or careless about scrubbing recordings of historically significant or commercially useful programme material!

[G4YVM David]

Interesting. I wish I could alter the audio and drop Mr H so that I could hear the CW. As it is, Mr H is too funny...a great episode.

Thanks guys

D

[Hartley118]

If the recordings were made from AM radio, it's likely that they suffered from the ever-present problem of bias oscillator interference. That usually appeared as an annoying beat with the station carrier, but it's equally likely that beats could occur between bias frequency harmonics and other stations, whether long wave DF beacons or short wave CW transmissions.

Martin

[AC/HL]

There are a few airways NDBs in the general vicinity of IF frequencies. Does the Morse repeat itself?

[G4YVM David]

Its not NDB morse for sure. I've heard enough of those. This is faster, its comms CW like amateur or commercial. I'll try to get a few letters, but it is not easy copy.

D

[G6Tanuki]

I remember hearing CW 'image' interference when trying to listen to '208' [Luxembourg] on a cheap tranny - the CW was clearly there but because there was nothing to provide a beat, it only led to background thumps as the transitions between CW-present and CW-absent 'pumped' the AGC.

[hannahs radios]

Back in the 80s I remember something similar interfering with Laser 558 interesting it was a problem on my ghetto blaster but not on a cheap tranny I had at the time. Also slightly off topic I have some recordings of BBC Radio One where you can in a few quiet parts hear very faint opera! Possibly the Romanian station in Iasi (1053 Kc/s 1000 kW) or Austria 0.05 kW unlikely to be that one though.

[Ted Kendall]

Originally Posted by paulsherwin

Maybe it's been recovered from a domestic off air recording.

Not half it wasn't, and by yours truly.

The recovery of Hancock's Half Hour, like The Goon Show, involves domestic recordings where the broadcast-quality sources for an episode are incomplete or missing. In the case of The Stolen Petrol, there was a pretty ghastly multi-generation domestic copy which was the best available until the BBC's Treasure Hunt in the early 2000s turned up a 3 3/4 ips half track recording whose provenance we never quite nailed down - possibly recorded near a military base, because there was all sorts of odd interference on it, including CW transmissions and things that sounded a bit like radar.

When I first did the restoration, I was confined to notch filters, declicking and dehissing. This didn't quite eliminate the CW transmissions, but the technolgy didn't allow anything better at the time. BBC7 probably are still using this first restoration. My final version, which appears in one of the Hancock Collectibles boxed sets, makes extensive use of CEDAR Retouch to take out every last beep, and used another recording I had acquired in the meantime to repair some big dropouts.

This took about a week, but it was worth it - I agree that this is one of the funniest episodes of the lot.

[hannahs radios]

How do you play the recording? Can't see a start button

[paulsherwin]

Thanks for the info Ted. I suspected you might have had a hand in it. I wondered why whoever did the restoration had left the morse and other interference in place, but if it was done some time ago then that would explain it.

[G4YVM David]

Ah, many thanks for the clarification! It's nice to actually 'meet' the guy who did it!! Thank you

David

[G4YVM David]

Originally Posted by hannahs radios

How do you play the recording? Cant see a start button

Hmmm,

Bottom left of the screen is a huge play button...maybe you haven't paid your licence fee!! They know, you know!!

[The Philpott]

Well I never. Hats off to you Ted. Any episode that features Sid and Snide (KW) has a head start quality-wise.

The quality is fine, if the voices are crisp I never let a bit of break-through bother me. This reminds me a little of listening to various stations on LW as a kid. There always seemed to be stray signals especially in the evenings.

One of my (genuine BBC!) audio cassettes has all the signs of being taken from vinyl, and skips over the bit in The East Cheam Drama festival where Hattie shoots Bill (Jack) to claim on his life insurance. It's actually no better in quality than my own vinyl 12" (although this episode was abridged in order to fit on the record) 'You'd better take the needle off now, or it'll hit that little bit that pokes up through the middle..'

Dave

[G4YVM David]

Ted, since you were there...a quick question for you.
In that episode Hattie plays a rather posh lass, the wife of one Bernard, at the petrol pumps but she asks for just two gallons. When 'The Lad' offers her more she says " no, we can only afford two, now Bernard isn't pulling the money in like he used to".

This was clearly a joke on some character or other at the time...but who? Can you remember who Bernard was? Obviously a public figure of the day who had, for some reason, dropped out of favour. The audience loved it.

David

[Ted Kendall]

Some of the early BBC issues were not done with the requisite care, let us say...but that sort of thing provided a chance for me to do it properly. That particular issue was done nearly thirty years ago.

"Bernard" is Sir Bernard Docker, lately ousted as chairman of BSA. His nemesis was Norah, Lady Docker, whose taste for vulgar displays of wealth would turn heads even today. Aside from extravagances of dress and lifestyle, every Motor Show for several years featured a new "Docker Daimler", a luxury barouche appointed and finished in accordance with the good Lady's latest whim. BSA owned Daimler at the time, and the combination of this hubris and a business downturn prompted Beranard Docker's removal.

[Nymrod121]

As Ian G4JQT will testify, there was a time when Radio Canada International were broadcasting episodes of Hancock's Half-Hour on HF from Sackville, also via Daventry. The main feed came into UK via cable to Bush House; from there it went to the BBC Monitoring Service's principal receiving site at Crowsley Park. After audio processing and parallelling with a reserve HF off-air feed from Sackville (right-hand side of the routeing desk in the attached pic) it went back to Bush House then onwards to Daventry.

The cable audio bandwidth was poor (easily less than 5kHz) but at least there were no RF artifacts such as those mentioned earlier in this thread. Sometimes my shift rota involved 'VoA/RCI relay room' duties which provided an opportunity to surreptitiously record Hancock from the RCI cable feed on reel-to-reel for playback at a more convenient (i.e. Shift Supervisor out of earshot!) occasion.

This all came to an abrupt end when - "allegedly" - some BBC internal legal zealot realised that RCI (CBC if you prefer) hadn't or weren't paying any royalties/fees ...

I wonder if this episode had been recorded off-air by someone close to Daventry (or possibly Sackville) - ?

Best wishes
Guy

[Ted Kendall]

Originally Posted by Nymrod121

I wonder if this episode had been recorded off-air by someone close to Daventry (or possibly Sackville) - ?

Well, Radio Canada is out, as this episode was not issued by Transcription Service. Besides, the bandwidth is better than 5k. Best guess is domestic transmission recorded near a military establishment.