TELEVISION RECEPTION (HARWICH-DOVERCOURT AREA) (Hansard, 28 June 1956)

§ Mr. Julian Ridsdale (Harwich)
I am very pleased to have the opportunity of raising the question of television reception in the Harwich-Dovercourt area, and to thank my hon. Friend the Assistant Postmaster-General for all the trouble that he has taken in the matter. I know that, as the hon. Member for Colchester, he is very sympathetic about this television problem which has arisen in the Harwich-Dovercourt area.
I welcome also the opportunity of saying how desperate some of these viewers are becoming. What is particularly irritating for many viewers is that in many cases they have had great difficulty in saving up for this little luxury. In other cases, after a heavy day in industry, they are at present denied the great relaxation of television to spur them on for tomorrow's task. Moreover, the pictures that we have been getting look, in many cases, like tweed. Then we twiddle and, more often than not, all we get is twaddle or, to be more precise, nothing.
Nearly two years ago my hon. Friend's predecessor promised me, in this House, better reception for the northeast Essex coastal area when the Crystal Palace transmitter was opened. In certain parts of that area some improvement has taken place, the reception still varies in quality. The B.B.C. said at the time of the change-over that the reception would deteriorate in certain parts, but would be put right when the permanent transmitter took over. What makes the position particularly aggravating for our viewers is that after the opening of the Crystal Palace station there was favourable reception for a period; it ended abruptly and quickly. We are waiting anxiously for the improvement promised for August from the partly completed permanent tower at the Crystal Palace.
If the B.B.C. has been able to achieve success once, what is holding it back technically now? I appreciate that the official reply will be that there were ex- 842 ceptionally favourable weather conditions, but to a layman like myself the cause of the deterioration sounds like some modification made by the B.B.C. since the start of the Crystal Palace transmissions.
Having spurred the Government on to do as much as they can in that part of the country, I should like to say that I appreciate that it is a fringe area. Besides asking for help from the B.B.C. we realise that we can do a lot to help ourselves, especially in a busy port like Harwich. I take this opportunity of appealing to all users of motor cars in the area and, indeed, throughout the country, to see that suppressors are fixed to their cars, and also to owners of electrical appliances to realise what a bad effect such apparatus can have upon reception. I also appeal to transmitting stations to be as careful as they can in the use of their sets.
A great deal has already been done by the local viewers' association to trace these various types of interference. I can assure the Assistant Postmaster-General that we are doing all we can to help ourselves. However, I am convinced that the only way to overcome this problem is for the signal to be made stronger at the earliest possible moment. I therefore press my hon. Friend to see that that is done, and to see that people in East Anglia are given the same consideration that I know the B.B.C. has given to those in the south of England.

§ Mrs. Joyce Butler (Wood Green)
I should like to support what the hon. Member for Harwich (Mr. Ridsdale) has said with a very brief reference to the position in my constituency. Alexandra Palace is situated in it, and that has meant that from the very earliest days of television we have had many viewers in the area, who have had extremely good reception. Since the change-over to Crystal Palace, however, some viewers have had extremely poor reception and others none at all.
I wrote to the B.B.C. about the matter, and in reply it was pointed out, as is quite true, that reception in Wood Green had been exceptionally favourable hitherto because of its proximity to Alexandra Palace. This had meant that most viewers had needed only a very simple type of indoor aerial. But now, with 843 the change-over to Crystal Palace, those viewers are having to install outdoor aerials or make changes in their sets. They sometimes have to get competent radio engineers or even radio manufacturers to do the job.
I do not want to suggest that changes in television transmission which are of the greatest benefit to the greatest number of people should not take place, but it is the fact that we have had to suffer considerable hardship in Wood Green because of this change-over. To many people, especially the elderly ones, television is their one luxury. They install it because it enables them to have entertainment at home, without having to go out in the dark winter evenings, and it keeps them in touch with outside affairs at a reasonable cost. For them to have to pay £8 or so for a new aerial, or to incur other expense in connection with the change-over, is a very considerable hardship.
