Belmont transmitting station

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Belmont Transmitter: Tallest Structure in the UK and EU

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.

1 Transmitter Power
2 Channels listed by Frequency
3 Digital Switchover
4 See also
5 External links

[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
- UHF 22 (479.25 MHz) - BBC One
- UHF 25 (503.25 MHz) - ITV1
- UHF 28 (527.25 MHz) - BBC Two
- UHF 32 (559.25 MHz) - Channel 4
- UHF 56 (751.25 MHz) - Five

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: