British Relay/ Visionhire

Does anyone remember BRW - British Relay, they set up the first cable tv in Sheffield in the late sixties. It ran it's own programmes including a quiz and OB from such as the whitsun parade in High Hazels park. British Relay were taken over in late 1979 by Visionhire, which was when I joined them, and BRW was no more.

Does anyone remember BRW - British Relay, they set up the first cable tv in Sheffield in the late sixties. It ran it's own programmes including a quiz and OB from such as the whitsun parade in High Hazels park. British Relay were taken over in late 1979 by Visionhire, which was when I joined them, and BRW was no more.

Hello wudouswitch,

Yes I remember them. A good firm to work for, which shop were you in, or were you at Derbyshire Lane?

I was based at the Moor, next door to BHS, I think it's Greggs now. But I also worked at Angel St and the Hillsborough branch.

I was based at the Moor, next door to BHS, I think it's Greggs now. But I also worked at Angel St and the Hillsborough branch.

So you might know me then. I was a TV engineer. I'm familiar with all those shops. Strange our paths should cross. I started working for Snelsons in 1960 then a couple of years later it was taken over by BRW then it became Visionhire, then Granada and my service continued till 2001AD when I ended up at a big service department in Leeds when Granada and Radio Rentals merged. I left soon after that and all the shops closed down.

I think people were sorry to see the demise of the "Pipe Line" it served Sheffield well especially as reception was so poor in many areas. It was ahead of its time, it provided radio programs as well and of course a "pay as you view" service.

So you would have started working for Visionhire when you were 18, I wonder if you became one of the shop managers? The shop at Angel Street, was that where Argos is now and didn't it have an entrance in the Hole in the Road? How long were you there for?

I remember the british-relay boxes, from living on, and having friends and family on Park Hill, Norfolk park and Hyde Park.

I remember the distinctively shaped plug-grid on the wall to which it was connected.

Did you know, that if you had a spare Hi-fi speaker, with exposed wires, if you stuck those wires into certain of the holes in that socket, you could get audio, soome radio station or another, IIRC, (gosh! it's 2-odd years since I did that!)

I also seem to remember that you could get special televisions, with a connector for the socket, which had the british relay channel buttons built into the TV, rather than the set-top box, and IIRC you could, by pushing a button on the TV change the reception from recieving TV to recieving radio through it.

Can you confirm that I am not imagining that odd television, please, grahame, seeing as you would have come into contact with these TV sets, as an engineer, if they aren't imagined?

I remember the british-relay boxes, from living on, and having friends and family on Park Hill, Norfolk park and Hyde Park.

 

I remember the distinctively shaped plug-grid on the wall to which it was connected.

 

Did you know, that if you had a spare Hi-fi speaker, with exposed wires, if you stuck those wires into certain of the holes in that socket, you could get audio, soome radio station or another, IIRC, (gosh! it's 2-odd years since I did that!)

 

I also seem to remember that you could get special televisions, with a connector for the socket, which had the british relay channel buttons built into the TV, rather than the set-top box, and IIRC you could, by pushing a button on the TV change the reception from recieving TV to recieving radio through it.

 

Can you confirm that I am not imagining that odd television, please, grahame, seeing as you would have come into contact with these TV sets, as an engineer, if they aren't imagined?

You are spot on as usual PT. A lot of people either had their own TV or they rented one and Wigfalls was a popular shop, and of course these TV were intended for use with an ordinary aerial, but often if the reception was poor they were able to get better pictures by having a BRW box. The socket you mentioned was called an "Elcon" socket.

The BRW TV's were ordinary televisions but the tuner had been replaced by something similar to the BRW box. Generally there were four black buttons for the channels and a red button at the top which would switch between radio and TV. It was advanced in as much as it provided four radio programs and four TV channels before there ever were four. But development was under way for even more programs and it became clear the system would soon become outdated and when the council withdrew permission to run the cable on council properties the system was doomed.

I remember in the Moor Shop they had a big mural on one of the walls showing two streets, one street had their roofs festooned with aerials while on the other street which had cable there wasn't a single aerial to be seen and it looked so much nicer.

When I first started ITV hadn't been out long and then I remember converting sets to 625 lines from 405 lines and fitting new tuners to receive BBC2, then channel 4 came out without a hitch and then there was the massive conversion program when Channel 5 came out and even with all the pre-tuning that had gone on many people still couldn't get channel 5.

So I saw the development from 2 channel black and white TV's that used valves, then transistors and solid state TV's came out along with colour, videos came later and then of course satellite TV came out after a farce with SKY BSD I think it was called and the "Squarial." The development is still ongoing.

However I enjoyed it and I feel I was there at an important time in the development of TV and looking back they were good days.

I think we got our first colour T.V. from the shop on the Moor to watch the 1966 world cup.

I got married in 1970 and my first t.v. was rented from BRW. I seem to think that we had it for a few years. As well as having it's own outside broadcast service (which I was actually on at one time) you could also receive Central T.V. from the midlands. Nothing special you might think but at the time it was wonderful to receive another channel. Most of the programmes were the same as Yorkshire T.V. but occasionally there was a different film to choose from and there was also a different sports programme at the weekend.

I worked for British Relay on the Moor and then Derbyshire Lane round about 1978 for a short time.

Cablevision! I remember a 2 hour show about changing plugs! The little audience the electrician had were comatose after the first 40 minutes!