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UK Broadcast Transmission |
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THE TRANSMISSION GALLERY
| Photos by Mark Carver | Page last updated: 2023-06-06 |
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| Both Absolute Radio (1233 kHz) and Smooth Radio (1431 kHz) closed at Manor Farm on 15th May 2015. The site has been decommissioned. Apparently the owner of the site terminated its lease prompting its closure, which meant under Ofcom rules the associated Washwater service had to close too. Mark Carver writes: Built in 1976 to provide the ILR MF service for Reading, Radio 210 launched on 8-Mar-1976 (210m MW is 1431kHz). This became Classic Gold and then finally Smooth Radio. Supplemented by Washwater near Newbury on 1485kHz. In those days in the middle of nowhere, today next to the new A33 southern Reading Relief Road, and the council tip! Parking my car on the road caused a traffic jam of dumper trucks, and I also couldn't get a view of the mast base, due to a steep, dangerous bank, and being in my office clothes! It appears to be in the middle of a scramble bike track! The service for Virgin (subsequently Absolute) was added on 3-Nov-1993, initially on 1224kHz (only 9kHz away from their main 1215kHz service) this moved some months later to the present allocation of 1233 kHz. The dish presumably receives the Virgin programme feed from satellite (with a convex lid to avoid the local yobs lobbing beer cans into it?) You can just make out a very battered Band II yagi on the Tx building roof which was used for backup when 1431 and FM used to simulcast, but is no longer used. Since AM went gold, the backup is a UHF feed (around 467MHz FM), received on the little white omni just above the yagi. Update concerning the UHF link: see below |
| October 2013: we've heard from Chris Roberts who writes as follows: "A correction about the presence of the UHF omni aerial on the roof of the transmitter building. It dates from about 2000 when the circuit provided by BT to the site gave some trouble. A UHF link from the studio was set up to provide the service. It was in use for several months until the (then) new studio building was completed and a brand new BT circuit installed. The UHF transmitter was switched off but we never did take down the receive aerial." |
| Mark revisited the site in Nov 2015, mast, building, dish, and fence all gone. All that remained was the electricity supply transformer and its pole. |
| Next for the site........ |
Broad Street Mall / Reading (Fountain House) | Washwater
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