mb21 - The Transmission Gallery

	UK Broadcast Transmission

THE TRANSMISSION GALLERY

THE FALL AND RISE OF EMLEY MOOR

Photos by Colin Simpkin

As one approaches the site from the village of Kirkburton, the tower isn’t visible, due to the intervening terrain. Once over the brow of the hill, this is the view which greets you. The sheer scale of the site is simply staggering.

As we enter the site, we see probably the closest receive aerial which receives from the tower! It’s on the top of the Arqiva building, barely 100 yards from the base of the tower, and needs to be at this rakish angle to receive it.

Some of the aerials on the Monitoring Centre roof, used to monitor other transmitters around the eastern side of the country.

This close-up shot shows the top of the tower in detail. The two Sira arrays which radiate the FM services (Real Radio and Galaxy) can be seen glinting in the sunlight, between the upper and lower UHF arrays. These Siras are due to be relocated (possibly permanently) to the very top of the structure towards the end of 2008, to facilitate the DSO works. The DAB arrays are up there somewhere too.

The pretty-much-compulsory ‘shadow of the tower lying across the rest of the site’ photograph! The paved ‘paths’ which are snake around towards the lower-left corner of the photo, are actually the underground ducts which carry the UHF feeders from the various transmitter buildings to the combiners, and from the combiners to the base of the tower

I wanted to include a photo of the Chapel, since it featured rather heavily in the events of 19th March 1969, but seems to have been largely overlooked since.

Legend has it that just one end of the roof had to be replaced after its unfortunate encounter with a stay-cable. Looking at this photo, that sounds feasible – the near end of the roof does look somewhat newer than the far end. Could the difference still be visible after 39 years?

Sadly, this is the best photo myself and my cheap camera could manage of the NGW mast at Holme Moss, viewed through the darkened (heat-reflecting) glass of the observation platform’s window.

Whilst up the tower, I found myself thinking ‘you know, West Yorkshire really does look rather nice from up here!’ - and I say that as a born and bred Lancastrian!

Having landed back on the ground after the trip up the tower, we were given a tour of the TV transmitter buildings. This big Pye is the main transmitter for one of the three commercial analogue channels. (I forget which.) At the time this photo was taken, our guide was waving his hands round the inside of the cabinet, and explaining that “This bit sits at about -20kV”.

At this point, all those present took a large step backwards!

The monitor panel on one of the other analogue transmitters. I think we can deduce that the green lights and high-reading meters mean it’s working just nicely.

And we rounded off the tour with a visit to the monitoring centre. The TV monitoring desk has its own monumental back-projection screen, on which we can see analogue and DTTV being monitored from St Hilary, Mendip, Croydon, Waltham, Belmont, Winter Hill, Bilsdale, oh yes…and Emley Moor!