We are told that when the new transmitter is stepped up, after July, there will be an improvement in the position. We are waiting to see what happens then, and I would ask the Assistant Postmaster-General to watch the position very carefully, and carry out as detailed an observation as possible in the Alexandra Palace area so as to check whether this stepping-up really does have the effect that we hope it will have. I can assure him that if it does not, he will receive petitions from very angry viewers in that area, who feel that they have a contract with the B.B.C., and that the B.B.C. should ensure that they should get good reception, and are not prejudiced by the change-over.

§ The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. C. J. M. Alport)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich (Mr. Ridsdale) and to the hon. Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Butler) for drawing our attention to the problems of their constituents in relation to the reception of the television service both of the B.B.C. and the I.T.A. They may be assured that the Post Office, the B.B.C. and the I.T.A. fully recognise the importance of giving the highest quality service possible, not only for the favoured areas of the country, but also the marginal areas of which Harwich is an 844 example. If we do not "produce the goods," I have no doubt that my hon. Friend and the hon. Lady will continue to draw our attention to that deficiency as forcibly as they can.
At present, we are in a transitional stage, where the B.B.C. is carrying out a considerable change in the technical production of its service by the movement from Alexandra Palace to Crystal Palace of its main transmitter. That has produced problems which were foreseen when the change was decided on. I will go over the period of the recent history of this transmitter, because, although it will bear out a lot of what has been said by my hon. Friend, it may also help to give an idea of the background to the problem facing the Post Office and the B.B.C.
My predecessor promised my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich that there would be some improvement in reception in the North-East in the early part of 1956. During the middle and latter part of 1955, the Post Office, with the B.B.C. and the I.T.A., were considering the whole question of mast-sharing as it should apply to the two television services. The matter was discussed by our Television Advisory Committee, and at the end of October the Committee recommended that mast-sharing at the Crystal Palace should be adopted as a means of giving the best reception to viewers of both services. The result of that decision was that the B.B.C. had to redesign its mast and aerial, with the result that it was unable to keep to the time schedule outlined by my predecessor. In fact a temporary 250 feet mast had to be erected with a temporary aerial pending the completion of the new permanent tower with a permanent aerial. Inevitable, there has been some delay in the improvement we hoped would take place. The temporary mast and aerial were completed in March and opened on the 28th of that month. The immediate effect was a substantial improvement in the service, owing to favourably atmospheric conditions. No doubt the technical reasons for that have been explained to my hon. Friend.
I have been asked by my hon. Friend to explain the significance of it. Frankly, I find television a very baffling scientific phenomenon and I do not feel justified 845 in any way in trying to give him a scientific explanation. Nevertheless, I can assure my hon. Friend that the fading and deterioration in the service which has subsequently taken place has not been the result of any technical action taken by the B.B.C. It was in some degree foreseen when the initial warnings about possible deterioration in the service were issued before the new station was opened.
The next move will, we hope, be completed in the late summer or early autumn. I am not in a position at present to be precise about this because, as I am sure the House recognises, this form of technical development in many cases involves unexpected difficulties and hazards. It would be unfair to blame the B.B.C. if a delay of three or four weeks were involved. At any rate, the B.B.C. hopes in the late summer to open the aerial on the semi-completed permanent tower, which will give a better service, it is expected, than is possible at present. We believe that it will be possible towards the end of next year to complete the transformation from the temporary arrangements which have existed so far at the Crystal Palace to the permanent installation of aerial and tower which will give to the apparatus then in use a radiated power of 200 kW, compared with the existing figure, which I think is about 60 kW.
The House will realise that very substantial progress in improving the service will take place during the next eighteen months, the first instalment of which should be available to views at Harwich and Wood Green within two or three months from now.
My hon. Friend has also drawn attention to intermittent local interference. We have done our best to trace its origin but, as very often happens in such cases, when our engineers make their visits to the area in which complaint is made of interference, they are unable to find traces of that interference. It is possible that this is due to what is termed freak radio propagation conditions, which I understand are liable to occur in many parts of the country at this time of year and which naturally affect considerably such marginal areas as Harwich. The effect of this may be a temporary blackout of the picture or severe interference from Continental stations, and I must 846 confess—because it is no good my misleading the House in any way—that this is fairly common in the fringe areas and that so far we have not found a cure.
