A Eng Funds no.21 September 1988

Another BBC photo from a couple of decades ago! There's me in the back row. Mark Chambers (rear left) and I shared a flat - he worked in OBs at Kendal Avenue. Tim Cowin (between me and Mark) worked in Radio and Jim Binks (below Tim) now works at EMS.
Anyone else you know?

Electronics Graphics area from 1991

I was going through some old photos from work - this is BBC White City's first electronic graphics suite - you can see a couple of original series Quantel Paintboxes (the 6U one with the brown front panel that looked like every other Quantel box of the eighties!), Sony DXC3000 camera (their first broadcast CCD model), Questech Charisma (two channels, IIRC - not the curvy effect model), Abekas A64 disk recorder (sixty seconds of video!), Ampex Ace 200 edit controller, three BetaSP decks and a Revox 1/4" tape machine.
This was the first area I had a hand in - possibly my start in Systems Integration. We had the DVE, Quantels and A64 hooked up to each other over a 4x4 601 matrix - 8 bit digital video over 25-pin D-types so it was possible to do lossless bouncing between those gadgets.

Simon & Emily's baby girl is here!

Born today at 09:30, 3.1Kg - congratulations to both of them!

Snowy day - London grinds to a halt!

Only a couple of us made it into the office - I walked from home, hour and a half door to door (I took this picture as I passed Euston) and probably the nicest commute ever! People were very cheery and the silence that snow brings is lovely. All three of my kids were very excited as their schools are closed and they're off to the Heath to go sledging.

My first week at the Beeb

Check out my turn-ups and white socks (it was the eighties, after all!) - I'm the forth one from the left sitting down and looking nervous!

The Wrekin and other transmitters

ON Wenlock Edge the wood’s in trouble
His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves;
The gale, it plies the saplings double,
And thick on Severn snow the leaves.

I few years ago I took the kids climbing up The Wrekin in Telford. When we got to the top we found the Wrekin transmitter which serves Shropshire and a lot of the Welsh borders. I remember as a teenager being puzzled that the picture on my parent's new TV was so bad when I could see this mast from my bedroom window. It wasn't until (having unplugged the Belling-Lee connector from the back of the TV) I tried a small PO-1 screwdriver and got perfect pictures I discovered how demodulators in TVs can be over-driven! A 24dB RF pad sorted out our problem.

Anyway - although I only did a couple of weeks in transmitters during my BBC training in the eighties I did find it immensely interesting and so you can learn a bit more at the MB21 website.

London at night, aerial pictures

Not technical - but some great photos of my beloved home town!

Edit suite at Channel Five

This is one of the dozen or so we recently put in at five - many thanks to their senior engineer Stuart for these pics.

A trip down misery lane

Here are a few pictures from the original install of Oasis Television's building on Great Pulteney Street. Remember when edit suites cost £500k and had many pieces of equipment that all had to talk to each other! I'm the fresh-faced chap on the right of the sofa and the other chap is my old mucker Chris Clegg. The other reprebates were my wiring team - Amos and Jim are still in the industry and Tony (on the right) is sitting behind me in the workshop today! Both of us have more grey hair now.

You know you're getting old when.....

You take your nine year-old to the Science Museum for the day and you see half a dozen bits of software and equipment in glass cabinets that you used to work on or fix during your career!


Here is an Ampex AVR1 2" video recorder - although we didn't have this model at the Beeb we did have AVR1000s. You can also see an Apple 2, a ZX80 and a copy of Windows 3.11

They also have Technics 1210s and a Phillips 1700 series VCR. On the right is a Cray-1 which looks like a masterpiece of engineering. It is well worth a visit and the have a whole gallery dedicated to telecomunications. I would have spent the day in there but for two nine year-old who wanted to see the rocket show!

Resolution goes bust

It seems that every facility I've ever worked for has gone bankrupt! There is normally a few years separating my departure and their going under but the last facility I ran engineering at went under yesterday. Here is a nice picture of their OB truck and the last big project I did for them.
In this photo it is being crane'd into the premesis that was Fame Academy.

So, in reverse order;

• Carlton (later Corinthian) Broadcast Facilities - my tenure; 1993/94, went bust; 2005
  
• Oasis Television - my tenure; 1994/99, went bust; 2006
  
• Resolution Post Group - my tenure; 1999/2002, went bust; 2007
  

So, Mr Facility Owner - don't employ Crawley if you value your business!

Tour De France from the London Eye

The Tour De France started in London and we got to see the start of it from the London Eye - courtesy of Root6. Thanks to Mark for this photo (he was in a different pod) - it's me and my youngest, James.

