Mark Hopewell
Woofferton Sender Interface Panel (SIP)
A much more modest version of Rampisham's SIP.
Again, all custom designed and built in-house by BBC Engineers.
'Difficult to describe in detail from this image but each vertical bay contained a selection of arrays in the field.
The whole bank was synchronised by the Woofferton 'WATCH' system: a very primitive microcontroller-based control system, programmed by the operator through a VDU (not shown).
As the panel is synchronised, the micro relays which switch the control lines, all 'latch' and the switching propagates along the bay as if a wave motion/sound. It is slightly slower than a human heartbeat and 'ripples' across the bays with every clock latching pulse.
When I arrived at the company, as a Communications Engineer, in 2002, I couldn't come to terms with how terribly antiquated everything was here. However, it was reliable and durable and I suppose this is a testament to the brilliant innovation of the BBC team who developed it many years previously.
Oh, BTW, it all ran in Assembler!
Woofferton Sender Interface Panel (SIP)
A much more modest version of Rampisham's SIP.
Again, all custom designed and built in-house by BBC Engineers.
'Difficult to describe in detail from this image but each vertical bay contained a selection of arrays in the field.
The whole bank was synchronised by the Woofferton 'WATCH' system: a very primitive microcontroller-based control system, programmed by the operator through a VDU (not shown).
As the panel is synchronised, the micro relays which switch the control lines, all 'latch' and the switching propagates along the bay as if a wave motion/sound. It is slightly slower than a human heartbeat and 'ripples' across the bays with every clock latching pulse.
When I arrived at the company, as a Communications Engineer, in 2002, I couldn't come to terms with how terribly antiquated everything was here. However, it was reliable and durable and I suppose this is a testament to the brilliant innovation of the BBC team who developed it many years previously.
Oh, BTW, it all ran in Assembler!