| Heading up North firstly
and the original Ulster Television testcard from 1959. Note that UTV themselves
aren't mentioned - it was the regulator, the ITA, policy at the time to
mention the Transmitter site - in this case Black Mountain - only.
Nowadays the Black Mountain
transmitter site is used to transmit Channel 5 to an unsuspecting NI.
Grateful Thanks to Dave Jeffery
of Transdiffusion for this and the UTV Picasso slide. |
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Back in the sixties and
the seventies the ITA used to indulge in a little cod ceremonial to formally
handover transmission to the local programme contractor, in this case Ulster
Television. A tuning signal, known as a 'Picasso' was radiated accompanied
by a piece of music that had to be registered (!) with the ITA by the local
TV company. At this time the UTV music was a light music instrumental
callled ' Shamus'. In later years a 'Transmitters in Service' slide was
broadcast.
If you want to learn more
about the wonderful world of ITV startups (and why wouldn't you???) visit
the Transdiffusion site. |
| Moving down South now to
December 1961 and the start of Telefís Éireann. This testcard
is an SMPTE card and was obviously taken from an offscreen photograph at
the time. |
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Now that's a job I'd love
- nothing to do but watch the testcard all day! (OK I am joking - even
anoraks have a sense of humour)
Telefís Éireann
used testcard C as their standard testcard but no one can find a copy of
it or even describe how it appeared. This screenshot is the nearest I can
get to it at the moment.
If you have any more information
on the Telefís Éireann version of testcard C, please get
in touch. |
| This card popped up during
the 40 Years celebrations on RTÉ One in January 2002. It looks like
a tuning signal and features the classic St. Brigid's Cross logo for Telefís
Éireann. My hunch is that this poor quality offscreen photo is all
that exists of this card in the RTÉ archives. Maybe if a Flash wizard
like the great Keckse Bak is looking in, he could consider doing a flash
file of this and the Telefís Éireann clock! |
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Telefís Éireann used Test Card C but here we
can see a rare example of Test Card E with Telefís Éireann branding.
This image comes courtesy of Alan Pemberton and
his excellent 405
Lines site. |
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Radio Eireann, the governing
body of Telefis Eireann was renamed Radio Telefis Eireann in 1966. Consequently
the Radio and Television services were renamed RTE.
Almost as if to celebrate
this, RTE designed their own testcard. The RTE testcard was and remains
a unique piece of work. RTE ran their single channel service on two different
line standards; the British 405 line system and the European 625 line system.
The testcard had two sets of frequency gratings - one for each line standard.
Paddy Clarke, an RTE engineer
and later curator of the RTE museum designed the card. |
| The "Paddy Clarke" testcard
had a suitable revamp to show the new RTE logo adopted in 1968. This testcard
lasted until 1972 when the Philips PM5544 replaced it. Here we see the
three main versions of the Paddy Clarke. |
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This image must have been
burnt into virtually TV in every TV shop in Ireland throughout the 1970s
and 1980s. It is of course the Philips PM5544 colour testcard and as such
lasted on RTE, RTE1, RTE2 and Network 2 from 1972 until 1996.
The card is fully electronically
generated and is designed for 625 colour TV. This did not stop RTE from
using it on the 405 line version of RTE television where it looked awful.
Thanks again to Alan Pemberton for
this image.
|
| In later years the testcard
on RTE1 was accompanied by the sound of RTE Radio 1 and on Network 2, 2FM
was used. Previously an endless tape of diddley eye day ceili music was
used for as long as I can remember.
Here we see the RTE 2 version of the
testcard. |
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| Sadly the Test Card has
now vanished from RTE 1 and Network 2. Here is one of the last showings
of a test card on an RTE channel. This one dates from 1996 and was shown
at some point during the last summer games. Damien
Cahill of DMC fame very kindly provided this image.
Damien writes: Thanks
for the ack, Richard. I can pin down a date and time for you, as it was
after the opening ceremony.
20th July 1996 @ 5:55am.
Is that too anoraky?!
No Damien. Not for this page
it isn't!! |
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| RTE 1 and Network 2 broadcast
24 hours nowadays but from the late 1970s onwards transmitters stayed on
the air showing a station caption and different kinds of colour bars... |
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At 2am, the choice of viewing
on Network 2 always seemed pretty similar to RTE1...listen
to what Kevin McAleer made of closedown!
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| Just when you thought the
test card was dead and buried up comes one to bite you! Thanks to TV3,
we had the pleasure of a moving testcard! This was based on the
Snell & Wilcox Test Card M for the tests prior to the start.
Sadly TV3 don't use a testcard
now when they're off the air. Instead they've copied TnaG's habit of listing
the following day's programmes.
Thanks to Brian Greene who
captured this in Dublin. |
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"Tell me, Richard, have you ever considered psychiatric care?" - Gerry
Ryan, 2FM, 2001
