Hannington transmitting station is a television and radio transmitting station located on Cottington Hill near the village of

Hannington, Hampshire Hannington is a civil parish in the English county of Hampshire. It is situated between Basingstoke and Newbury, on the North Hampshire Downs in the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. In the 2001 census it had a populatio ...

. The transmitter is actually in the parish of Kingsclere. The station provides broadcast services to

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Berk ...

and north Hampshire, and includes a guyed steel lattice mast. Surmounting the mast is a GRP aerial cylinder, which contains the

UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter (on ...

television transmitting antennas, which brings the overall height of the mast to . Hannington's digital broadcasts were severely attenuated to the east before the digital switchover (DSO) so as not to cause co-channel interference with Guildford transmitter. Those restrictions were removed soon after DSO in 2012.

Broadcast interruptions

1977 Ashtar Galactic Command message

On Saturday 26 November 1977 at around 5.10 pm, the Southern ITV broadcast from this transmitter had its UHF sound transmission hi-jacked by unknown agents. At that time Hannington re-broadcast off-air UHF transmissions from Rowridge on the Isle of Wight. The UHF audio signal from Rowridge was swamped by a signal presumably from a location much closer to the Hannington transmitter, overriding the sound of the local

ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...

station

Southern Television Southern Television was the ITV broadcasting licence holder for the South and South-East of England from 30 August 1958 to 31 December 1981. The company was launched as 'Southern Television Limited' and the title 'Southern Television' was con ...

and broadcast their own audio message purporting to be from Vrillon, an

alien Alien primarily refers to: * Alien (law), a person in a country who is not a national of that country ** Enemy alien, the above in times of war * Extraterrestrial life, life which does not originate from Earth ** Specifically, intelligent extrater ...

from an institution calling itself the Ashtar Galactic Command. The message, transmitted over an

ITN Independent Television News (ITN) is a UK-based television production company. It is made up of two divisions: Broadcast News and ITN Productions. ITN is based in London, with bureaux and offices in Beijing, Brussels, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, N ...

News bulletin and a subsequent

Merrie Melodies ''Merrie Melodies'' is an American animation, animated series of comedy short films produced by Warner Bros. starting in 1931, during the golden age of American animation, and ending in 1969. Then some new cartoons were produced from the late 197 ...

cartoon A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently animated, in an unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved over time, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or series of images ...

, lasted six minutes. Despite extensive investigations by

Hampshire Police The Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary is the territorial police force responsible for policing the counties of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight in South East England.Hampshire Constabulary, 2012 Retrieved 27 April 2012 The force area inc ...

, the Independent Broadcasting Authority and Southern Television, those responsible have never been identified, and the potential culprits have ranged from students to university professors to disgruntled television technicians.

1994 World Cup Final

On 17 July 1994 vandals sabotaged the mast's power supply during the 1994 FIFA World Cup Final, meaning that hundreds of thousands of viewers missed about an hour of the match.

Services available

Analogue radio

Digital radio

Digital television

Before switchover

Analogue television

Analogue television transmissions ceased from Hannington during February 2012; BBC2 analogue closed on UHF 45 on 8 February 2012 and all other analogue services closed on 22 February 2012. *Aerial group: E *Polarisation: horizontal

External links

Hannington Transmitter at MB21Info and pictures of Hannington transmitter including historical power/frequency changes and present co-receivable transmitters

References

{{Television transmitters in the UK Basingstoke and Deane Transmitter sites in England