British Relay.

[Murphyv310]

Hi.
There has been an interesting video on You Tube for some time about British Relay in the 60's.
They were in the forefront of low frequency relay TV and had plans for Pay TV long before Virgin and Sky.
The video itself was to promote the company but some of the footage is from Dundee and Ayr, one of the terraces was from my own area of work in Ayr during 1974 just before I left to go to Clydesdale.
You will see the M19/11 viewing units that were based on the Murphy V659, some Pye viewing units too.
Certainly a good few memories for me as I served my time with them.
See the video here
https://youtu.be/ltI09lTuGjk

[peter scott]

Interesting film. How did the quality of these cable systems compare with good aerial systems? Bandwidth, crosstalk between channels etc.

Peter

[Murphyv310]

Hi Peter.
On 405 the system was excellent. Full bandwidth no crosstalk and of course no interference.
625 line colour was a different kettle of fish with colour casts and chroma brake through. It eventually was it's demise.

[Geordie McBoyne]

The Rediffusion cable 405 line TV system differed in many respects from the British Relay CATV system.   In the two channel Rediffusion TDUK2 system the vision carriers were distributed in the tete-beche method.
One channel had a vision carrier frequency of 4.95Mhz operating on the upper sideband.
The other channel had a carrier frequency of 8.45Mhz operating on the lower sideband.
Sound was sent at loudspeaker level.
I believe in the British Relay system one the vision carriers was as low as 3.5Mhz.
Because of the very low carrier frequencies full wave vision demodulators were employed.  Channel section on British Relay TV sets was accomplished by a control on the TV receiver just like an aerial set.   With Rediffusion wired TV channel selection was by means of a wall mounted switch unit.
Were  similar cable TV systems operated by other firms?

Geordie McBoyne.

[Geordie McBoyne]

From the Murphy Radio financial report of June 1953.
The report clearly indicates that that British Relay was an associated company.

Geordie McBoyne.

[AlanBeckett]

Fancy having Money in the Bank - shocking.
No great pile of 'Debt' and not permanently operating on the ragged edge of insolvency.

Alan

[Murphyv310]

This explains the reason most of the station equipment was made by Murphy and the predominantly Murphy range of sets.