The

Alexandra Palace Alexandra Palace is an entertainment and sports venue in North London, situated between Wood Green and Muswell Hill in the London Borough of Haringey. A listed building, Grade II listed building, it is built on the site of Tottenham Wood and th ...

television station in North London () is the oldest

television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

transmission site in the world. What was at the time called "high definition", (

405-line The 405-line monochrome analogue television broadcasting system was the first fully electronic television system to be used in regular broadcasting. The number of television lines influences the image resolution, or quality of the picture. It ...

) the world's first TV broadcasts on VHF were beamed from this mast from 1936 until the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. It then lay dormant until it was used very successfully to

foil Foil may refer to: Materials * Foil (metal), a quite thin sheet of metal, usually manufactured with a rolling mill machine * Metal leaf, a very thin sheet of decorative metal * Aluminium foil, a type of wrapping for food * Tin foil, metal foil ma ...

the German

Y-Gerät The Battle of the Beams was a period early in the Second World War when bombers of the German Air Force (''Luftwaffe'') used a number of increasingly accurate systems of radio navigation for night bombing in the United Kingdom. British scientific ...

radio navigation system during the last stages of the

Battle of Britain The Battle of Britain () was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defended the United Kingdom (UK) against large-scale attacks by Nazi Germany's air force ...

. After the war, it was reused for television until 1956, when it was superseded by the opening of the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

's new main transmitting station for the

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

area at

Crystal Palace Crystal Palace may refer to: Places Canada * Crystal Palace Complex (Dieppe), a former amusement park now a shopping complex in Dieppe, New Brunswick * Crystal Palace Barracks, London, Ontario * Crystal Palace (Montreal), an exhibition buildin ...

. In 1982 Alexandra Palace became an active transmitting station again, with the opening of a relay transmitter to provide UHF television service to parts of North

poorly covered from Crystal Palace. The transmitter is owned and maintained by

Arqiva Arqiva () is a British telecommunications company which provides infrastructure, broadcast transmission and smart meter facilities in the United Kingdom. The company is headquartered at the former Independent Broadcasting Authority headquart ...

Channels listed by frequency

Analogue radio (FM)

Digital radio (DAB)

Digital television

Digital television replaced the analogue television signals during the

digital switchover Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Businesses *Digital bank, a form of financial institution *Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) or Digital, a computer company *Digital Research (DR or DRI), a software ...

of April 2012-2013. However, only 3 of the 6

multiplexes 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 ...

are available: BBC A & B and Digital 3&4. BBC A launched on UHF 61 on 4 April on 2012, before moving to its final allocation of UHF 49 on 18 April, when BBC B and Digital 3&4 launched. As part of the 700 MHz clearance programme the UHF channel numbers were changed in March 2018.digitaluk.co.uk

Analogue television

Analogue television is no longer transmitted from Alexandra Palace. BBC Two was closed on UHF 64 on 4 April 2012, when ITV1 temporarily moved into its frequency. The remaining three analogue services closed down on 18 April 2012. *Aerial group: C/D *Polarisation: horizontal

References

External links

The Transmission Gallery: Photographs and Information
{{Television transmitters in the UK Transmitter sites in England Infrastructure in London Alexandra Palace History of television in the United Kingdom