The
Burnhope transmitting station
is a television transmitter in the north of England.
History
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Construction
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It was originally built by
BICC
[1]
for the
Independent Television Authority
(ITA) as its sole
405-line
transmitting station service the
Tyne Tees Television
region.
Transmission
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Test transmissions started in December 1958 approximately one month before the launch on
Tyne Tees Television
on 15 January 1959. It was built close to the existing
BBC
Band I station at
Pontop Pike
. This was the eighth transmitter opened by the ITA.
From the station's 750 foot mast, transmissions from Burnhope were on
VHF
Channel 8 at a peak vision
ERP
of 100 kW, successfully covering a region spanning the
North Yorkshire
moorlands and
Teesside
in the South, to the remote upper reaches of
Northumberland
in the North.
With the advent of
UHF
with its
625-lines
, the adjacent
Pontop Pike transmitting station
carried these services to the Newcastle and County Durham area from 1967 onwards, confining Burnhope to 405-line transmission. In due course, further main UHF transmissions were established at
Bilsdale West Moor
(serving North Yorkshire and Teesside) and Chatton (serving upper Northumberland).
The transmitter would later get a new lease of life with the advent of
Independent Local Radio
(commercial radio or ILR). Burnhope extended its remit by providing the transmissions for the first ILR service in the North East of England ?
Metro Radio
on 97.0
MHz
(now on 97.1 MHz).
After the 405-line television service ceased in January 1985,
Metro Radio
was for many years, the only broadcasting duty performed by the transmitter until the early 1990s, when a new tranche of commercial radio (regional) became available.
On 1 September 1994, the transmitter started broadcasting the first new regional radio service to the North East. Launched as
Century Network
, it then broadcast as Real Radio (North East) and is now
Heart North East
. It was followed almost five years later (1 June 1999), by Galaxy North East, now
Capital North East
.
TV returns
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In between the launch of the first two regional services, a new television service launched in 1997. March 1997 saw the launch of Channel 5, with Burnhope, along with a number of other ITA-built transmitter stations which had not been used since the 405-line closure, broadcasting the new television service.
Channel 5's analogue transmission from Burnhope ceased upon closure of the analogue TV service in the North East of England, which took place in the final phase of the
digital switchover
in September 2012. Channel 5 would then only be available digitally via the
Pontop Pike transmitting station
.
Further radio
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]
Two further analogue radio services would launch using this transmitter. On 5 December 2005,
Durham FM
(now used by
Sun FM
, now
Nation Radio North East
) launched a low-powered service to County Durham with a third and final regional service launched on 8 January 2008 (
Smooth North East
).
The transmitter is also used to carry the two local DAB signals (Bauer Digital) locally, and MXR Digital regionally.
Services available
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Analogue radio
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]
Digital radio
[
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]
Analogue television
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]
15 January 1959 ? 3 January 1985
[
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]
30 March 1997 ? 26 September 2012
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]
References
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]
- ^
Times
Tuesday 27 October 1959, page 6
- ^
Radio Listeners Guide 2010
External links
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]
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Italics
denotes a transmitter no longer used for transmitting television signals
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