Steve Harris – Page 2 – What Was Pebble Mill?

CMCR9 Reconstruction

Photographs from John Ellis, copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission.

Here are some photos from the reconstruction last week (May 17-19th 2016) of the restored outside broadcast truck, CMCR9 (Pebble Mill’s original CM1, and later Manchester’s North3). The shoot was organised by Royal Holloway, University of London’s, ADAPT project. The project is staging reconstructions with different pieces of now defunct television production equipment. The outside broadcast is by far the most ambitious reconstruction yet. The recreation was of a darts match. There were obvious some technical issues to be tackled – but the broadcast was a success.

The OB truck was restored by enthusiast, Steve Harris.

The following comments were left on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:

Keith Brook (Scouse): ‘Oh, great to see some of the old cameras. Worked on all of those. The Emmy was by far the best studio and OB camera in its time. But the Pye/Phillips LDK3 (if my memory serves me well) was great for golf because you could choose which colour to look at. White ball on dark sky. Oops, just given a secret away!’

Marty Johnston: ‘Keith, you’re absolutely right about the LDK and how we had the output of the ‘red’ tube fed to the ext. V/F. That was a well kept secret until now! Also, I fully agree that the 2001 was the best all-round camera. It was often described as a ‘cameraman’s camera’. The only time I didn’t like the EMIs was when we had to carry them!’

Keith Brook: ‘Marty, you’ve just admitted another secret. If the Emmy was too heavy, it’s because you carried it with the lens still inside!! Tut, tut. However, we all did it to save time on the derig and get to the pub/club!!’

North 3 Outside Broadcast – press release

Photo by Steve Harris, no reproduction without permission

(Here is a press release about the reconstruction of a recording by the OB truck North 3, which was Pebble Mill’s original CM1)

“NORTH 3” TEAM TO TAKE TELEVISION BACK IN TIME

A team of television historians will travel back in time as they bring a vintage BBC outside broadcast truck back to life in North Wales.

Working with Flintshire-based broadcasting history enthusiast Steve Harris, the team from Royal Holloway University of London will reunite veteran cameramen, directors and engineers with North 3, a restored colour mobile control room.

North 3 travelled the length and breadth of the country during the 1970s, relaying live footage of Royal Ascot, The Open from St Andrews and the Royal Variety Performance from the London Palladium.

It ended its life with the BBC in the early 1980s, and spent several decades decaying at an airfield in Devon, before being rescued and restored by Hawarden-based television historian Steve Harris.

Now researchers from Royal Holloway are about to embark on a hugely ambitious “hands on” history event during which a full outside broadcast crew will be re-united with the restored vehicle to recreate a 1970s sports television production.

The experiment, which will take place next week (May 17, 18, 19) will be the first time that anyone has attempted to see the restored North 3 operational and staffed by its original crew. The vehicle, an analogue ancestor of today’s digital satellite outside broadcast trucks, is the only survivor of its type in working order.

Working with Steve Harris, the team from Royal Holloway have located a full team of former outside broadcast camera operators and engineers. For first time in several decades, they will be reunited with North 3 and re-live the experiences of their earlier careers.

Using restored 1970s television technology, the team will record a darts match and conduct interviews with former television production personnel. The exercise will help the Royal Holloway team, led by Prof John Ellis of the college’s Media Arts department, to learn more about how television was made in the 1970s and 1980s.

Prof Ellis said: “Television has seen vast technological changes since the 1960s, and some of the greatest changes have taken place in outside broadcasts. Our work with North 3 will help to document technologies and ways of working from the heroic age of television, which are now at risk of being forgotten.”

Digital producer Amanda Murphy, who is organising and directing the event, said: “When we met with Steve Harris last November and decided to take on the challenge of getting North 3 operational with as full a crew as possible, neither of us could have quite imagined quite the enormity of the task. The phone rings daily with old technicians asking: ‘Are we serious? Are we mad?’”

The complexity of the event means that it will not be open to the public, but footage and interviews from the event will be uploaded to YouTube during the week.

Prof John Ellis

Here is the link to a blog about the project, from producer Amanda Murphy: http://www.adapttvhistory.org.uk/north-3-outside-broadcast/

The following comment was left on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:

Nigel Sizer: ‘One interesting fact about OB trucks of this vintage is that many carried a steel tray about 4ft square on runners at the rear. Once parked up, the tray was slid out and put underneath the engine..to catch any oil drips! …’

Malcolm Elliott: ‘It would be nice to get my hands on a PC80 again after so many years… sadly am the other side of the world so would need a very long panning handle! Good luck with the event and would be interested to see who’s on the camera crew.’

CMCR9 Outside Broadcast Re-enactment

Photo by Steve Harris, no reproduction without permission

A re-enactment of the outside broadcast truck above, CMCR9, Pebble Mill’s original CM1 is being organised for May 2016. The team from Royal Holloway, University of London, have so far organised quite a large team of crew who worked on type 2 OB trucks. However, they still need some more people to be involved, including at least one more cameraman, an engineering manager, a PA, and more than anything they need some riggers! If you worked on these type of OB trucks, and might want to get involved, then please add a comment and I will pass on your details to the organisers. The idea is to recreate as far as possible an actual recording with the truck. The recording will be in the North West.

