The Long Mountain transmitting station is sited on a ridge about east of

Welshpool Welshpool ( ) is a market town and Community (Wales), community in Powys, Wales, historically in the Historic counties of Wales, county of Montgomeryshire. The town is from the Wales–England border and low-lying on the River Severn. The c ...

Powys Powys ( , ) is a Principal areas of Wales, county and Preserved counties of Wales, preserved county in Wales. It borders Gwynedd, Denbighshire, and Wrexham County Borough, Wrexham to the north; the English Ceremonial counties of England, ceremo ...

, Mid Wales and has been broadcasting

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 ...

terrestrial TV and VHF FM radio services since the late 1970s. The site has a self-supporting 170' (52 metre) high lattice steel mast and was fed with an SHF link from

Blaenplwyf Blaenplwyf (''Pontllanio'' previously) is a village in Ceredigion, to the southwest of Aberystwyth. It is noted for the Blaenplwyf transmitting station, which serves Aberystwyth and Cardigan Bay area. It was originally built by the BBC in 1956– ...

via Llangurig. Despite not taking its signal off-air, it was originally classed as a 625-line UHF TV relay of Blaenplwyf. The transmitter originally radiated 1 kW providing TV and radio to an area including Newtown and

Oswestry Oswestry ( ; ) is a market town, civil parish and historic railway town in Shropshire, England, close to the England–Wales border, Welsh border. It is at the junction of the A5 road (Great Britain), A5, A483 road, A483 and A495 road, A495 ro ...

. Being only from the England/Wales border, coverage extended to several towns in England –

Shrewsbury Shrewsbury ( , ) is a market town and civil parish in Shropshire (district), Shropshire, England. It is sited on the River Severn, northwest of Wolverhampton, west of Telford, southeast of Wrexham and north of Hereford. At the 2021 United ...

included. Long Mountain became re-classed as main transmitter in its own right (albeit a very low power one) with the advent of digital terrestrial TV from the site on 4 November 2009. In addition to this, it currently transmits FM radio and a single multiplex of DAB Digital radio.

Services available

Analogue television

17 September 1976 - 1 November 1982

Long Mountain never did broadcast VHF television, and went live with the UK's original three national UHF television services.

1 November 1982 - 4 November 2009

The UK's fourth national television service joined the set transmitted from the site. Being in Wales, the

S4C S4C (, ''Sianel Pedwar Cymru'', meaning ''Channel Four Wales'') is a Welsh language free-to-air public broadcast television channel. Launched on 1 November 1982, it was the first television channel to be aimed specifically at a Welsh-speakin ...

variant was broadcast.

Analogue and digital television

4 November 2009 - 3 December 2009

The UK's

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 ...

commenced at this site. Analogue BBC Two Wales closed on channel 64 and ITV1 Wales took over on that frequency for what would be its final 3 weeks of service, vacating channel 61 as it did so. The new BBC A multiplex started up at full power in 64-QAM mode on channel 60 until 19 October 2011.

Digital television

3 December 2009 - 19 October 2011

All the analogue television services closed and the new digital multiplexes took over on parking-frequencies (until October 2011) with name-changes, power increases and a shift to 64-QAM. Unusually, for a digital TV site classed as a main transmitter, Long Mountain only radiates the three public service multiplexes of

Freeview Freeview may refer to: *Freeview (Australia), the marketing name for the digital terrestrial television platform in Australia *Freeview (New Zealand), a digital satellite and digital terrestrial television platform in New Zealand *Freeview (UK), a ...

19 October 2011 - present

DSO was completed at

The Wrekin The Wrekin ( ) is a hill in east Shropshire, England. It is located some west of Telford, on the border between the unitary authorities of Shropshire Council, Shropshire and Telford and Wrekin. Rising above the Shropshire Plain to a height of ...

, and this allowed the Long Mountain multiplexes to take up their final frequencies.

Analogue radio (VHF FM)

For its FM radio services, Long Mountain is an off-air relay of Llangollen.

Digital radio (DAB)

References

External links

MB21's entry for the site
{{Long Mountain UHF DVB Transmitter Group Transmitter sites in Wales