The Transmitter Crisis

Abstract

Greatly complicating and confusing the problems which beset the Authority and the companies was the stark fact that the transmitting intentions with which the Authority began had to be abandoned as unworkable after the lapse of several months, and replaced by a wholly different policy which had to be worked out from scratch. On the best available engineering advice, and following much exploratory work done in the Post Office, the Authority had hoped to reach an agreement with the BBG for its transmitters to be installed beside theirs and for its aerial arrays to be accommodated on their masts. Months of negotiation with the BBG ensued. It was only in December 1954 that it was revealed by discussions between the engineers of both sides that the BBC’S masts were structurally incapable of accommodating the types of aerials which the Authority needed in order to carry the power necessary to provide coverage in Band HI equivalent to that already being obtained by the BBC in Band 1.