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Old 25th Feb 2007, 8:36 pm   #61
Sam
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Default Re: Your best preserved '405' aerial

Been meaning to take this photo for a while. It is on the chimney of the house I am renting. There seem to be a few of these 'K' shaped Aerials around Hinckley. Some seem to have a UHF Aerial in the middle, but I am sure I have seen a Band III Aerial in the centre of one.

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Old 16th Apr 2007, 8:46 pm   #62
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Default Re: Your best preserved '405' aerial

A lovely sunny shot of an installation spotted in Hexham today. Note the folded dipole on the BI aerial.

Cheers,
Brian
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Old 8th May 2007, 6:27 pm   #63
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Default Re: Your best preserved '405' aerial

Seen this weekend in the village of Ruishton, (near Taunton). I've seen several others in Wiveliscombe as well. The house this one is on belongs to an old lady and she has her modern aeriel on the other chinney pot.
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Old 17th May 2007, 4:39 pm   #64
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Default Re: Your best preserved '405' aerial

Here's one I took last week with my camera phone (while trying to fix a Satellite uplink dish mounted on the roof of a four storey building in Dublin) It's - a horizontally polarised 4 elly band 1 - looks like it's aimed at Divis in Belfast
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Old 17th May 2007, 9:50 pm   #65
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Originally Posted by Focus Diode View Post
Impressive Andy! All that for BBC1 alone! I would imagine the fact just about all sets had seperate sockets for VHF and UHF aerials and the complication of different channels/UHF aerial groups in different areas had a lot to do with it.

Brian
I remember when we got our BBC2 aerial installed at our new house (new to us, not brand new) the engineer, Mr Stevens used a VHF - UHF diplexer , so he could use the same downlead which was routed inside the walls - it had a diplexer at the bottom too - It was tuned, as it mattered as to which flylead plugged into which socket - transpoing them didn't work very well - I could never understand why if both signals were present in the downloead, why it wouldn't give a good picture when I fitted a coaxial plug to the downlead and plugged into each input socket in turn - maybe I didn't put th eplug on proerly, as I was only about 10 or so!
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Old 18th May 2007, 10:18 am   #66
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Default Re: Your best preserved '405' aerial

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In the UK I believe one manufacturer brought out a combined BI,III and UHF array, the UHF having horizontal elements of course but didn't seem to catch on.
You mean something like the attached, only horizontal?
(Invercargill is one of the few regions where UHF and VHF are opposite polarisations)
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Old 19th May 2007, 10:05 am   #67
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Default Re: Your best preserved '405' aerial

Not like that Arjol. Most VHF transmitting stations used vertical polarisation with UHF being horizontal. They were exceptions of course, such as North East England which used horizontal polarisation on all VHF and UHF main stations.

I'm sure I have a picture of one of these combined VHF/UHF aerials somewhere, I'll have a look for it and upload it.

Cheers,
Brian
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Old 20th May 2007, 3:08 pm   #68
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Default Re: Your best preserved '405' aerial

If you simply rotate Arjoll's aerial through 90º, would that not be the same thing?
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Old 20th May 2007, 9:47 pm   #69
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Default Re: Your best preserved '405' aerial

It would be Dave, but aerials wern't designed like this in the UK, more akin to Louis' images where they tried to squeeze elements between the Band I boom!

Actually I'm beginning to wonder if I got it wrong, getting confused by a BI, II and III combined aerial, the BII VHF radio element(s) being horizontal? My sincere apologies if this is the case.

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Old 25th May 2007, 2:52 pm   #70
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Default Re: Your best preserved '405' aerial

I promised... here my some snapshots under last sad rainy sunday in the north-west of Nantes. I named my pics so that you can see on a map, where these aerials are, and how far away they are from TDF Haute-Goulaine transmitter (about 15 kms in the South-East of Nantes).
Because there are many pics (I made some closeups of VHF-UHF connections on combo aerials, from the original high resolution snapshots), I'm sending them in many separate posts. I hope that this won't give problems to our dear moderators...

As you can see, most of these aerials much suffered from the wind and age, but curiously, the conspicuous band I models look like better surviving than their old UHF counterparts... Probably because in the old time, when only VHF was used for TV, the aerials were more seriously built with better materials and better parts fixing.

Louis
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Old 25th May 2007, 3:12 pm   #71
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Default Re: Your best preserved '405' aerial

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...Because there are many pics (I made some closeups of VHF-UHF connections on combo aerials, from the original high resolution snapshots), I'm sending them in many separate posts...

Louis
Funny... Conquereuil village is exactly on the line between TDF Rennes transmitter in Saint-Pern (near Bécherel, about 40 kms in the West of Rennes) and Haute-Goulaine (see previous post), so that when both transmitters are received, the aerials are exactly turning their back on their counterparts.

The bird on the UHF aerial in Fay-de-Bretagne is a blackbird, so you can easily compare its size with the aerial's gamma match.

Note : I once noticed that the gamma match is insulated from the dipole thru a small thin nylon ring inside each end of the gamma match (that was itself named "strap" - in French - by the aerial's dealer when talking with him many years ago).
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Old 25th May 2007, 3:40 pm   #72
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Default Re: Your best preserved '405' aerial

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I...Because there are many pics (I made some closeups of VHF-UHF connections on combo aerials, from the original high resolution snapshots), I'm sending them in many separate posts...

Louis
This type of "director only" aerial was very common in our region, in a radius of circa 40-50 kms around Haute-Goulaine. Perhaps did the aerials dealers obtain better directivity results than with standard " H " aerials with reflector.

