Photos by Martin Fenton, no reproduction without permission.
Martin took these photos at BBC Pebble Mill in 2003.
The first photo is of the radio Studio 3 dead room CCTV. Exterior scenes, of The Archers were recorded in this acoustically dead room, linked to the control room via this black-and-white CCTV camera.
When DAB started, this CCTV circuit caused problems. We received a helpful letter from a lifelong Archers fan, whose dog had started to bark uncontrollably whenever there was a scene set outdoors. It was the flyback from the CCTV monitor, which had previously been truncated on VHF but came through loud and clear on DAB for those creatures able to hear it…
The second photo is of the ‘soft’ area of the dead room, with the third photo being of the ‘hard’ area.