The Beacon Hill transmitting station is an English

telecommunication Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...

s facility located at Beacon Hill,

Marldon Marldon is a village in the South Hams in Devon, United Kingdom, to the north-west of Paignton. It is the most northeasterly Civil Parish in the South Hams and includes the village of Compton with Compton Castle. Beacon Hill transmitting station ...

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...

. It includes a

guyed mast A guyed mast or guyed tower is a tall thin vertical structure that depends on guy lines (diagonal tensioned cables attached to the ground) for stability. The mast itself has the compressive strength to support its own weight, but does not ha ...

(Beacon Hill A) and a free-standing

lattice tower A lattice tower or truss tower is a freestanding vertical framework tower. This construction is widely used in transmission towers carrying high voltage electric power lines, in radio masts and towers (a self-radiating tower or as a support for a ...

(Beacon Hill B), both of which support various

antennas In radio engineering, an antenna or aerial is the interface between radio waves propagating through space and electric currents moving in metal conductors, used with a transmitter or receiver. In transmission, a radio transmitter supplies a ...

History

Beacon Hill A became operational in 1972–3, bringing 625 line

PAL Phase Alternating Line (PAL) is a colour encoding system for analogue television. It was one of three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25 ...

colour television to the coverage area of

Torbay Torbay is a borough and unitary authority in Devon, south west England. It is governed by Torbay Council and consists of of land, including the resort towns of Torquay, Paignton and Brixham, located on east-facing Tor Bay, part of Lyme ...

and south Devon. Beacon Hill B transmits

FM radio FM broadcasting is a method of radio broadcasting using frequency modulation (FM). Invented in 1933 by American engineer Edwin Armstrong, wide-band FM is used worldwide to provide high fidelity sound over broadcast radio. FM broadcasting is cap ...

and

DAB radio Digital radio is the use of digital technology to transmit or receive across the radio spectrum. Digital transmission by radio waves includes digital broadcasting, and especially digital audio radio services. Types In digital broadcasting sys ...

to the area. In 2007, a third guyed lattice mast was constructed at the site to provide

medium wave Medium wave (MW) is the part of the medium frequency (MF) radio band used mainly for AM radio broadcasting. The spectrum provides about 120 channels with more limited sound quality than FM stations on the FM broadcast band. During the daytime ...

transmissions for Gold (Exeter/Torbay). The transmitter for Gold was dismantled after the service was discontinued.

Digital switchover

In April 2009, the analogue television transmissions at Beacon Hill A were turned off, requiring homes in the area to switch to the

Freeview Freeview may refer to: *Freeview (Australia), the marketing name for the digital terrestrial television platform in Australia *Freeview (New Zealand), a digital satellite and digital terrestrial television platform in New Zealand *Freeview (UK), a ...

service. The Beacon Hill transmitter group was the first in the

South West The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...

of England to stop broadcasting analogue television services.

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...

ceased at 00:50 on 8 April 2009 and the remaining analogue signals were turned off on 22 April 2009 at 00:20.

Services listed by frequency

Analogue radio

Digital radio

Digital television

700MHz clearance

The 700MHz clearance programme led to the removal of some of the Freeview HD and SD channels from the Beacon Hill transmitter."700 MHz Clearance Programme"
Ofcom, 27 February 2019. Retrieved 28 March 2019. Prior to 27 March 2019, Beacon Hill used to transmit these services:

Before switchover

Analogue television

Analogue television signals ceased in April 2009. BBC Two was closed on 8 April 2009, with ITV1 temporarily moving into its place, followed by the remaining services on 22 April.

References

External links

Beacon Hill at The Transmission Gallery
{{Supertall Buildings and structures in Devon Transmitter sites in England