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THE TRANSMISSION GALLERY
KENMORE
| Photos by John P Martin | Page last updated: 2022-08-18 |
| I thought it was hard to believe that nearly 20 years have passed since Stuart first photographed the site without someone having visited it since. But then I climbed the 400 metre hill, during a heatwave, and understood why! Details follow but a brief summary of changes: 1. The 3 MUX frequencies did not change after DSO in 2010 2. The Tx panels appear to be the originals 3. The 8 log-periodic Rx array has been replaced with a new set; this time without the toe-in 4. Removal of some PMR VHF dipoles 5. AirWave/TETRA moved to a new tower 6. Extensive new cabling |
| Seen from about 8km to the South-East, the tower can be seen atop Drummond Hill with the munro Schiehallion (1083m) in the background. Kenmore is just above the eastern end of Loch Tay in Scotland-shire. |
| Are we nearly there yet? Mere mortals are not allowed to drive up to the tower, so it is a 4km walk from the Drummond Hill Car Park with an ascent of nearly 400m to get there. |
| Arriving at the equipment village. Thanks to pal David for carrying the tripod. |
| Some official signage |
| Some unofficial signage! |
| Stitched photo of the whole tower with the shiny new log-periodic Rx array. Many of the previous VHF dipoles (PMR) have gone but a few remain. |
| The three stacks of 4-tier Tx panels appear to be the originals and seem in pretty good condition. |
| Shiny new(ish) horizontally polarised Rx log-periodics pointing to the Angus parent station. Arranged as 2-tiers of 4, this replacement array does not have the 8-degree toe-in that the previous array had. The toe-in was to try and maintain a constant boom-spacing of 0.7 wavelengths over the full frequency range and BBC Research found by experimentation that 8-degrees was about right. Maybe it is now felt that toe-in produces more problems with the HRP than is worth the flatter gain of maintaining the 0.7 wavelength spacing? |
| Here they are again seen from directly underneath. I think they are not the commonly-seen Amphenol manufacture. They still have the inter-boom black PVC dielectric but there are what appears to be drainage holes on the underside of the booms. The nose termination also seems different. |
| There are still some dipoles sprouting from the tower, but far fewer than when Stuart took his photos in 2003. I assume many of these were for Private Mobile Radio and emergency services, now superseded by AirWave/TETRA etc. |
| This old pair are probably low-band VHF as previously used by the emergency services for longer-range. |
| High-band VHF. Tempting as it might seem to imagine that FM radio comes from Kenmore, it doesn't. |
| No, not Band II or Band III. |
| This dish has seen better days but presumably redundant since the fibre network replaced the microwave backbone. |
| Signs of new life. This 8-dipole omni-directional array is for utilities companies for data collection and control using the 457-464MHz band reserved for the MPT 1411 specification for telemetry (remote smart-meter monitoring). |
| Here they are again. Neat little things. |
| Much of the cabling at the site looks very new and might have been part of a refurbishment. |
| 50 metres away from the main tower, this new one sports the characteristic space-diversity triad of folded dipole stacks for AirWave/TETRA. I assume these replace the older GRP covered vertical co-linear arrays on the main tower. |
| The incoming single-phase electricity supply (11kV?) The utility pole just hides the summit of Schiehallion (sorry). |
| Final shot of part of the track leading up to the site. |
Angus | Grandtully | Killin | Tummel Bridge
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