BBC Outside Broadcasts celebrates 25 years of innovation - The dish which changed TV

January 2007: BBC Outside Broadcasts’ UKI-1, Europe's first purpose built transportable earth station, is celebrating its 25th anniversary. The three metre satellite dish, weighing 3.3 tons had a massive impact on live television.

Before transportable satellite dishes, broadcasters had to rely on fixed earth stations – such as BT’s Goonhilly site in Cornwall and outside broadcasts had few opportunities to take advantage of satellite technology. However, the advent of UKI-1, developed and built by BBC Research and Development for BBC Outside Broadcasts, gave much greater flexibility. For the first time programme makers had the freedom to transmit live from all over the globe.

BBC Outside Broadcasts carried out the first live TV transmission uplink with UKI-1 in October 1981 from the Channel Islands for the BBC’s Songs of Praise. The following year it covered the Pope’s visit to Canterbury and the World Cup in Spain, as well as a whole host of other programmes. It was responsible for delivering pictures back from the Sudan for Live Aid’s Save the Children report for the BBC’s Late Late Breakfast Show in 1985 and covered Remote Winter Sports for Italy’s RAI TV for four years between 1986 and 1990.

UKI-1 is well travelled and has been deployed all over the world, from Sweden and Iceland, to India and the Bahamas. Along with massive international sport and music events, it has also covered monumental political occasions, including the 1986 Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Reykjavik and the Moscow summit in 1988, as well as the first elections in Germany following reunification in 1990.

Its size enables it to receive signals from weaker satellites as part of on-site hub operations – as it did at the Euro 2004 football and the Athens 2004 Olympics. Another of UKI-1’s strengths is that it can break through jamming signals, as was the case at the World Athletics in Athens in 1997: The channel UKI-1 was using had recently been occupied by Kurdish nationalists who were transmitting propaganda and was subsequently still being blocked by the Turkish military when the BBC’s World Athletics coverage was being transmitted. UKI-1 was powerful enough though to overcome the Turkish jamming and still be satisfactorily received in London. Its power didn’t help it get to the Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin in 1988 though, where it was supposed to be supporting Telecom Eire. UKI-1 was to be transported by boat, but the ship’s crew were on strike, and the vessel was stuck in Liverpool. It arrived in the end however, albeit a little late and the uplink for the Song Contest went with out a hitch.

UKI-1 lead the way in satellite broadcast communications - when it launched in 1981 even BBC Television Centre did not have a down-linking facility. It was also involved in BBC Research & Development’s first analogue HD TV trials in the 1980s and transmitted its first digital signals from the late 1990s.

BBC Outside Broadcasts still occasionally uses UKI-1 and associated equipment. It was recently used for a link to Atlanta USA for the HR Awards for a large tractor manufacturer – JCB. However, BBC Outside Broadcasts now has a substantial fleet of modern mobile uplinking and down-linking vehicles, including two HD comms trucks, Link 21 and Link 18. BBC Outside Broadcasts’ flagship Link 21 uplinked Live 8 in HD in 2005 to a 17ft-wide LED screen in Cardiff, which was the first live public relay of HDTV pictures in Europe. Both Link 21 and Link 18 supported HD coverage of the FIFA World Cup in 2006.

It was the advent of UKI-1 which originally enabled broadcasters to expand their outside broadcasts and transform their programmes. Our heritage of innovation means BBC Outside Broadcasts can push the boundaries of the technology today and deliver cutting edge pictures HD and SD, pretty much anytime, any place.


About BBC Outside Broadcasts
BBC Outside Broadcasts, a division of BBC Resources Ltd, is the leading outside broadcast facilities provider in Europe, offering a complete range of solutions from scanners and VT units to the design of bespoke OB production units and special cameras. Combining creativity and flair with technical expertise, project management and customer service skills, BBC Outside Broadcasts caters for both small and large scale events across all genres - from the FIFA World Cup, Wimbledon and the Golf Open, to Glastonbury, the Proms and the royal wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall. Key clients include BBC Sport and independents such as North One, TWI and Sunset & Vine, as well as  international Broadcasters such as Canal +, RAI ( Italy) and CTV (Canadian Television).
www.bbcresources.com/ob

For further information, please contact:

Georgie Hollett, PR and Communications Manager, BBC Resources
Tel: +44 (0)20 8576 2250
Mobile : +44 (0) 783484 5612
Email : georgie.hollett@bbc.co.uk