General : Analogue Cable Memories

[Dude111]

I dunno if I mentioned this but one thing I loved about analogue cable is The audio was MONO which really helped on Mono movies.......

The Breakfast Club in 1985 is Mono for example and I have that recorded from HBO and its goregous. Its amazing what I can hear in the background.. On the MCA tape I couldnt hear anything in t he background,the audio was horrible..........

[Rillington]

On that point, from what people remember, were the analogue cable services offering stereo sound before terrestrial which started on the BBC in 1991.

What I do remember is that Bell Cablemedia offered a radio service, and this included FM feeds for the music channels, Sky Movies and Sky Sports 1. It also featured 5 Live and the other BBC and independent stations available in the area at the time a few megahertz higher than the actual frequency. The signal was plugged into the back of your hifi. I presume other cable companies also offered this.

I presume that satellite equipment was stereo compatable from day one.

[ozsat]

ComTel Oxford offer serveral radio channels which could be linked up to the hifi - MTV audio was available there too.

Originally Posted by Rillington

On that point, from what people remember, were the analogue cable services offering stereo sound before terrestrial which started on the BBC in 1991.

What I do remember is that Bell Cablemedia offered a radio service, and this included FM feeds for the music channels, Sky Movies and Sky Sports 1. It also featured 5 Live and the other BBC and independent stations available in the area at the time a few megahertz higher than the actual frequency. The signal was plugged into the back of your hifi. I presume other cable companies also offered this.

I presume that satellite equipment was stereo compatable from day one.

[nodrogd]

Originally Posted by Rillington

On that point, from what people remember, were the analogue cable services offering stereo sound before terrestrial which started on the BBC in 1991.

What I do remember is that Bell Cablemedia offered a radio service, and this included FM feeds for the music channels, Sky Movies and Sky Sports 1. It also featured 5 Live and the other BBC and independent stations available in the area at the time a few megahertz higher than the actual frequency. The signal was plugged into the back of your hifi. I presume other cable companies also offered this.

I presume that satellite equipment was stereo compatable from day one.

The FM radio feeds were obtained from local FM broadcasts, hence the channel shift to a higher or lower frequency to avoid possible interference. MTV/Sky Movies/Movie Channel feeds were taken from analogue satellite sound subcarriers. When NICAM stereo TV services were introduced, the BBC/ITV/C4 terrestrial services could easily be transposed to the cable output frequencies. For the other satellite derived channels cable companies started fitting NICAM encoders to their headend modulators, again using the satellite sound subcarriers to source the stereo audio. I remember making several complaints in the early days of the NICAM services, as the engineers were sometimes a bit sloppy wiring up the encoders & would get the left & right channels the wrong way round.

[andrewshearman]

we had 2 boxes I had 1 in my room what was cable Exclusive channel and the computing channel ?

[Horizon]

Originally Posted by Rillington

On that point, from what people remember, were the analogue cable services offering stereo sound before terrestrial which started on the BBC in 1991.

What I do remember is that Bell Cablemedia offered a radio service, and this included FM feeds for the music channels, Sky Movies and Sky Sports 1. It also featured 5 Live and the other BBC and independent stations available in the area at the time a few megahertz higher than the actual frequency. The signal was plugged into the back of your hifi. I presume other cable companies also offered this.

I presume that satellite equipment was stereo compatable from day one.

It was indeed and I had Bell CableMedia too. As soon as the cables were laid down my road, got it installed in 1991.

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by andrewshearman

we had 2 boxes I had 1 in my room what was cable Exclusive channel and the computing channel ?

The exclusive cable channel was Wire TV. I don’t recollect the computer channel.

[Horizon]

For me, it was called Jones Computer Network or something like that. It was Canadian, like the cable co.

Originally Posted by Horizon

For me, it was called Jones Computer Network or something like that. It was Canadian, like the cable co.

Jones Cable UK - they were originally from Colorado (Jones Intercable), then JI had a partial takeover from Bell Canada (when they became Bell CableMedia in the U.K.), then BCM became Cable & Wireless Comms (I implemented/remedied the Bytel billing system 94-97 at Leeds/Harrogate/York, Watford, and Encom in London Docklands).

[daveeb]

Originally Posted by Hugh

Jones Cable UK - they were originally from Colorado (Jones Intercable), then JI had a partial takeover from Bell Canada (when they became Bell CableMedia in the U.K.), then BCM became Cable & Wireless Comms (I implemented/remedied the Bytel billing system 94-97 at Leeds/Harrogate/York, Watford, and Encom in London Docklands).

Hugh can you remember what year Jones cable hit Leeds? I took it straight away, back then it was a guy going door to door flogging it. I suspect it was 1994/5 but could easily be wrong. If it was pre Christmas 93 it must have been around longer than I realise.

There was some office set up work late in 1993, but the majority of staff started in 1994 - I joined them the first day they opened the Seacroft office (Monday 3rd January), as employee number 50 (then spent six months down in Watford).

The network build didn’t start until 1994.

[Sirius]

I started with Nynex as an engineer whilst they were still building the switch in Warrington, as soon as it went live i had cable installed and have been on cable ever since. I have seen a massive amount of changes since then. I remember installing a local ISP with a 2Mb line via copper to be shared amongst their dial-up customers. At that time, they were getting the best there was.

[Horizon]

Originally Posted by Hugh

Jones Cable UK - they were originally from Colorado (Jones Intercable), then JI had a partial takeover from Bell Canada (when they became Bell CableMedia in the U.K.), then BCM became Cable & Wireless Comms (I implemented/remedied the Bytel billing system 94-97 at Leeds/Harrogate/York, Watford, and Encom in London Docklands).

Ah yes, all the billing system changes and changes and changes....those were the days.