The Holywell Hill transmission site is located on a 260 metre hill near Killea in

County Donegal County Donegal ( ; ga, Contae Dhún na nGall) is a county of Ireland in the province of Ulster and in the Northern and Western Region. It is named after the town of Donegal in the south of the county. It has also been known as County Tyrconn ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

, and is owned and operated by 2RN (formerly RTÉ NL). The site which is close to the border with

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

has a 60 metre self-supporting tower and was opened in 1981 to provide UHF television coverage to parts of

as well as Derry City and

County A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

. It originally carried the two Irish analogue channels,

RTÉ One RTÉ One ( ga, RTÉ a hAon) is an Irish free-to-air flagship television channel owned and operated by Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ). It is the most-popular and most-watched television channel in the country and was launched as ''Telefís ...

(Ch 23), and

RTÉ Two (RTÉ) (; Irish for "Radio & Television of Ireland") is the national broadcaster of Ireland headquartered in Dublin. It both produces and broadcasts programmes on television, radio and online. The radio service began on 1 January 1926, while ...

(Ch 26), in later years, both TV3 (Ch 29), and

TG4 TG4 ( ga, TG Ceathair, ) is an Irish free-to-air public service television network. The channel launched on 31 October 1996 and is available online and through its on demand service TG4 Player in Ireland and beyond. TG4 was formerly known ...

(Ch 33) were added, all were horizontally polarised and with an

effective radiated power Effective radiated power (ERP), synonymous with equivalent radiated power, is an IEEE standardized definition of directional radio frequency (RF) power, such as that emitted by a radio transmitter. It is the total power in watts that would h ...

(ERP) of 20 kw.

Digital terrestrial television Digital terrestrial television (DTTV or DTT, or DTTB with "broadcasting") is a technology for terrestrial television in which land-based (terrestrial) television stations broadcast television content by radio waves to televisions in consumers' ...

(DTT) was first broadcast from the site in 2008 in preparation for the national switchover to digital television on 24 October 2012. Today the Irish digital television service

Saorview Saorview ( ) is the national digital terrestrial television (DTT) service in Ireland. It is owned by RTÉ and operated by 2RN. The service began operation on 29 October 2010 on a trial basis with a full launch on 26 May 2011. By legislation i ...

, and five national radio stations on FM, are broadcast from the Holywell Hill site to a large area of North West Ireland including Derry city. The transmitter also services a number of relay transmitters in County Donegal to help improve coverage in the difficult terrain.

Current transmissions

Digital television

FM radio

Holywell Hill relay transmitters

Gallery

File:Holywell_approach.jpg, The approach road to the site File:Holywell_top.jpg, Top of the transmitter mast File:Holywell_view.jpg, Holywell Hill seen from Heather Road in Derry

References

External links

www.rtenl.ie

saorview.ie
{{Main broadcast transmitters in Ireland, state=collapsed Transmitter sites in Ireland