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THE TRANSMISSION GALLERY

ROTHESAY

Photos by James Muir Page last updated: 2015-06-28

Rothesay - March 2015

I was looking for something to do on Saturday, 14 March 2015, so I decided to make the epic train / ferry / bus journey to the southern end of the remote Toward peninsula in Argyll in order to get the long sought-after detailed photos of the Rothesay site for the Tx Gallery. The result of my efforts can be seen below.


First impressions of the site. This point is reached after a long uphill climb on a rough track that passes the old BBC Toward Band I site, photos of which can be found on a separate page.


Arqiva sign with incomplete details.


BBC DAB programme feed dish on the left. Telemetry dish on the right, perhaps also used to feed BBC Radio nan Gaidheal? Twin BBC Band II RBL yagis (horizontal pol) on Black Hill are also clearly evident.


I noticed this marker just outside the Tx compound. I'm wondering if the Clyde 1 FM and West FM services are perhaps fed by fibre due to potentially difficult RBLs for both at this site?


A closer view of the BBC DAB programme feed dish and the RBL yagis on Black Hill.


Twin receive troughs on West Kilbride for the DTT services. Note the strange vertically polarised DAB-esque dipole above them on the RHS, does anyone know what this is for?


View of the BBC mixed polarisation FM panels. Note that the radiation is confined to a southerly arc only. Also note the battered slant yagi below the panels, I believe this is used to transmit Clyde 1 FM and West FM.

(Ed: BBC internal document gives BBC FM aerial at 36 m agl, with ILR at 30 m agl, so that seems spot on)


Vertically polarised yagi on West Kilbride. If I recall correctly, the BBC had to revert to a RBL from West Kilbride for Radio 4 due to interference on the Black Hill RBL. The vertically polarised yagi is used for this purpose.



Note the twin vertically polarised UHF receive aerials on West Kilbride just above the two troughs that were shown in an earlier photo. Why would these be required as well as the troughs?


Note the twin BBC DAB transmit dipoles just below the UHF cylinder.


A general site view looking south west. Note the smaller TETRA tower on the right.






The view from the Toward site looking towards Rothesay, with the more distant hills of Arran just visible in the background.

Rothesay index

Toward

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