My hon. Friend has also said that he thinks there may be some interference in local reception in the Harwich area from Trinity House installations and ships or from ships' radio transmitters. We are making tests in conjunction with the Trinity House repair fleet and we hope that that may help to assess the situation.
As this subject was to be discussed tonight, I thought it best to inquire also into the sound radio reception in the Harwich area, and I understand that, apart from some interference after dark on the London Home Service from Dresden, on the whole the sound reception is pretty good. Although that, of course, is no consolation to my hon. Friend's constituents who have invested substantial sums of money in their television apparatus, I hope that he will regard it as a sign of the concern which we feel about the problems of his constituents that we thought we should have an investigation over the whole field.
Perhaps I may say this about interference generally. Over the past year or more, the Government have done their best to encourage users of motor cars and electric motors to introduce suppressors. For instance, in September of last year we brought into effect the Wireless Telegraphy (Control of Interference from Electric Motors) Regulations, 1955. These enable the Post Office to make people suppress their motors in cases where individual appliances are causing interference. In the case of new refrigerators and new motor cars, this must be done at the time of manufacture. The reason for making a special case of refrigerators is, as was explained at the time, that these particular appliances run the whole time and it is, therefore, essential that they should be suppressed.
It is the policy of my right hon. Friend—and I think it is one which will commend itself generally to the House—to encourage people to co-operate in carrying out the suppression of interference on a voluntary basis rather than to make it compulsory by trying to use in all cases compulsory powers, which no doubt could be taken by the Government for that purpose. We are at present engaged in carrying out a campaign under the 847 title: "You're on the air, Mrs. Smith." This has really proved—and I can say this quite objectively because it started long before I came to the Post Office—a very attractive line to take.
What we are pointing out is that many of the people who use hair driers and various electric motors in connection with their domestic appliances, and those who are using small electric engines may, quite unconsciously, be on the air—broadcasting unpleasant noises on someone else's radio or producing unpleasant signs and symbols on someone else's television screen. We are appealing, and I reinforce my right hon. Friend's appeal, to citizens everywhere to think, as probably they have not done, of their neighbours. One can very easily understand the oversight. Indeed, I am thinking back whether I have made sure that I have practised what I am now preaching in regard to the various electrical appliances which are available in my own house.
We do appeal to people voluntarily, in the interests of good neighbourliness, to co-operate in making sure that they do not cause unnecessary nuisance or interference in the perfectly legitimate and proper enjoyment of their neighbours who are keen viewers of television or keen listeners to sound radio. We think that that is the right way. Indeed, in some respects, it is impossible to carry out compulsory suppression. In many cases it would be inequitable to demand it, in so far as the cost of introducing a suppressor into some machines is quite out of proportion to the cost of the machines themselves.
848 I hope, therefore, that the hon. Lady and my hon. Friend will give any help they can in their constituencies in forwarding our campaign of "You're on the air, Mrs. Smith." That, indeed can apply equally to Mr. Smith if he is the possessor of, say, an electric mowing machine or an old car which has not a suppressor.
I must be fair to my hon. Friend and say that, however successful our campaign to reduce interference from local sources in his constituency may be, the real answer to his problem, and that of all similar areas, is an increase in the strength of the signal from the originating station. We hope, as I have said, that there will be some improvement in the autumn of this year, and I believe, although I shall have to look into it, that that would also assist the hon. Lady. We believe that when the new transmitter comes into full operation next year the reception in such areas as Harwich will at any rate be more satisfactory than it is at present.
Because of the technical complexities and uncertainties of this science, I cannot go further than that, but the hon. Lady can be assured that it is the policy of the Post Office, and the desire and wish of both the B.B.C. and the Independent Television Authority, that they should be able to give to those people who are dependent upon television for their entertainment and enjoyment, the best service which is technically possible in this country.