The Burnhope transmitting station is a former television transmitter in County Durham in the north east of England. It is currently a radio transmitting station

History

Construction

It was originally built by BICC''Times'' Tuesday 27 October 1959, page 6 for the

Independent Television Authority The Independent Television Authority (ITA) was an agency created by the Television Act 1954 ( 2 & 3 Eliz. 2. c. 55) to supervise the creation of " Independent Television" (ITV), the first commercial television network in the United Kingdom. The ...

(ITA) as its sole

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 ...

transmitting station service the

Tyne Tees Television ITV Tyne Tees, previously known as Tyne Tees, Channel 3 North East and Tyne Tees Television, is the ITV (TV network), ITV television franchisee for North East England and parts of North Yorkshire. Tyne Tees launched on 15 January 1959 from stu ...

region.

Transmission

Test transmissions started in December 1958 approximately one month before the launch on

on 15 January 1959. It was built close to the existing

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 ...

Band I station at

Pontop Pike The Pontop Pike transmitting station is a facility for telecommunications and broadcasting situated on a 312-metre (1,024-ft) high hill of the same name between Stanley and Consett, County Durham, near the village of Dipton, England. The mast ...

. This was the eighth transmitter opened by the ITA. From the station's 750 foot mast, transmissions from Burnhope were on VHF Channel 8 at a peak vision ERP of 100 kW, successfully covering a region spanning the

North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in Northern England.The Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority areas of City of York, York and North Yorkshire (district), North Yorkshire are in Yorkshire and t ...

moorlands and

Teesside Teesside () is an urban area around the River Tees in North East England. Straddling the border between County Durham and North Yorkshire, it spans the boroughs of Borough of Middlesbrough, Middlesbrough, Borough of Stockton-on-Tees, Stockton ...

in the South, to the remote upper reaches of

Northumberland Northumberland ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North East England, on the Anglo-Scottish border, border with Scotland. It is bordered by the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, Cumb ...

in the North. With the advent of

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 ...

with its 625-lines, the adjacent

Pontop Pike transmitting station The Pontop Pike transmitting station is a facility for telecommunications and broadcasting situated on a 312-metre (1,024-ft) high hill of the same name between Stanley and Consett, County Durham, near the village of Dipton, England. The mast ...

carried these services to the Newcastle and County Durham area from 1967 onwards, confining Burnhope to 405-line transmission. In due course, further main UHF transmissions were established at Bilsdale West Moor (serving North Yorkshire and Teesside) and Chatton (serving upper Northumberland). The transmitter would later get a new lease of life with the advent of

Independent Local Radio Independent Local Radio is the collective name given to commercial radio stations in the United Kingdom. As a result of the buyouts and mergers permitted by the Broadcasting Act 1990, and deregulation resulting from the Communications Act 2 ...

(commercial radio or ILR). Burnhope extended its remit by providing the transmissions for the first ILR service in the North East of England –

Metro Radio Hits Radio North East, formerly Metro Radio, is an Independent Local Radio station, owned and operated by Bauer Media Audio UK as part of the Hits Radio network. The station launched in 1974 as Metro Radio. It broadcasts to County Durham, No ...

on 97.0

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base u ...

(now on 97.1 MHz). After the 405-line television service ceased in January 1985,

was for many years, the only broadcasting duty performed by the transmitter until the early 1990s, when a new tranche of commercial radio (regional) became available. On 1 September 1994, the transmitter started broadcasting the first new regional radio service to the North East. Launched as

Century Network Century Radio was the brand name of a group of Independent Local Radio stations in England. The brand was developed with the launch of 100-102 Century Radio in North East England in 1994, with John Myers as managing director and John Simons as ...

, it then broadcast as Real Radio (North East) and is now

Heart North East Heart North East is a regional radio broadcasting, radio station owned and operated by Global Group, Global as part of the Heart (radio network), Heart network. It broadcasts to North East England. History Century Radio Century Radio was the ...

. It was followed almost five years later (1 June 1999), by Galaxy North East, now

Capital North East Capital North East is a regional radio station owned and operated by Global as part of the Capital network. It broadcasts to North East England. The station launched on 1 June 1999 as Galaxy 105–106, renamed in 2006 as Galaxy North East and ...

TV returns

In between the launch of the first two regional services, a new television service launched in 1997. March 1997 saw the launch of Channel 5, with Burnhope, along with a number of other ITA-built transmitter stations which had not been used since the 405-line closure, broadcasting the new television service. Channel 5's analogue transmission from Burnhope ceased upon closure of the analogue TV service in the North East of England, which took place in the final phase of 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 ...

in September 2012. Channel 5 would then only be available digitally via the

Further radio

Two further analogue radio services would launch using this transmitter. On 5 December 2005,

Durham FM Durham FM was an Independent Local Radio station based in Durham, County Durham, England. History From its launch in 2005, Durham FM was owned and operated by TLRC. In December 2008, Durham FM submitted an application to Ofcom to co-locate wit ...

(now used by

Sun FM Sun FM may refer to: * Nation Radio North East's previous name * Sun FM (Sri Lanka), an English language radio station based in Sri Lanka * CICF-FM, a Canadian radio station, broadcasting at 105.7 FM in Vernon, British Columbia, using the on-air br ...

, now

Nation Radio North East Nation Radio North East is an Independent Local Radio station broadcasting from studios in Sunderland to across the North East region of England which includes Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, County Durham, Teesside and parts of North Yorkshir ...

) launched a low-powered service to County Durham with a third and final regional service launched on 8 January 2008 (

Smooth North East Smooth North East is a regional radio station owned by Communicorp and operated by Global as part of the Smooth network. It broadcasts to North East England. Overview GMG Radio ownership The licence for the station was originally awarded to ...

). The transmitter is also used to carry the two local DAB signals (Bauer Digital) locally, and MXR Digital regionally.

Services available

Analogue radio

Digital radio

Analogue television

15 January 1959 – 3 January 1985

30 March 1997 – 26 September 2012

References

External links

* http://www.thebigtower.com/live/Burnhope/Index.htm * http://tx.mb21.co.uk/gallery/burnhope/index.php {{Burnhope_VHF_405-line_Transmitter_Group Transmitter sites in England