HmQ ENGINEERING Proaress J and Achievements Front cover illustration shows the future Southampton Headquarters. Work is expected to start on this project before the end of the year and it should be fully operational by mid-1991. Overview During the year gratifying progress has been made on several large building projects that will provide modern, comfortable, and cost-effective accommodation for our staff for the rest of this century and well into the next. Work at Avenue House, the headquarters building for D&ED, is complete, while the Transmission headquarters at Warwick and the Corporate headquarters at White City are on schedule for occupation by autumn 1989 and spring 1990 respectively. The completion date for the new Radio headquarters at White City has now been put back to 1997 to allow for the prior construction of the dedicated centre for News and Current Affairs. Because of this, the refurbishment programme for Broadcasting House has been revised and extended to ensure that first class studio facilities are available for Network Radio over the next ten years. On the Radio transmission front, we are now providing an FM service for Radio 1 over a large part of the country. We started the ball rolling with a service on a temporary frequency from Crystal Palace in October 1987, and a few weeks ago transmission began from Sutton Coldfield, Holme Moss, and Black Hill. Wenvoe Radio 1 has just come on-air and Radio 1 services will begin from Oxford and Black Mountain in late November, giving UK coverage of about 65%. RDS enjoyed an impressive press launch on 20 September and is now being extensively promoted at the Radio Show. There seems little doubt, however, that a long campaign will be needed to get the message over to the trade and the public, similar to the hard slog undertaken in the late seventies to get Ceefax off the ground. It will be worth it for the sake of broadcasters and public alike. In Television we seem at last to be reaching some kind of consensus, in Europe at least, on an evolutionary and compatible approach to the introduction of HDTV. The important part being played by Research Department in the Eureka HDTV project and RACE (Research into Advanced Communications in Europe) will ensure that we are well placed to introduce and exploit the relevant new technologies for the benefit of programme makers and viewers. Finally, the outbreak of Legionnaires' Disease in the area of Broadcasting House marred what was otherwise a very good year for the BBC. The enquiry chaired by DDE underlined how important it is to every one of us that plant maintenance procedures should be correctly followed and rigorously monitored. Prompt action, ably supported by ACED, helped to control the situation very rapidly after the outbreak was identified and also enabled air conditioning services to be provided quickly. Transmission ORGANISATION service and additional Radio 4 (UK) Amalgamation of Transmission coverage in the National Regions. Departments Although slightly lower in the The amalgamation of the Transmisson priority order, the programme of and Transmitter Capital Projects filling gaps in the UHF television Departments is virtually completed coverage and RWOP for the BBC's and the restructuring, along with the telecommunications network has introduction of a number of changes continued at a pace which has been in methods of working and the determined by the availability of relocation of all Transmission finance and manpower. Engineering and Transmission Oper- ations Headquarters staff at a single Transmitter Engineering location in Warwick, is resulting in In line with similar exercises in the a reduction of approximately 100 South West and South East of England, posts. a re-organisation of team bases embracing Wales, North of England and NEW TRANSMISSION HEADQUARTERS Scotland is under way: Work is progressing on the construction of the new Headquarters Wales building at Warwick and there is The Llanddona team base will close every indication that it will be this year and responsibility for the ready for occupation, on schedule, by maintenance of stations in the 12 September 1989. Llanddona area will be taken over by Blaenplwyf and Moel-y-Parc. To allow a phased move to take place, and to accommodate the personal North of Enaland requirements of individual members of Responsibility for certain sites in staff, temporary office accommodation the Lake District will be transferred has been obtained in the Warwick area from Winter Hill to Skelton. Winter and is now occupied by some 90 staff. Hill will assume responsibility for This figure is expected to rise to those stations on Isle of Man. 120 by the end of the year. Within five years the Pontop Rike TRANSMISSION ENGINEERING team base will be phased out and the The Transmission Engineering Stockton team base will expand to Department comprises two Project cover the larger area. Groups - Communications and Transmitters with