The Whitehawk Hill transmitting station (also known as the Whitehawk transmitting station) is a broadcasting and telecommunications facility located at

Whitehawk Whitehawk is a suburb in the east of Brighton, England, south of Bevendean and north of Brighton Marina. The area is a large, modern housing estate built in a downland dry valley historically known as Whitehawk Bottom. The estate was original ...

, an eastern suburb of

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

in the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

city of

Brighton and Hove Brighton and Hove () is a city and unitary authority in East Sussex, England. It consists primarily of the settlements of Brighton and Hove, alongside neighbouring villages. Often referred to synonymously as Brighton, the City of Brighton and H ...

. It is the city's main transmission facility for television and radio signals. It broadcasts

digital television Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an innovative adva ...

, FM and

DAB DAB, dab, dabs, or dabbing may refer to: Dictionaries * '' Dictionary of American Biography'', published under the auspices of the American Council of Learned Societies * ''Dictionary of Australian Biography'', published since 1949 Places * Dą ...

radio to the coastal city of Brighton and Hove and to surrounding areas along the Sussex coast. It stopped broadcasting

analogue television Analog television is the original television technology that uses analog signals to transmit video and audio. In an analog television broadcast, the brightness, colors and sound are represented by amplitude, phase and frequency of an analog s ...

when the

digital switchover The digital television transition, also called the digital switchover (DSO), the analogue switch/sign-off (ASO), the digital migration, or the analogue shutdown, is the process in which older analogue television broadcasting technology is conv ...

occurred locally in March 2012. Services broadcast include

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...

( South East),

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 a ...

, ITV ( Meridian),

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...

, BBC national radio stations,

BBC Sussex BBC Radio Sussex is the BBC's local radio station serving the counties of East and West Sussex. It broadcasts on FM, DAB, digital TV and via BBC Sounds from studios on Queens Road in Brighton. Programming Local programming airs from the BB ...

and Heart Sussex.

History

A radar station was opened on the high ground of

Whitehawk Hill Whitehawk Hill is a Local Nature Reserve in Brighton, East Sussex. It is owned and managed by Brighton and Hove City Council. At the top of the hill is Whitehawk Camp, a Neolithic causewayed enclosure which is a Scheduled Monument. This is s ...

, to the east of central Brighton, during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. Meanwhile, television broadcasts first reached the town in 1953 when a relay transmitter was erected on Truleigh Hill, several miles to the west on the

South Downs The South Downs are a range of chalk hills that extends for about across the south-eastern coastal counties of England from the Itchen valley of Hampshire in the west to Beachy Head, in the Eastbourne Downland Estate, East Sussex, in the eas ...

. On 5 April 1959, after the wartime facility was demolished, a transmitter was opened at Whitehawk. It took a feed from the

Crystal Palace transmitting station The Crystal Palace transmitting station, officially known as Arqiva Crystal Palace, is a broadcasting and telecommunications site in the Crystal Palace area of the London Borough of Bromley, England (). It is located on the site of the former t ...

until 14 April 1962; after that, signals were relayed from the

Rowridge transmitting station The Rowridge transmitting station is a facility for FM radio and television transmission at Rowridge on the Isle of Wight in southern England. It currently has a tall guyed mast, owned and operated by Arqiva (previously National Grid Wire ...

. The original

VHF Very high frequency (VHF) is the ITU designation for the range of radio frequency electromagnetic waves (radio waves) from 30 to 300 megahertz (MHz), with corresponding wavelengths of ten meters to one meter. Frequencies immediately below VHF ...

signal was accompanied by colour UHF transmissions from 21 September 1970 (BBC1 and BBC2 only) until the VHF 405-line TV transmissions from this site ceased in 1983. UHF signals for ITV and Channel 4 followed from 28 April 1972 and 17 May 1983 respectively. Radio broadcasts started on 13 March 1967, in

mono Mono may refer to: Common meanings * Infectious mononucleosis, "the kissing disease" * Monaural, monophonic sound reproduction, often shortened to mono * Mono-, a numerical prefix representing anything single Music Performers * Mono (Japanes ...

