The Mark 3 Desk Blog needs your help. Well, your photos, memories and Mk III stories really.
I'm especially interested in the wierd and wonderful. Did you drive the mono prototype at Radio Cumbria that had the OS and Tape Repro sections swapped round? Have you pictures of the version of the desk made by Neve? Did you get your hands on the music version of the desk? Did your engineer (or were you that engineer) come up with a clever mod to tackle a local problem?
If you've got stories to tell, peculiar local practices, notes, diagrams or artifacts you'd like to share then please leave a brief comment and I'll get back in touch to discuss how we can share them on the blog.
After all, the Mark 3 was designed for self-op but sometimes you need a second pair of hands.
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I "helped out" at Radio Stoke when it was at Conway House, and remember assisting the engineers in a very minor way with the programming for their clever "Studio Operated Device for Insert Timing" aka SODIT. This was based round a BBC Micro, with a light pen to read barcodes on records and linked to the gram faders. Via a database the barcode and time would then print on a little thermal printer on the top of the desk, and thus make the dreaded music returns far easier to do. I seem to recall that the system was programmed in FORTH - a language which is usually used for things like washing machines, so ideal for engineers! The system I think worked well enough for a number of stations to use it.
ReplyDeleteThanks Tim, sounds like a precursor to SABLE - Studio Automated Broadcast Logging Equipment (affectionately known as Still 'Ave to Bloody Log Everything).
ReplyDeleteThe Radio WM Mk 3's did split idents by the end of it's life. The Echo fader, in the mic section was replaced with a special Penny & Giles Quad fader and the Auxiliary output of the desk was also modified as was the DTX. There were two cart machines sat on top of the desk. One fed WM on the main output and the other fed Coventry & Warwickshire on the auxiliary. Pulling the fader naturally fired both machines to play as well. An extra monitor key was also installted so you could hear both sides of the split. A really neat design. There were other mods to enable MF/VHF splits and the fore runner of Programme Share called MIDNET which was operated using a key. Area 1 could also opt to Coventry & Warwickshire only and I think the Station Output PPM could switch between looking at WM on FM, C&W on opt and Asian Network on MF as it also ran the evening Asian Network programmes. We had an ex Radio Bristol Mk 3 in the basement to use for spares but they always required heavy modification before being pressed into service.
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