mb21 - The Transmission Gallery

	UK Broadcast Transmission

THE TRANSMISSION GALLERY

Photos by Ashley Booth, David Foord, Robert Whittaker and George Kirkham

Rowridge

Isle of Wight

NGR: SZ447865	Maps: Google Bing (Ord Surv)		Site Height: 137m		Structure Height: 149.6m
Digital TV:	BBC A: 24	D3&4: 27	BBC B: 21	SDN: 25	Arq A: 22	Arq B: 28
BBC Radio:	Radio 1: 98.2	Radio 2: 88.5	Radio 3: 90.7	Radio 4: 92.9
	Radio Solent: 96.1
Ind. National Radio:	Classic FM: 100.3
Ind. Local Radio:
Digital Radio:	BBC National: 12B
Comments:	Rowridge Digital mux channel allocations changed on 25-Mar-2009 prior to Westcountry DSO.


	The Rowridge site is located at Rowridge Farm, just off the B3401 between Newport and Calbourne on the Isle of Wight
The station transmits digital and analogue television and FM radio to Hampshire and much of the South of England. Presumably this site was chosen as the site for the area's UHF tv transmissions because the taller, slimline mast at nearby Chillerton Down was unable to carry the weight of the aerial panels required.
The first photo, below, was taken by Ashley Booth in the early/mid 80s. It shows the familiar GRP cylinder for the UHF aerials, the vertical Band I aerials, the Band II slot aerials and, further down, a stacked pair of Band II log-periodic aerials receiving the RBL for R3 from Wrotham. The tower in the photo belongs to BT.

This photo, taken August 1989, shows the old horizontally polarised Band II slot antennas in place, but the Band I array as seen is Ashley Booth's picture (above) has gone. Instead the first half of the new mixed polarisation Band II is there.

Shortly after this picture was taken, the BBC transferred transmission to the new half stack,
so they could then remove the slot antennas, and replace with the lower half of the new stack.

This work was finally completed in May 1990, when a full and improved service was restored, along with the introduction of Radio 1 FM.

More recently, in March 2010, Robert Whittaker was able to get some aerial shots...

As part of the digital switchover Rowridge is getting a new, stronger and taller mast to replace the old one. George Kirkahm took this photo on 19-Sep-2010 and already it looks like the new mast is taller: