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THE TRANSMISSION GALLERY
MENDIP
| Photos by John A Butler and Steve Webster | Page last updated: 2024-02-10 |
| When the BBC 2 transmitter building programme began it was quickly realised that a service from Wenvoe on UHF would not cover much of western England. The BBC therefore sought a new site that would cover Bristol and Somerset and the obvious canditate was likely to be up on the Mendip Hills. However, the original site which had been selected in September 1963 and that had subsequently received full planning permission - near East Harptree - ran into problems when the authorisation to build was revoked in December 1964 following representations from the Bristol Corporation that the airport at Lulsgate would be affected. So the search was resumed and in March 1965 a new site was found at Pen Hill, just north of Wells. From the BBC's point of view this site was second best as the "view" into Bristol was not so good, and this resulted in the need to build several UHF relays to serve parts of the city not covered adequately by Mendip. |
| BBC 2 finally went into service on 1-Dec-1969 on ch 64. Some Mendip dates: 11-May-1970 BBC 1 ch58 30-May-1970 ITV ch61 4-Sep-1970 Radio Bristol 95.4 MHz 14-Jun-1973 Radio Bristol frequency changed to 95.5 MHz 2-Nov-1982 Channel 4 launch on ch54 26-Nov-1989 Orchard FM 102.6 MHz 25-May-1990 ITV and Ch4 Nicam stereo 8-Aug-1994 Galaxy 101 30-Mar-1997 Channel 5 launch on ch37 11-Sep-1997 BBC National DAB 15-Nov-1998 Interim DTT launch 9-Sep-1999 Digital One DAB 12-Mar-2001 Interim DTT equalisation changes 27-Jun-2001 Severn Estuary DAB. Closed 29/7/2013 3-Dec-2007 Radio Somerset replaces Radio Bristol on 95.5 MHz 24-Mar-2010 DSO 1 7-Apr-2010 DSO 2 8-Aug-2013 South East Wales DAB 30-Jan-2014 Bristol local TV 26-Sep-2014 Somerset DAB 29/2/2016 Sound Digital DAB |
| Chris Youlden comments: Passive reflectors - both visible in the picture above, the lower one just below the lowest stay level, the upper one just above the highest-but-one stay level. The lower one was for the BT main vision feeds to the transmitter. The signals were fed from Purdown straight to the mast, and reflected down to the dish which was on the building roof. The higher one was at about the 600 feet level, adjacent to the third platform from the top of the mast. This reflector was for OBs and carried vision circuits to/from BBC Bristol via the Royal Fort. Again there was a dish at roof level. |
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