I never said that we sent the good programs, Sage, but they sure looked good on the British higher definition/resolution TV sets. I wondered a bit why the British sets had so few controls; mainly a power switch, a volume control, push buttons for each of, as I recall, four BBC stations and another four ITV stations, although most locations only had one ITV station back then. No color adjustments, no hue adjustments, and no saturation - color density adjustment out where the owner could tweak them. The reason, as far as I could tell, was that British TV was so uniform across the transmitters and frequencies, that there wasn't any need for these adjustments, unkile here in the US.

   The British made another couple of brilliant decisions. Color TV was only available on the "UHF" sets with the higher resolution, while the old black and white only signal had to be watched on the old, slow scan rate VHF receivers. These had such a low scan rate by design and because they were synched to a 50 Hz Mains voltage, that most of the sets gave off an irritating high frequency signal from the flyback transformer in the back of the set, above the audible frequency for many, but still was perceived by most on another level. My ears had been damaged by too much jet engine noise, so although I could not her the high pitched whistle or hiss that younger folks heard, I felt an opressive feeling whenever I walked into a Telly Repair Shop, and would have to leave before I got physically sick.

   The second smart thing they did was to broadcast ALL of the TV signals for a region from one ceentral transmitter and antenna site, unlike in the US, where anyone with a bit of money and interest can buy a station license, and set it up a transmitter anywhere he wished. The British system had all 4-6 frequencies or broadcast services at one location, so you never had to change the direction in which the antenna was pointing, eliminating all need for an expensive tall mast, a rotator, and a multi-band antenna on top. The British system had the one antenna, frequently fastened directly onto the side of your home, and pointed to the transmitter site for the three BBC channels, and in my case, the East Anglia Broadcast channel.

   A clever well thought out plan.

   Dave