Angus Transmitter - Tealing, Scotland, UK.
Posted by: creg-ny-baa
N 56° 33.298 W 002° 59.158
30V E 500862 N 6267848
750 foot high television and radio transmitter high up in the Sidlaw Hills north of the city of Dundee, serving the Tayside area of eastern Scotland.
Waymark Code: WMY4Q4
Location: Northern Scotland, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 04/21/2018
Views: 0
This prominent transmitter is situated six miles north of the city of Dundee in the highest part of the Sidlaw Hills at Balcalk, north of the village of Tealing. It was built by the Independent Television Authority to improve ITV coverage to the city of Dundee and its surrounding area. The BBC had built the Forfar Transmitter, which lies on a similar latitude similar six miles to the east, in 1964, but this did not provide a signal to many homes in the city.
The service opened on October 13th 1965 on VHF channel 11 with a peak output of 50kW. BBC2 became the first UHF service, providing colour tv on July 28th 1969. UHF transmitters followed in 1972 for BBC1 and ITV, with Channel 4 arriving in November 1983.
Transmissions of VHF channel 11 ended on July 9th 1984, the same as the Durris Transmitter in Aberdeenshire of which Angus is a relay of. The digital switchover occurred on August 4th 2010, with the shutdown of remaining anologue tv services two weeks later.
The transmitter, which lies at a height of 313 metres above sea level, is 229.5 metres high (753 feet), and is a triangular cross-section lattice stayed mast with twelve stay links secured by six anchoring blocks. It can be seen from miles away, just east Craigowl Hill, the highest point of the Sidlaws, which carries a jumble of antenna on its summit. Apart from Dundee and most of Angus, the transmitter also serves the south-eastern part of Aberdeenshire, north-east Fife, eastern Perthshire, and as far away as East Lothian to the south.