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UK Broadcast Transmission |
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THE TRANSMISSION GALLERY
TYERSAL LANE
| Photos by Albert Ross and David Long | Page last updated: 2012-01-13 |
| The Tyersal Lane mast had to be replaced in 1986 after the original mast had been vandalised. It was literally cut down. Former IBA engineer Paul O'Neil thinks he knows why: "I was on training at Emley moor at the time, which was the local maintenance base covering this site. I was the first engineer on site, having been told 'the station is off the air'. I went there with one of the Emley engineers, and we had trouble finding it. Usually, because you have so many sites on a patch, the easiest way to find them is to play spot the mast. The game becomes difficult when said mast is now parallel to the ground! "Anyway, we got to site, and observed the mast lying on its side (Image 3 below). In the cabin, the transmitter (with a valved output) was still working away merrily. We turned this off, and set about investigating the reason why the mast was down. At one stay block, I found 3 discarded shackles neatly sawn in two with a hacksaw. The 4th shackle was about 20 feet away, and had been hacksawed through about halfway. Then there was an obvious shear on the steel, where it had snapped under the tremendous strain. "Clearly, whoever did this was incredibly stupid, as they had crouched over the shackles and cut them probably with a junior hacksaw. They cut through 3, got started on the last one and then it sheared. Imagine the backlash on the stay wire as it whips back! "My theory for the mast being cut down is this: Tyersal lane (from what I remember of it) is in a pretty rough area of Bradford (at the time). On the way into the site, I observed a few crowds of skinheads watching us from the entrance doorway of an adjacent block of flats. Now we were not police, but an IBA maintenance team, yet they knew we were coming. Now, an outspoken late-night phone-in radio show presenter at the time was really, having a go at the national front on his phone in show. I remember lying in bed listening to this diatribe, comments like "castration's too good for them, lock 'em all up, etc." streaming continuously and thinking to myself "hmm....I don't think that will go down very well". "Next morning, at 0815 we left Emley maintenance base to go to a reported problem of poor reception at Tyersal lane. Coincidence?" |
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