New relays for mini-Bilsdale

[Woody]

I hear that two new Freeview-Lite relays have been installed for the
mini-Bisdale area

They are Loftus and Thirsk. Anyone officially know where the sites
actually are? My money says Loftus will be on the old Home Office
(Durham Police/Fire) site atop Boulby cliffs (the highest cliffs in GB)
a little up the coast from Loftus, and Thirsk will be on the former BBC
(radio) site at Woolmoor. (The hill is actually Kirkby Knowle east of
Thirsk but it was called Woolmoor after the large house that used to sit
on top of the hill but long since demolished.

If I am right Thirsk could have minor issues as many users in and around
Thirsk can receive Emley and the PSB2 channel for Thirsk is 33 which is
also used on Emley.

[Woody]

Surely, if they are replacing bilsdale by more than one transmitter, they
should replace all channels covered by the original transmitter?
Are they intending to rebuilt the big mast on the original site with the
same transmitter powers and polar diagrams?

Unknown at present

  Also what happened to the radio services on the mast?

FM services have moved to Eston Nab. National DAB muxes have been
reinstated from the temporary 80m mast

Arqiva have applied for planning permission to replace the original mast
at Bilsdale with a 78m triangular free-standing tower with its base at
the NE corner of the original buildings. This location will put it a
little higher than the present mini-Bilsdale.

If they get approval I would expect they will replace FM from EN to
new-Bilsdale and posibly put a small relay at EN or even a bit down the
hillside. The area with the smaller structure that suffers is directly
over the escarpment to the West, but that is covered by Woolmoor which I
suppose could be up-powered a bit to help.

[Mark Carver]

Post by Woody

Surely, if they are replacing bilsdale by more than one transmitter, they
should replace all channels covered by the original transmitter?
Are they intending to rebuilt the big mast on the original site with the
same transmitter powers and polar diagrams?

Unknown at present

  Also what happened to the radio services on the mast?

FM services have moved to Eston Nab. National DAB muxes have been
reinstated from the temporary 80m mast

Arqiva have applied for planning permission to replace the original
mast at Bilsdale with a 78m triangular free-standing tower with its
base at the NE corner of the original buildings. This location will
put it a little higher than the present mini-Bilsdale.
If they get approval I would expect they will replace FM from EN to
new-Bilsdale and posibly put a small relay at EN or even a bit down
the hillside. The area with the smaller structure that suffers is
directly over the escarpment to the West, but that is covered by
Woolmoor which I suppose could be up-powered a bit to help.

Yes. They might do that with the national services, I'm not so sure
about the local services, Smooth 107.7 never used Bilsdale, they opted
for Eston Nab to cover the 'Teeeside' region. Since the fire both BBC
Tees and the other commercial stations have all moved to Eston. BBC Tees
have also added a relay for Darlington. I wonder if the local stations
will opt to stay at Eston ?

It's also stopped the ludicrous overspill Bilsdale had for these
stations to the south. As far as the BBC are concerned that was just
Tees overlapping with BBC York's patch, but the commercial radio
stations may well want that patch back. Depends what Arqiva will charge
to keep them at Eston, against moving back to Bilsdale !

[williamwright]

Post by Mark Carver
It's also stopped the ludicrous overspill Bilsdale had for these
stations to the south. As far as the BBC are concerned that was just
Tees overlapping with BBC York's patch,

Tees was a decent signal in many parts of S Yorkshire.

Bill

[Mark Carver]

Surely, if they are replacing bilsdale by more than one transmitter,
they
should replace all channels covered by the original transmitter?
Are they intending to rebuilt the big mast on the original site with the
same transmitter powers and polar diagrams?

Unknown at present

  Also what happened to the radio services on the mast?

FM services have moved to Eston Nab. National DAB muxes have been
reinstated from the temporary 80m mast

The FM services moved to Eston are all running at 375 watts  (300 V and
75 H)
Smooth FM that was always at Eston is 5kW   (equal H and V split)

Bilsdale Temp has no FM services at present, but the three national DAB
muxes are there at 2kW each

[Ulrich Onken]

Post by Mark Carver
The FM services moved to Eston are all running at 375 watts  (300 V and
75 H)
Smooth FM that was always at Eston is 5kW   (equal H and V split)
Bilsdale Temp has no FM services at present, but the three national DAB
muxes are there at 2kW each

I am not sure if this piece of news has not been mentioned already.
Mini-Bilsdale and its relays appear to be history soon, with the new
tower in service since 22 May:

https://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/23538597.new-bilsdale-tv-mast-goes-live---almost-two-years-fire/

https://www.bilsdalemast.co.uk/latest-news/posts/bilsdale-mast-to-begin-transmitting-tv-signals-on-monday-22-may-2023/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0fpp0cz

According to the planning application the new tower has a height of
306.2 m, including the TV antenna on top.

http://planning.northyorkmoors.org.uk/northgate/documentexplorer/application/stream.aspx?target=http%3A%2F%2Flocalhost%2FNorthgate%2FDocumentExplorer%2FDocumentStream%2FDocumentStream.aspx%3Fname%3D2021-12-16%2BPublic%2B-%2BPlans.pdf%26unique%3D817376%26type%3DNLPL_DC_PLANAPP

Can anyone confirm that all services have been moved to the new tower?

Regards,
Uli

[Andy Burns]

Post by Ulrich Onken
Can anyone confirm that all services have been moved to the new tower?

The most recent news page says
"Local TV will return in due course as well as radio."

We should probably expect freeview shutdown date to be announced
Real Soon Now[TM]

[Mark Carver]

Post by Andy Burns

Post by Ulrich Onken
Can anyone confirm that all services have been moved to the new tower?

The most recent news page says
"Local TV will return in due course as well as radio."

Yes. The pictures on mb21 taken on May 21st, only show the national DTT
antennas in place, no sign yet of the local TV ones, or any FM or DAB
arrays.

[Mark Carver]

Enjoy

[Mark Carver]

Post by Mark Carver
Enjoy
http://youtu.be/o9tdrXwrZNA

Ah, know Stonehouse Bakery in Saltburn well, and boy do they make good
sarnis and stickies!!

I'm sure Arqiva's accounts dept will be processing all those lunch claims !

[Tweed]

Post by Mark Carver

Post by Mark Carver
Enjoy
http://youtu.be/o9tdrXwrZNA

Ah, know Stonehouse Bakery in Saltburn well, and boy do they make good
sarnis and stickies!!

I'm sure Arqiva's accounts dept will be processing all those lunch claims !

Bake-off- this week’s challenge is to construct a TV transmitter….

[Woody]

Post by Mark Carver

Post by Mark Carver
Enjoy
http://youtu.be/o9tdrXwrZNA

Ah, know Stonehouse Bakery in Saltburn well, and boy do they make good
sarnis and stickies!!

I'm sure Arqiva's accounts dept will be processing all those lunch claims !

Not from me they won't - I took VR as early retirement in 2013!

However we visit Saltburn-by-the-Sea quite often as it is quicker and
easier to get to from here than Scarborough and it just a plain 'nice
place.' Then we drive down the coast to Whitby (passing Loftus) and
visit Elizabeth Botham's bakery who make even better cakes and sarnis -
indeed almost as good as Betty's!

For anyone interested the prog Architecture the Railways Gave Us
currently being repeated on Yesterday did a section about Saltburn, its
pier, and the oldest cliff lift in the UK only a few weeks ago. You
should be able to find it on UK TV Play.