specialist-based - Scotland Sections responsible for Antennas, The Selkirk team base will close this Transmitters, Power, Tele- year, and maintenance respon- communications, Monitoring and sibilities will be transferred to Control, and Broadcast Commun- Black Hill. ications. A Project Management Section has also been established to ensure effective project management Within three years, Meldrum and and financial accountability on Rosemarkie will close and a new team multi-disciplinary transmitter base centred at Inverness will take projects. over the major parts of both areas. Stations in the south of the Meldrum The highest priorities were area will be maintained from Forfar. identified as the continuing Three years afterwards, the Gairloch programme of work for World Service team base will close and the and the expansion of the FM domestic equipment in that area will be services. The latter included the maintained from the new base at provision of a national Radio 1 Inverness. This reorganisation, which has covered the whole of the UK, is now complete and there will be a period of consolidation and stability. Valve Section Valve Section in its original form at Motspur Park no longer exists. Semi- conductors are now available from D&ED and the large valve provision now operates from Daventry. Daventry has also become the home of the overseas supply section. Monitoring & Control Centres The manning hours for the Monitoring and Control centres at Holme Moss, Kirk o' Shotts, Sutton Coldfield and Wenvoe have been altered to 0800 to 2000. Cover for outside those hours is being transferred to Crystal Palace. Test Equipment Responsibility for all of the test equipment used in Transmission is now The new FM antenna tower at Kirkton centralised in Monitoring and Control Mailer also provides for BT services. Section of Transmission Engineering, and the opportunity has been taken to and a further six FM network fillers rationalise the purchase, issue, have been brought into service, maintenance and replacement of this including High ~ycombe, Pendle equipment. The rationalisation Forest, and Stanton Moor. Ridge Hill procedure, which commenced with replaced Hereford and Kirkton Mailer computerisation of equipment and replaced Perth. Transmitters have usage records, will result in a more also been provided for the first two cost effective and reliable service of the seven remaining Local Radio for all users. stations. These were at Churchdown Hill and St roud for Radio FM RADIO Gloucestershire, and Malvern and The high priority work of adding new Ridge Hill for Radio Hereford & FM services and improving and Worcester. extending coverage is gaining momen tum . In addition to the Work is now in hand for the temporary Radio 1 FM stereo service manufacture of FM PIE (Programme from Crystal Palace for the London Input Equipment) for the Re- area, FM stereo transmitters are now engineering programme and the in operation 'at Sutton Coldfield, addition of Radio 1 and other Wenvoe, Holme Moss, and at Black Hill services: the bays are being made by where an additional FM transmitter commercial manufacturers to BBC has also been provided for Radio 4 specifications. Modification work is (UK). By the end of the year in hand to extend the existing temporary Radio 1 FM transmitters station monitoring systems to cope will also be in operation at Oxford with the additional services. and Black Mountain (Belfast). LF/MF Re-engineering is complete at LF re-engineering at Burghead and Blaenplwyf, Sandale and Black Hill, Westerglen is complete and these stations have been in service on 198 stations by new solid state kHz since February of this year. Re- transposers manufacture by LGT, and engineering continues at Start Point at the end of the period under review and at Stagshaw to complete the only it is expected that an order will be remaining high power MF work. placed for equipment to cover the remaining 23 stations. NICAM This year has seen the virtual A newly designed 1 kW solid-state completion of the phase 1 NICAM transposer using separate sound and distribution network: Meldrum and vision amplifiers has been ordered Rosemarkie in the Highlands of from the UK company Continental Scotland are now fed, and Belfast has Microwave for the BBC2 service at become the NICAM distribution centre Haslingden, to replace the obsolete for Northern Ireland with feeds to klystron equipment. This new compact Divis and shortly to Londonderry. equipment will release space for new The completion of the network allows FM radio filler equipment at this implementation of the new Radio 1 FM site and at the same time provide the distribution network. opportunity to gain operational experience of solid-state UHF TxED engineers, in association with television equipment at this power D&ED, are now specifying the MK2 level. NICAM system which will enable Phase 2 of the NICAM distribution to proceed, allowing a further two channels.