BBC Manchester Clean feed 442.275 MHz?

[Andy]

I know there hasn't been any audio on this for some time and it seemed to get weaker recently, but now it seems to have disappeared completely. Can anyone confirm this? It's a pity as it was a useful signal for checking aerials etc.

[DuncanH]

Possibly gone digital. I heard it a few months ago from Runcorn Castle.

[paulears]

I doubt its gone digital, probably just unused at the moment. The latency on digital is horrible for broadcast where you always get a bit of leakage in headsets that is difficult to deal with, if the delayed signal contains program ausio and the presenter gets themselves back, delayed. Makes the, speak like the6 have had a stroke. Worse digital RF can get in the analogue audio lines and produce that nasty buzzy sound. At one OB event, the venue were using a Retevis LORA system, and the walkie talkie in the crew member’s pocket standing next to the stage box caused all kinds of noises, as he wasn't aware the thing in his pocket was constantly repeating.

Its possible they just switched it off, and haven’t noticed. Many are just left on 24/7

[DuncanH]

It was Huw Edwards doing the voice, then a woman took over. Feeds used to be fairly common around 141 mHz. I remember being in Morecambe in the 90's listening to Noel's House Party being rehearsed in London, the one where Carol Smillie got a Gotcha. You never seem to hear talkback much from football grounds to studios now.

[paulears]

The two rack mount units I still have in my hire stock have frequencies in for most of the popular broadcasters, but RF isn't always used in the old fashioned way. IP comms is the way of the trucks now - and the system is incredibly complex. The links we used to use were in two forms - those designed for local use, at the OB site, and those that went with the video links to and from OB to a regional centre - then relinked perhaps to national centres. If sat trucks are in use, or the now quite common 5G systems using multiple carriers, then video might have embedded audio or on separate channels. The digital system now being used for comms have very short latency, and work much better than digital hand-helds using any of the usual comms protocols like DMR, or P25 etc.

Just not really a need for a UHF radio link for many productions.

[Andy]

Thanks for the update chaps. By coincidence, I heard some engineers doing some setting up (for Sky I think) of some kind of OB, possibly football from Manchester. They were using simplex on 446.5-ish. They were trying to figure out where the tone was coming from and also chasing the cause of low level on one of the pairs on a 25-way connector. Isn't it sad what we have to listen to these days?

[Andy]

Hey, it's back on. Noticed yesterday as I just happened to be tuning around. It's about the same strength as before and so far only a 1kHz tone. Whether it's ever going to be used again time will tell.