Loch Rannoch has two self-helps listed in pre-DSO information and, judging from the maps, one was a link site feeding the other. Both are approx 11km west of Kinloch Rannoch but on opposite shores of the loch. The target population was about 90.
TALLADH-A-BEITHE, on the north shore, is directly opposite the Eilean Mor Link site at a distance of about 1.5km. (Eilean Mor is itself a self-help TP site receiving from the Arqiva site at Tummel Bridge.) Talladh-a-Beithe received Eilean Mor on channels 62, 64, 66, 68 and transmitted on channels 47, 51, 54, 58 with a power of 20W ERP. Grid references are quoted as NN556584 (Ofcom) and NN559579 (mb21). These locations are within 1km of each other but they do not have line-of-sight to Tummel Bridge, hence the need for the Eilean Mor link site. Site height approx 215m AOD for the mb21 location or 335m AOD for the Ofcom location.
After visiting Eilean Mor, I searched in vain for the corresponding site at Talladh-a-Beithe. Most land is a private estate and opportunities for pulling off the road are rare. A nice lady at a property closest to where I would expect the transponder to be told me that she had lived there since 1980 and “there had never been any television”. I was about to ask her why, in that case, there was a domestic UHF aerial on her chimney … but I bottled it and decided that discretion and valour should rule the day! The aerial was a VP 4-dipole grid reflector pointed at Eilean Mor. Was she hiding the TP in her loft or was she worried I was from TV Licensing?
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