Microsoft Research Group Shot

Group Shot helps you create a perfect group photo out of a series of group photos. With Group Shot you can select your favorite parts in each shot of the series and Group Shot will automatically build a composite image. This image was made up from three taken at Sarah's folks' on Christmas day - in one image one of the kids is making a silly face, but in another Brenda has a nice smile - it took about ten minutes to build the composite image. I know you can do this sort of thing in Photoshop but this automates the process entirely. I haven't played about with it much but the examples online suggest that they don't even have to be very similair so long as there are common details the algorithm can find.

Bah, humbug!

Despite Simon Hoggart's critique of the round robin newsletter we keep plugging away trying to make one that will inform, educate and entertain. Actually I sympathise with Mr. Hoggart's view - you do see some excellent examples of child-centred boasting around this time of year!
Anyhow - you can have a look at ours here - it's a PDF.

Holiday in Cornwall

I'm currently returning from the family vacation - see my photo blog for some nice pictures of what is Britain's most beautiful region.

Joe playing in the East Barnet Festival

Sarah took these photos of Joe's school jazz group playing - in case you can't tell they are doing their own arrangement of Herbie Hancock's Watermelon man - more like the one off "Head Hunters" rather than "Takin' Off".

Photos of my new Mac

For that "out of the box" experience - Rupert & Gee look on admiringly!

Nearly there! - Ah, normality is restored!

Hanover/Hamburg confusion & GPS receivers

I had to go to DVS in Hanover last year here and due to a bit of travel confusion arrived at the wrong airport! Thankfully the GPS in the hire-car got us the few hundred kilometers without incident and at that point I realised how cool it was. The unit in the BMW was running Destinator and it was really usable. Over the weekend I noticed that MicroDirect had the Packard Bell GPS400 on special at £124!
It arrived yesterday and after the obligatory update to latest firmware I took it out for a spin. It works really well with a loud clear voice and accurate navigation. Version 5.5 brings proper postcode entry as well as faster lock (it never dropped below seven satellites locked - it needs four to maintain accurate positioning). The 3D map is a joy to use and I think with the decent accessory kit it represents brilliant value for money.
Another good thing is that (being just a Windows CE PDA - 266Mhz StrongARM processor) you can install alternative navigation packages. TomTom 5 works well (apparently) as does OziExplorer. It also has the obligatory MP3 player and Photo viewer but I'll not be wasting any time with those!

the view from my room

the view from my room,
originally uploaded by -Ant-.

I saw this on Flickr - taken on a Russian Lomo camera - I was very taken with it's early-evening feel.

The new Root6 workshop

We're about to open a new Systems Integration workshop in Primrose Hill, north London. See it on the Google Maps. On the Satellite image it is the long structure in the centre of the picture. If you click the title of this entry it is a little video I shot on my 'phone of the place - it needs decorating!
Camden have one of those 360 degree interactive photos on the web here.

Some pictures from Christmas

These are all from my telephone - for pics taken on a proper camera the link is to our photo blog.

Isla Guagalupe, Mexico, part 2

After a couple of days in San Diego having meetings about parking links trucks etc. I finally got to go to Mexico - our fixer took us as far as the tiny military airfield in Encelada (an hour south of Tijuana - the border town near San Diego) where we got on a Cesna 104 that flew us the two-hundred miles to the island. We made a couple of passes of the airstrip and noticed the wrecked remains of other aircraft at either end! It is a very basic facility - just a dirt track big enough to land on. On landing we were met by some folks who work as conservationists (the Mexican government recently declared the island a nature reserve). We borrowed their truck and went about five miles inland (it took an hour! Very rough terain). Then we had to hike across very rough terrain (it is a volcanic island) for a couple of hours. Fortunately the Mexicans had come around the other way with a quad bike and so I was able to make it to within a few hundred metres of the beach.

Once on the beach (half an hour down a very steep ravine) I was able to take a couple of GPS readings (you gotta be able to see the bird if you're going to get pictures back to London!) and take a few photos.
If you want to see a few more pics from the day look at my photo blog (link in the right hand bar). What an adventure - I hope the show all comes together now - it'll be called Shark Watch on Channel Five in October.

I have to say I really enjoyed being with the various Americans and Mexicans - incredibly hospitable and friendly - they wanted to talk about Manchester United and Arsenal! I have been on other recces in the UK and found them to be lonely, uptight experiences but these guys made it a joy.

Isla Guagalupe, Mexico




So, I have to go away this weekend to recce this location for a show that will be on Channel Five in October - it looks really remote - 250 miles off the Mexican coast with only goats for company! I'll be going to San Diego on Thursday and then heading down Mexico way to get a light plane to the island. I'll post a load of photos on my picture blog (see the right hand links bar).

Guadalupe Island on Wikipedia
An Oceanic Wonder

This is a nice pic that Sarah found online - I'm quite looking forward to it!