Thanks to Stuart Gandy for sharing this photo of the Comms Centre at Pebble Mil. It probably dates from the early noughties. The Comms Centre handled all the radio and vision circuits coming in and out of BBC Pebble Mill.
The photo was first shared on the Pebble Mill Engineers Facebook group.
The following comments were added on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:
Malcolm Hickman: ‘Dear departed Graham Todd and I were attached to P&ID to build that. Probel supplied the routing system but didn’t appreciate what we wanted. Took 2 man years of programming effort of get it right.’
Andy Marriott: ‘I loved working there. My first proper job in the BBC. I’m going to hazard a guess that it’s towards the end of its life. Certainly post 2001 which is when I left. The old DOS mode CBIS machine appears to have gone from the right of the desk and there appears to be an LCD screen on the left that I don’t remember being there. Interestingly the left bank of Trilogy panels appear to be missing, could they have possibly been taken for use in the Mailbox? Which would put us squarely in 2004.’
Andy Walters: ‘WMs transmitter lines and the inter local radio programme sharing circuits and control systems​ went through there too along with those for network radio.’
Richard Taylor: ‘And the Energis distribution system and Digital TV, both 601 for the studios (those bays are in the background left) and ‘Freeview’ or DTT as it was then. The BBC1 DTT off airs can be seen to the left of the desk displays. BBC2 was to the right. I suspect it was close to 2003? Best desk I ever worked on and I include London Switching Centre and Cardiff CC. And it’s tidy, so can’t have been taken on my shift!’