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Quoted from Bring back any memories?

The later telly was rented from Redifusion, it had a switch on the top to go from 405 to 625 lines, unfortunately, Redifusion involved having one of those overhead lines in and a big black switch on the wall that controlled the radio as well. When Radio One first appeared in 1967, Redifusion would have nothing to do with it

Thanks for the memory Pete.

I remember those bakelite rotary switches, werent they marked A B C etc?

Rediffusion were years ahead of Virgin Cable etc.

What happened to them?

Appears they were finished by Robert Maxwell! (History)

Heres the tribute site for Rediffusion

http://www.rediffusion.info/

Local

East Midlands Region

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in bedsits that had the redifusion switch on the window sill i just attached a speaker to it and had radio....also was fun saturday mornings as we could watch multi coloured swap shop but listen to tiswas.....seemed fun at the time.

.

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Been years since I saw Rediffusion set ups, they used multi cored cables with amplifiers every few hundred yards. Modern cable uses single core co-ax carrying multiple frequences or fibre optics.

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I know I've posted this before but ,'Bare with'

We used to get a 'Bob' a year in wall rental from Redifusion and this was either taken off of your bill if you were a customer, or you recieved a trianual cheque for three shillings if you were not.

Redifusion sold it's lines to sky in around 1984 and put a free aeriel up for their customers and a telly (Still rented) that recieved normal pictures, Sky then used the system to broadcast the first "Proper" cable system (IE around 30 channels all still showing nowt!!)

We had a neighbour who never used Redifusion and was therefore used to getting his 3 bob !! Sky conveniently forgot to pay up and (Even though he'd been in touch on numerous occations) refused point blank to pay him his 15 pee , so he did what any right minded indevidual would do, yup he chopped the cable off of his house , thus ruining the 'circuit' and losing everybodies TV for them .

I know he got into a lot of hot water over it and I would love to say he got away with it but I can't remember the outcome .

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If I remember right, every classroom in Firbeck school and BGS was fitted up with a Redifusion control box, with a loudspeaker on the wall, the cloth 'mouthpiece' generally covered with a few layers of school paint which didn't help the sound quality. I'm sure it was the same story at William Sharp as well, could it be that every school in Nottingham was wired for sound by Redifusion. Perhaps that's why Radio One wasn't supplied through the system, couldn't have our school kids listening to that sort of rubbish, let them listen to the banal sounds of Radio Nottingham instead, far less subversive.

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During the 1960's had occasion to visit Rediffusion offices/workshops which were situated on Castle Boulevard below the Castle Rock. Engineer there demonstated that it was possible to push a television picture along a length of wet string. Impressive in its day but pretty basic now.

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Been years since I saw Rediffusion set ups, they used multi cored cables with amplifiers every few hundred yards. Modern cable uses single core co-ax carrying multiple frequences or fibre optics.

I remember the Rediffusion speakers weighed a ton but were beautifully made of fine looking wood.

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only speakers I recall were dark brown bakelite except for school ones which seemed to consist of a 4ft sq 1" thick teak board with a single speaker in the middle that was dragged out in assembly about once a year, no idea why

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They're the one's I remember Ashley, as Juniors at Blue Bell Hill School, I remember the teachers would set one up at lunchtime so we kids could listen to the Ashes test matches in Australia "live" LOL, well we didn't know they were the recordings back then, of the previous days play, complete with the commentators over dubbing of crowds, ball hitting bat etc.. I don't think anyone gave it a thought everyone downunder was fast asleep when we were listening to the "live play" c/o the Beeb over Rediffusion.

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I remember teacher setting up a speaker and playing a program for schools

called Musical Movement. We all used to Sway like trees, and prance about.

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If memory serves me right too, there were only a few stations, Light Programme, Home Service?? and maybe two more back then. Very little regional stuff.

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That's it The Third Programme.

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The programme was called "Music and Movement" Mick .

It was still going in my day !!

Any body remember sitting there waiting for the '60 Second countdown' before any of the "Schools Programmes" began ?? (We always did the 10,9,8,7,6, etc out loud!!)

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  • 2 months later...

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