I personally think that they were also appreciated for their less conspicuous size, and because they could be easily fixed in places where standard "H" models couldn't be easily oriented (e.g. along walls or chimneys, etc).

Many of these "director only" models still rather well survive here, perhaps because their reduced shape helps to resist strong winds from the ocean...
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Old 25th May 2007, 4:05 pm   #73
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Default Re: Your best preserved '405' aerial

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I promised... here my some snapshots under last sad rainy sunday in the north-west of Nantes...

Louis
Last post for this 50 kms small trip back home last Sunday.
The two last pics attached show an aerial that I had previously photographed with my cell-phone camera only. The house is rather high, so here again - and the bad weather didn't help... It was raining when I took the pic - the details aren't obvious. I however show a closeup of the connection between VHF and UHF items.

I'll try to find other former Band I aerials in my region and I'll post them, and I'll also try to make better pics than these ones... if the sun comes back during a next trip to Conquereuil.

I also attached a map capture of the area involved, so you can better view the aerials types used in relation with the distance from the transmitter (200 meters high mast - formerly 20 kW aka 300 kW ERP band I channel F4v)

Louis
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Old 28th May 2007, 4:19 pm   #74
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Default Re: Your best preserved '405' aerial

Quote:
Originally Posted by ORTF_&_Co View Post
This type of "director only" aerial was very common in our region, in a radius of circa 40-50 kms around Haute-Goulaine. Perhaps did the aerials dealers obtain better directivity results than with standard " H " aerials with reflector.

I personally think that they were also appreciated for their less conspicuous size, and because they could be easily fixed in places where standard "H" models couldn't be easily oriented (e.g. along walls or chimneys, etc).

..
I do computer antenna modelling at work, and although most of the gain and directivity(about 4dB ) is given by the reflector, the supporting mast has almost the same effect as a purpose made reflector, so you are right, this arrangement would save metal, weight (and also cost) and work as well. This wouldn't be true, however, if used without a metallic mast, however, the coaxial cable would atct as a reflector to some extent.
(I keep meaning to start an appropriate thread for modelling the gain and directivity ofold TV aerials, asking for dimensions)-
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Old 28th May 2007, 8:50 pm   #75
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Default Re: Your best preserved '405' aerial

Certainly for UHF the main transmitters are horizontal with vertical for relays with one or two exceptions, Alexandra Palace relay in London as an example.

For VHF most areas used vertical polarisation, exceptions being North East England, East Anglia and the Channel Islands. Other regions with more than one transmitter had both vertical and horizontal polarisation (eg: Border Caldbeck and Richmond Hill were horizontal, Selkirk and Whitehaven were vertical). Certainly the later UHF rule for main=horizontal, relay=vertical didn't apply!

In Yorkshire BBC was indeed ch2 (Holme Moss) and YTV ch10 (Emley Moor), or if Belmont, ch7. YTV was of course Granada until mid 1968 where ch7 transmitted Anglia programmes until mid 1974!

Brian R
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Old 29th May 2007, 9:42 pm   #76
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Default Re: Your best preserved '405' aerial

As a boy I lived in the small village of Coverack on the east coast of the Lizard peninsular. When no one was looking I use to do a regular search of the normally empty channels on our dual standard mono set. During weather lift conditions it was amazing what could be received despite the fact that the 405 line aerials were in the loft. I remember well seeing the 3 way pile up on ch9, ie Croydon, Stockland Hill and Freemont Point. On ch11 we could pick sometimes pick up Southern from Chillerton Down and on ch10 HTV from St Hilary. We could see a rather snowy BBC1 picture on ch1 from Redruth plus the co channel interference from Crystal Palace during lift conditions.
Considering our village was some 40 miles distant from the ITA trannsmitter at Caradon Hill and 60 miles distance from the local BBC transmitter at North Hessary Tor there were very few 405 line aerials to be seen as both signals were so good that nearly everyone in the village could use rather modest loft aerials. However when the 625 line service opened from Caradon Hill almost everybody had to use high gain uhf aerials mounted high on their rooftops. As you can imagine this did cause a few grumbles.
I was in Bath today and have noticed that there are now even fewer intact 405 line aerial arrays. Most of the surviving old Wenvoe/St Hilary arrays are looking rather sad with the course of time taking there toll.
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Old 10th Jun 2007, 8:57 pm   #77
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Default Re: Your best preserved '405' aerial

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I'm sure I have a picture of one of these combined VHF/UHF aerials somewhere, I'll have a look for it and upload it.
Here it is, from Antiference! From Wireless World September 1964.

Brian R
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Old 15th Jun 2007, 10:16 pm   #78
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Default Re: Your best preserved '405' aerial

Ok, here's another one from Ireland, this time, Waterford City, in the South East. Anyone care to speculate on what Transmitters they were aimed at? The lowest band III yagi is aimed at Mt Leinster's RTE transmitter. the others at Wales or possibly Cornwall - the bearings are quite close together from here.
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Old 19th Jun 2007, 9:45 am   #79
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Default Re: Your best preserved '405' aerial

Here's a beautifully preserved BI & III aerial seen at Hexham yesterday. They are seperate and are attached via nuts and bolts!
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Old 28th Jun 2007, 7:26 pm   #80
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Default Re: Your best preserved '405' aerial

Here are two from an estate of 1930s council houses in North Oxford.

I've got no idea what they are (or even if they are for '405')

Nick.
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