BBC Woofferton 60 years on

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BBC Woofferton 60 years on - (Continued)

Two pictures of the original World War 2 vintage RCA senders, these were 50 kW. units and anyone of more mature years will recognise the HRO style dials. These were senders 85 and 86 and survived for some years after the other units were replaced by the Marconi BD272 250 kW senders featured earlier and numbered Senders 91 to 96.

That is a very young G3VGW at the controls, pictured in 1964. These senders have now been replaced by more modern transmitters that require no manual tuning, but are very boring compared to the old units!

The picture shows the then brand new Sender 93, in autumn 1963.
I had just moved to Woofferton and arrived to find builders still working in the transmitter hall, laying new flooring but amongst all this work we had to maintain the service.

On the right, the small unit is a Marconi H1100 'low power' 7.5 kW. driver unit, this fed the main 250 kW RF unit in the centre. The left hand unit is the modulator. This ran in class B delivering a healthy 125 kW of audio to the RF unit. Being in class B, the power being drawn from the mains varied with the modulation. This caused the lights in nearby Ludlow to flicker in time with the programme being transmitted. If all 6 senders were carrying BBC World Service, at the hour the Greenwich Time Signal 'pips' caused lights for miles around to pulse in sympathy. Thus you could set your clock by the lights in your house!

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