only;

stereo Stereophonic sound, or more commonly stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that recreates a multi-directional, 3-dimensional audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two independent audio channels through a configuration ...

transmissions commenced on 4 November 1972. From the beginning, signals were relayed from the Wrotham transmitting station; this arrangement continues as of . The original mast was replaced in 1983 by the present structure, which stood alongside it for a short time until the earlier mast was demolished. The present mast is also tall; it reaches a height of when the UHF aerial is taken into account.

itself is above sea level. In 1990, the transmitting station was reported to serve 400,000 people and was supported by relay transmitters at several locations around Brighton:

Patcham Patcham () is an area of the city of Brighton & Hove, about north of the city centre. It is bounded by the A27 (Brighton bypass) to the north, Hollingbury to the east and southeast, Withdean to the south and the Brighton Main Line to the west. ...

Ovingdean Ovingdean is a small, formerly agricultural, village in the east of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England. Overview It was absorbed into the administrative borough of Brighton, East Sussex, England in 1928, and now forms part of the city of ...

and Saltdean (all installed in 1982–83), and

Coldean Coldean is a suburb of the English city of Brighton and Hove. Located in the northeast corner of the urban area, it was developed by Brighton Corporation in the 1950s as one of several postwar council estates necessitated by the acute housin ...

and the

North Laine North Laine is a shopping and residential district of Brighton, on the English south coast. Once a slum area, it is now seen as Brighton's bohemian and cultural quarter, with many pubs, cafés, theatres and museums. History "Laine" is a Su ...

area of central Brighton (both planned for 1990 but delayed).

Services available

Analogue radio

The coverage area of BBC Radio Sussex extends to

Worthing Worthing () is a seaside town in West Sussex, England, at the foot of the South Downs, west of Brighton, and east of Chichester. With a population of 111,400 and an area of , the borough is the second largest component of the Brighton and Ho ...

Haywards Heath Haywards Heath is a town in West Sussex, England, south of London, north of Brighton, south of Gatwick Airport and northeast of the county town, Chichester. Nearby towns include Burgess Hill to the southwest, Horsham to the northwest, Cra ...

Uckfield Uckfield () is a town in the Wealden District of East Sussex in South East England. The town is on the River Uck, one of the tributaries of the River Ouse, on the southern edge of the Weald. Etymology 'Uckfield', first recorded in writing as ...

and

Eastbourne Eastbourne () is a town and seaside resort in East Sussex, on the south coast of England, east of Brighton and south of London. Eastbourne is immediately east of Beachy Head, the highest chalk sea cliff in Great Britain and part of the l ...

. Other stations have smaller coverage areas from this transmitting station.

Digital radio

The Sussex Coast

DAB ensemble In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource - a ...

includes

BBC Radio Sussex BBC Radio Sussex is the BBC's local radio station serving the counties of East and West Sussex. It broadcasts on FM, DAB, digital TV and via BBC Sounds from studios on Queens Road in Brighton. Programming Local programming airs from the BB ...

Capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used fo ...

, Gold Sussex, Heart South.

Digital television

Whitehawk Hill transmitter with Marine Parade in foreground

The transmitting station provides Freeview television to 96,000 households. Since 28 August 2014, a local television station called Latest TV has been broadcast from LTVmux. Whitehawk Hill completed the 700MHz Clearance Programme in November 2019 and ceased transmitting on UHF 51, UHF 53, UHF 54, UHF 57 and UHF 60.

Analogue television

Analogue television transmissions were turned off in two stages—on 7 March 2012 and 21 March 2012. At this time, the local BBC service broadcast from the transmitter was changed from

BBC South BBC South is the BBC English Region serving Oxfordshire, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Dorset, Berkshire and parts of Gloucestershire, Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire, Surrey, West Sussex and Wiltshire, with geographic coverage varying b ...

BBC South East BBC South East is the BBC English region serving Kent, East Sussex, most parts of West Sussex and southern parts of Surrey. The BBC region was created in September 2001 by the joining of the Heathfield transmitter (formerly part of the BB ...

References

Bibliography

External links

The Transmission Gallery: Whitehawk Hill
{{Television transmitters in the UK Brighton Buildings and structures in Brighton and Hove Transmitter sites in England