Albert's Attic Gallery

This is a 1949 one-page product leaflet from Belling Lee of Enfield. All the aerials shown are for Band I of course, because this was six years before ITV began Band III transmissions. The illustrations exaggerate the difference in length between the elements of each product-why I don't know-this being most noticeable in the top left drawing of a four-element yagi. This is the biggest aerial shown - with elements nine or ten feet long for channels 1 and 2 and a twelve-foot wooden mast it was quite a beast.

In areas of good reception it was possible use a 'single dipole' as shown top right. This was a half wave centre-fed dipole, usually wall mounted. Of course it was omnidirectional, and was best fixed on the transmitter side of the building.

A problem with Band I aerials was resonant vibration in high winds. The quarter wave rods would oscillate and sometimes snap. The manufacturers combated this by adding weight, usually in the form of sawdust or rope inside the hollow element.

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