Belmont transmitting station
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The Belmont transmitting station is a broadcasting and telecommunications facility, situated close to the village of Donington on Bain, near Market Rasen and Louth in Lincolnshire, England (grid reference TF217837). It is owned and operated by Arqiva. It includes a guyed tubular steel mast, which at 1,265 feet (385 m) is the tallest structure in the UK (and in the European Union).
Constructed in 1965, it came into service on December 20 of that year. (An identical mast was constructed in 1964 at Emley Moor near Huddersfield in Yorkshire, but that mast collapsed due to guy failure caused by icing and high winds on March 19, 1969.) In 1967 meteorological equipment was added to the mast extending its height to 1,272 ft (388 m). From its location, high in the Lincolnshire Wolds, it is used to broadcast both analogue and digital television and radio to parts of Lincolnshire, north Nottinghamshire, north-west Norfolk, Hull and East Yorkshire. When it was first operated it transmitted (amongst others) pictures from Independent Television station Anglia Television. Following a re-organisation of ITV coverage in 1970, from 1974 it started transmitting pictures from neighbouring station Yorkshire Television instead, which it continues to do so to this day.
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[edit] Transmitter Power
At 500 kW erp (for the four main analogue channels) Belmont is one of the most powerful transmitters in the UK. Channel 5 is only broadcast at 50 kW and digital at 10 kW (Multiplex 1, 2, A, B) and 4 kW (Multiplex C, D) although this level of digital power is theoretically equal to 500 kW on analogue in terms of the received carrier to noise ratio required to give a "perfect" picture.
[edit] Channels listed by Frequency
- Analogue Radio (FM VHF)
- 88.8 MHz - BBC Radio 2
- 90.9 MHz - BBC Radio 3
- 93.1 MHz - BBC Radio 4
- 94.9 MHz - BBC Radio Lincolnshire
- 98.3 MHz - BBC Radio 1
- 100.5 MHz - Classic FM
- 102.2 MHz - Lincs FM
- Digital Radio (DAB)
- Block 11D: 222.06 MHz - Digital One
- Block 12A: 223.93 MHz - MXR Yorkshire
- Block 12B: 225.64 MHz - BBC
- Analogue Television
- Digital Television
- UHF 30 (546 MHz) - Multiplex 1 BBC
- UHF 48 (690 MHz) - Multiplex 2 Digital 3&4
- UHF 57 (762 MHz) - Multiplex D National Grid Wireless*
- UHF 60 (786 MHz) - Multiplex C National Grid Wireless
- UHF 66 (834 MHz) - Multiplex B BBC
- UHF 68 (850 MHz) - Multiplex A SDN
Multiplex D is off frequency and is actually found at 762166000
Details of all the muxes can be found at [1] for some reason the sid vid aid information is extremely hard to find on the net and extremely useful
[edit] Digital Switchover
The digital switchover will occur at the Belmont site in July 2011, the existing analogue and digital signals will be turned off and replaced with high power digital signals, the predicted channels for these signals are:
- UHF 22 - PSB 1 - Previously Multiplex 1
- UHF 25 - PSB 2 - Previously Multiplex 2
- UHF 28 - PSB 3 - Previously Multiplex B
- UHF 30 - COM 4 - Previously Multiplex A
- UHF 53 - COM 5 - Previously Multiplex C
- UHF 60 - COM 6 - Previously Multiplex D
[edit] See also
- List of masts
- List of tallest buildings and structures in Great Britain
- List of radio stations in the United Kingdom
[edit] External links
- The Transmission Gallery: Belmont index.
- Info and pictures of Belmont.
- Skyscraperpage plan of Belmont