CMCR 9/ North 3 Outings 2014 – Jerry Clegg

Steve Harris with North 3 at Lymm, last year. Copyright resides with the original holder.

North 3 Wins an “Oscar”

The last BBC Type 2 colour scanner still on the road, CMCR9/North 3, has won an award. The Duncan Neale Award for Excellence in Preservation has been awarded by the British Vintage Wireless Society to Steve Harris, the owner of the restored LO5 / Midland / North 3 OB unit CMCR9, which entered service in 1969. Steve’s self-effacing acceptance speech lavished praise on his small team of dedicated volunteers and their multifarious talents, but not mentioned was his own multi-skilled determination without which the North 3 Project would never have got off the ground.

Steve and his team spent the winter getting ready for the new show season and preparing new treats for the visitors. October saw Steve H produce the first pictures for many years from a 44 year old EMI 2001 camera and December saw the first powering-up by Steve Jones of a very rare Philips PC80 camera originally from North 1/CMCR7. Richard Ellis, former Chief Engineer of Pye TVT Ltd has restored to full operation the original Pye sync pulse generators which he designed back in the 60s. This involved finding equivalents and replacing more than 100 discrete transistors.

Meanwhile, Eric Hignett has been building an amazing generator, powered by a Ford Transit diesel engine. In ‘proof of concept’ form, this was a real Heath Robinson affair on a trailer, with a motor-bike silencer and speed maintained by a modified cruise control for a car. It worked and the first run, apart from producing a tremendous amount of noise, delivered 40 amps at 230 volts, which powered three aircon units and other auxilliaries in North 3, all electronics being kept well away from this unproven beast for the test run. Eric went away to scratch his head, refine the design and try to make it produce less noise!

North 3 was booked at the time of writing to take part in the Cheshire Commercial Vehicle Run on 27^th April starting at Lymm Truckstop on the M6. This is a trip of over 100 miles. The first public show this year was at the Llandudno Transport Festival on 3, 4 and 5 May, followed by the Kelsall Steam and Vintage Rally at Kelsall near Tarvin, Cheshire, on 21and 22 June.

Kelsall is a special event for ERF vehicles, originally manufactured at nearby Sandbach, as it marks the 25^th anniversary of the enthusiasts’ club. Steve is hoping to take his latest acquisition, ex-BBC Type 7 scanner LO23, (an ERF E6) to display alongside North 3. Restoration has not yet started, so it will be just as it was when rescued from imminent destruction at a scrap yard following decommissioning by SIS.

Later in the summer we expect North 3 to be at the Wilmslow Show in July and the highlight of the season will be another appearance at the popular Onslow Park Steam Rally near Shrewbury over the August Bank Holiday weekend.

Jerry Clegg

(This article is due for publication in Prospero’s June edition)

The following comment was posted on the Pebble Mill Facebook Page:

Keith Brook (Scouse): ‘Of all my memories of that scanner, I think having so much fun with the riggers was the best. They really were the salt of the earth.’

CMCR9’s Outings 2013 – Jerry Clegg

CMCR9 at Onslow, photo Steve Harris

CMCR9’s cameras at Onslow, photo by Steve Harris

The restored heritage TV outside broadcast truck CMCR9 successfully completed all the summer commitments with its appearance at the Shrewsbury Steam Fair on 25^th/26^th August. The vehicle itself has run without a problem all summer long. This year’s shows were at Kelsall, Astle park, Wilmslow and Onslow Park with an additional private demonstration for the Rolls Royce Enthusiasts Club. Steve Harris and Steve Jones restored a little more of the ancient equipment to operation for each show and most of the sound desk is now working quite well, although the PPMs are still giving some trouble at the moment.

The Wilmslow Show took place in the middle of the July heatwave with the temperature reaching 30 degrees. Fortunately the show organizers provided us with a large 45 Kva generator which more than met our needs and enabled the air conditioning to be used for the first time. Having received some recent attention, the two aircon units over the cab worked faultlessly all day and people were coming into the scanner to cool off. This was very unlike the previous outing at Kelsall on 23^rd June when folk were coming inside to get out of the cold squally wind!

The last three shows all took place in good weather which attracted lots of visitors, keen to see how we were getting on. A number of former staff visited us who had not been to see us before. We were fortunate in getting excellent pitches for all the shows with plenty of room for our static display which included PC 80 and EMI 2001 cameras. The main problem now is that the power demand of the working equipment exceeds the power available from Steve’s 6.5Kva generator. He’s looking around for something more substantial!

Thanks to all those who sent reminiscences of the Anglsey Climb OB back in 1970, produced by Alan Chivers. What a pity we don’t see shows like that any more.

The only remaining scheduled public appearance of North3 this year is to an exhibition at Salford University Media Centre towards the end of October.

The pictures (from the Onslow Park Rally) are by Steve Harris.

Jerry Clegg

For more details about North 3 see: http://www.vintageradio.co.uk/htm/about.htm

For details about the Salford Technology Fair on 19^th and 20^th Oct, use this link:

http://www.cntr.salford.ac.uk/comms/familyday.php