[Clean Feed]

I think the most likely thing is a transmitter that uses an off-air feed (either permanently or in RBS mode) and - perhaps aided and abetted by atmospheric conditions - it was picking up Winter Hill/Caldebck alongside the wanted BBC Scotland feed.

BBC2 NW getting into BBC2 Scotland pres is possible, there was some weird switching at a site in Carlisle where such a switching error could have happened, but I don't think it's plausible for that to be the situation here.

With switching errors, you don't usually get a mix of sources. So, as you say, inclined to rule out that. Can't imagine an RBS situation causing this either.

It sounds like a strain of co-channel interference caused by weather conditions.

---

Back in 1994, a landslip at an opencast site in Lanarkshire caused a pylon to collapse. The upshot was, it took STV and C4 off air in Central Scotland for over 3 hours.

The basics were, STV was static, C4 was black and grey lines. BBC1 and BBC2 were off air, and returned in a minute. STV returned just after 6pm, initially showing films of scottish scenes with music and their logo in the corner. Eventually, a short Scotland Today was put on air, followed by a programme, and then another short Scotland Today. Both showed scenes from the landslip.

Sounds similar to an incident in Northern Ireland at the start of 1995.

An electrical fault at the main Divis transmitter on the outskirts of Belfast caused a loss of power at the site. This also resulted in a loss of feeds to the other two main transmitter sites in Northern Ireland - Brougher Mountain and Limavady.

UTV and Channel 4 were off air completely (no blue apology caption). BBC One and BBC Two switched to RBS mode, which meant viewers received BBC One Scotland and BBC Two Scotland.

In this news report, the presenter says three quarters of NI viewers lost their pictures. Not sure how accurate that was.

rewind.thetvroom.com 

BBC Inside Ulster reports on a transmitter fault that blacked out analogue TV ac…
All four terrestrial TV networks were blacked out across Northern Ireland due to…
  Source: rewind.thetvroom.com

Presumably, generator power kicked in at Divis for the BBC channels, which allowed an RBS arrangement to function?

[Steve in Pudsey]

This was a 1998 incident which sounds like it was the same circumstances as the 1995 one, power failure at Divis.

youtu.be 

Providing standby generators for the power required for analogue TV transmitters wasn't viable - the only exception was Bilsdale where two diversely routed mains feeders were not available so a gas turbine generator was provided.

I think the generators referred to in Robert's post are at the studio end, presumably the pylon fault took out much of Glasgow's power too?

[Clean Feed]

This was a 1998 incident which sounds like it was the same circumstances as the 1995 one, power failure at Divis.

youtu.be 

Providing standby generators for the power required for analogue TV transmitters wasn't viable - the only exception was Bilsdale where two diversely routed mains feeders were not available so a gas turbine generator was provided.

I think the generators referred to in Robert's post are at the studio end, presumably the pylon fault took out much of Glasgow's power too?

Interesting point Steve. Had always thought Divis had a back-up generator. However, it would explain why the Inside Ulster report claimed three quarters of NI's screens went blank. Presumably no RBS from Divis as a result? And lack of generator at Divis would also explain the remarks by the announcer in that 1998 incident about being "off air for a while" as a result of an outage at the TX site.

For the 1995 incident, we do know that the north west of NI was receiving BBC One Scotland and BBC Two Scotland - and a pretty decent signal too.  So, presumably Limavady was in RBS mode (and its relays). One can only assume Brougher Mountain switched to RBS and took BBC Scotland too.

Saw a comment by Nathan Dane somewhere that Limavady was confirmed in RBS mode during the 1998 outage.

[Steve in Pudsey]

Yes, presumably Limavady and Brougher viewers would have seen a short interruption as RBS kicked in, then the BBC NI apology and a repeat of a section of the movie

[Steve in Pudsey]

Somebody in Granada's MCR* was having a bad day here, cocking up the 09.25 junction in almost every way possible. (first clip in this long compilation)

www.youtube.com 

* I believe the way it worked was that The Time The Place's live trail and the following network programme were fed through Granada (I assume Quay Street rather than Liverpool) to the rest of the network, which was much more convenient for all concerned than having to take three separate contributions from different sources back to back.

[Steve in Pudsey]

The normal form of these junctions was This Morning, TTTP, back to This Morning then straight into the programme. So I assume Granada fed the TTTP live feed to network (if it was pre-rec surely it would have a VT clock on it?) with TM sound, then after TTTP took Anglia rather than going back to TM?

This is how it should have looked when they did it properly

www.youtube.com 

[Steve in Pudsey]

But then if you have the OB circuit set up, why tie up VT facilities and operators to record and playout a 10 second piece if you can do it live?

You may well be right about it being correct in Granadaland, that's plausible.

[robertclark125]

I think looking at the clip, TTTP 10 second piece was live, and the person saying "Absolutely ace" was perhaps to signify they were off air. Also, Mike Scott was looking I presume at a monitor, and didn't react to seeing himself on the monitor when Richard and Judy were talking. If this was how network saw it, I wonder instead, if the TM promos were pre recorded and TTTP promo was live.

[Steve in Pudsey]

I think it was all live. It's probably not unusual that the monitor would show "studio out".

[bilky asko]

The best bit was Mike Scott asking "do you watch Good Morning?"