Reply to post: Re: The elevator did it

This PDP-11/70 was due to predict an election outcome – but no one could predict it falling over

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: The elevator did it

"People nowadays have no idea how sensitive electronics used to be."

Or how electronically vicious they could be.

Back in the '50s the Beeb experimented with stereo broadcasts on Saturday mornings. One channel was broadcast over TV sound (don't bother to ask which channel - the Beeb and ITV only had one each) and the other over the Third Programme. Unless you were rich enough to have one of the new-fangled FM radios the Third was a weak signal on medium wave AM.

TVs were CRTs and the EHT was generated by a whacking big transformer driven by the sawtooth (more or less) waveform of the horizontal scan. The harmonics generated by that mess extended will into the medium wave so the sound on that channel was swamped by the howl the interference generated despite being only a couple of miles or so as the signal flies from the transmitter.

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