The Tacolneston transmitting station is a facility for both analogue and

digital Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Technology and computing Hardware *Digital electronics, electronic circuits which operate using digital signals **Digital camera, which captures and stores digital i ...

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 VH ...

/ FM

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transm ...

and

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 ...

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication Media (communication), medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of Transmission (telecommunications), television tra ...

transmission Transmission may refer to: Medicine, science and technology * Power transmission ** Electric power transmission ** Propulsion transmission, technology allowing controlled application of power *** Automatic transmission *** Manual transmission ** ...

near

Tacolneston Tacolneston () is a village and civil parish in the South Norfolk District of Norfolk with a population of around 700, measured at the 2011 Census as a population of 825. Its name occurs in the 1086 Domesday Book as ''Tacoluestuna'' and is theori ...

, south-west of

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the Episcopal see, See of ...

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the Nort ...

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. It includes a tall guyed steel lattice mast, which was built between 2009 and 2012, and previously a tall guyed steel lattice mast, which was built in 1956 (completed in late September/early October that year). On top of the current mast is located the UHF television transmitting antenna, which brings the overall height of the structure to (the overall height of the previous mast being ).South Norfolk District Council planning application, January 2008
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History

Construction

The station's original mast, built from early 1954, was tall and first broadcast television transmissions, albeit temporarily, from February 1955. VHF (FM) radio broadcasts began on a test basis from 22 December 1956, in order to allow East Anglia to receive programmes on VHF over the Christmas period. The

BBC Light Programme The BBC Light Programme was a national radio station which broadcast chiefly mainstream light entertainment and light music from 1945 until 1967, when it was replaced by BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 1. It opened on 29 July 1945, taking over the ...

was not available during this test phase, and there were warnings that the service would occasionally be interrupted for engineering reasons. The main structure was built by

J. L. Eve Construction J. L. Eve Construction was a civil engineering company from south London. History The company was formed on 8 February 1930 by John Leonard Eve (3 February 1887 - 25 June 1954) from Aveley in Essex. In 1924 he was appointed as the Chief Engineer ...

around 1956, for the new

BBC East BBC East is one of BBC's English Regions covering Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, northern Buckinghamshire, and the majority of Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Essex. It is headquartered in The Forum, Norwich since 2003. It w ...

region.

Transmissions

The station began broadcasting regular programmes from Norwich purely for East Anglian audiences on the Midlands Home Service from Tuesday 5 February 1957, and the transmitter went to full power for VHF from 6.35pm on Tuesday 30 April 1957. The transmission site is located at 52° 31' 3.9" North, 1° 8' 19.3" East (National Grid Reference: TM131958). In July 1989, it was reported that the transmitting station cost almost £500,000 a year to run. The current mast has an average height of 221 metres above sea level. It is now owned and operated 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 ...

, but was owned by the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

before they privatised their transmission department prior to 1997.

(formerly National Grid Wireless) announced, on 6 August 2007, that they plan to replace the current mast with a new mast in order to ensure good digital TV reception across

East Anglia East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...

after digital switchover, which took place in the area in November 2011. Arqiva also plan to replace the original transmitter hall at this site as it has now reached the end of its useful life. Work has been completed on the new structure, and for the moment there will be three structures (two masts and a lattice tower) on the site. The old 165m mast is expected to start being dismantled in 2013.

Radio services listed by frequency

Analogue radio (FM VHF)

Digital radio (DAB)

Television services listed by frequency

Digital television

Digital transmissions became at least ten times stronger in power after the digital switchover (DSO), and their frequencies were reorganised. At Tacolneston, extra HD muxes are being broadcast on UHF 55 and UHF 56, along with a local TV service ( That's Norfolk) using an interleaved frequency on UHF 32 (QSPK 8K 3/4 8.0Mbit/s).

Before switchover

Analogue television

Tacolneston switched to digital-only television transmissions in November 2011; analogue

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 ...

transmissions ceased on 9 November, and two weeks later, on 23 November 2011, the other four analogue channels ceased analogue transmissions.

References

*http://www.ukfree.tv/txdetail.php?a=TM131958

External links

The Transmission Gallery: photographs, coverage maps and information
{{Tacolneston VHF 405-line Transmitter Group Transmitter sites in England Norfolk