BBC Stereophony Tests

In the late 1950's, the BBC conducted stereophony tests using network television for one channel and the Third Programme for the other. The tests were billed in The Radio Times
and I remember seeing them shown as being on a Saturday morning, but was too young to try them.

Some weeks ago, I asked visitors to this site for their memories of these tests and if possible to send any sound recordings they had of them. The request was also posted on several Newsgroups and I'm pleased to say that lots of visitors do remember them.
Below are 2 extracts of the tests, and also some of the memories that visitors wrote.

Sound Clips

"I don't remember what type of music was played. I'm pretty sure it was classical.
I do remember the channels sounded completely different in EQ and quality as you might expect
but it was stereo - or Steerio (and Moan-oh) as my Mother called it."
David Crossman

"I remember them. Can you imagine the phase response by using two different paths?
and were on Saturday mornings around 9am.
Think I can remember big band type of stuff - probably a house orch."
Dave Plowman

"I remember the play 'Under Milk Wood'"
Ashley Booth

"One Saterday I pushed the TV into one corner and the radio (MW/LW only) into the other.
Programming I seem to remember was classical music but the results were disappointing.
Not only were the audio characteristics or the two channels completely different
but the TV (405 line with a 10.125KHz timebase) caused nasty hets on the radio channel (647KHz).
The French also did stereo tests around the same time using 164KHz for one channel and MW
(can't remember which) for the other. I had a go at listening to these too using two dis-similar radios
and do remember getting a stereo effect.
Thinking again the French may have used two MW channels rather than one LW and one MW.
In the 70's the BBC did quad experiments using Radio 2 FM for the front channels and Radio 3 FM for the rear.
I only had one stereo radio at that time so my experiments became 3 channel, left, right and rear.
Even so I found the results outstanding. One of the quad broadcasts was of birds singing in a forest
and yes I could hear birds all around me. Quad never took off so the experiments were stopped."
DX Information from the British DX Club (BDXC-UK) - Gareth Foster

"Yes, I remember them (TV sound was RH, and Third Programme was LH - at least that's how I had it set up),
but the content was very gimmicky (trains & cars zooming from left to right & back again, table tennis games,
simple hard-panned dialogue, etc) I must have been about 11 at the time,
and it was probably one of the formative experiences leading to my later choice of career -
why didn't I go to the Saturday morning cinema club like normal kids did back then?
If I'd known then what I know now, I would have poured scorn on the idea,
but it was jolly good fun at the time..."
Mike Winson

"I remember I tried it and it did nothing for me - could not see (or hear) any point to those trials."
Tiddy Ogg

"I remember listening to the tests as well, with a friend in a garden shed.
I tried to convince myself that I could hear something, but actually I could not get anything.
I think we had problems with the two channel reception qualities being a little different!"
John ff

"I always assumed the real purpose was to inspire interest in the subject, or see who was already interested,
or just to see what people thought of stereo, which they could do at practically zero cost
because the transmitters were there anyway."
R.J.F. Stewart

"Yes, I remember it also. Around 1960. I just about got the the point but I was only six at the time.
The first concert to be recorded by the BBC in stereo was Mahler's Eighth Symphony
conducted by Jascha Horenstein from the Royal Albert Hall in 1959. It was an experiment using just one stereo microphone suspended from the dome a figure of eight array - sometimes called Blumlein). Of course it wasn't broadcast in stereo at the time as FM and stereo didn't come in until the middle 1960s
so a mono feed actually went out in 1959. The stereo tape had to wait for 1997 for its first BBC broadcast.
It has now been released on CD on the BBC Legends label and sounds fabulous."
Tony Duggan

"Ah, I remember those in the 1960's (although I was of course only a very small boy) with one channel on BBC television (I think it was before BBC2) and the other on the VHF channel used by the Third Programme
in the evenings and all sorts of other services during the day. Being very small, all I remember is a man walking around saying things like
"I should now be heard out of the left hand speaker and I'm now walking over to the right".
Wonderfully anoraky!"
John Allen

"The tests were transmitted on Saturday mornings on alternate weeks, and ran from 10am.to about 12noon.
The sound was carried on BBCTV for one channel (the left I think) and radio 3 (the Third programme)
for the other. You could use medium wave or VHF for the radio signal. So the difference in quality
between the two channels if one was on MW was quite appreciable.
The programmes were mainly music but would also include some items like a train going past, aircraft,
marching bands etc to show the "stereo effect". A caption would be shown on the TV screen saying
something like "sterophonic test transmision". I also used to hook an external speaker direct to the TV
and have only in my older and "wiser" years (I was a lad at the time of the trials) come to appreciate
the fact that the TV could have been live chassis and the radio speaker probably from and earthed chassis!.
Still we survived!. When the test transmissions ended and the Zenith pilot tone system started I did miss
the novelty of the "train sounds etc" which you got on the test programmes.
Also there should have been no crostalk with the test transmissions as two independendant carriers
for the left and right. Hiss was noticable when the pilot tone system first started as aerials needed
chaging and the decoders and receivers were not as efficiant as today."
John

"I heard the very first one. It was transmitted twice, the second time with the phase on one channel reversed
(which for me suddenly brought the whole image into focus). It included excerpts from the EMI demo LP,
including the train and the ping-pong game, and also I think a BBC recording of 'Norman and Henry Bones,
boy detectives' (characters from a Children's Hour series)
(though this might have been in a later transmission).
This was in late 1957 according to Pawley's history of BBC engineering."
Roger Wilmut

 

Index