Justin Smith writes: "Collafirth Hill is possibly one of the most 'over-engineered' relays in the UK. A separate, substantial self-supporting tower cetainly seems like over-kill, but I dare say there are reasons, one of them possibly being the weather conditions ecountered here?"
Ian Anderson from SIBC provides the answer: "The Collafirth Hill tower that is currently home to Arqiva-maintained DTV and coastguard marine VHF and MF (a MF long-wire can be seen sloping from the tower) was originally part of RAF Collafirth Hill, a ACE High microwave link site between hub station Mossy Hill and RAF Saxa Vord. In the later MoD years access was allowed eventually to HM Coastguard and to BBC/IBA for a UHF TV relay.
When phone companies and public services chose the site for mobile phone cells and PMR relays they were not allowed access to the fenced-off MoD tower area and so land was acquired and the new tower was built. There has long been no MoD etc presence on the original tower and the microwave dishes etc are long removed. An adjacent guyed mast is also long gone."
Collafirth Hill entered service with 3 TV channels in August 1981, with Channel 4 from February 1986. DSO was on 5th and 19th May 2010. |
