Viewers in Ripon, Catterick, Stockton and Darlington areas will be able to receive Freeview channels from a 15 meter mast built at Arncliffe Wood.
Freeview channels will be broadcast from Arncliffe Wood by this weekend. It’s part of a project to restore channels lost by a devastating fire at Bilsdale a week ago.
Arncliffe Wood is a BT communications site. It once formed a major backbone in communications up the north-eastern side of England. Most aerials pointing at Bilsdale will also be able to receive a signal from Arncliffe Wood in its intended coverage area. The coverage area broadly covers the A1 corridor from near Ripon up to Darlington, also including Northallerton and Catterick. It also covers an expected coverage not-spot around Stockton-on-Tees.
Transmitter operator Arqiva confirmed the site in its latest statement, issued a week after the fire at Bilsdale transmitting station. Fire investigations are hindered by structural dangers. An exclusion zone remains in force.
Earlier, Arqiva confirmed it would be completing work at the Eston Nab transmitter to enable coverage to be extended to the Darlington area. Eston Nab was converted from a local relay to a higher-powered temporary site to restore coverage initially to Hartlepool and Redcar.
Meanwhile, work on an 80 metre high temporary mast at Bilsdale itself is ongoing. Arqiva are awaiting delivery of 250 tonnes of concrete blocks that will keep the mast in place. Arqiva expects the temporary mast to go live on the August Bank Holiday weekend, adding more widespread coverage.
Tuning information | 21st August 2021: The Arncliffe Wood site is now live. Viewers should now retune to see if they can get some channels. Only the main Freeview channels from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 will be available. Manual tuning can be done on UHF channels 40, 43 and 46. A further retune will need to take place once the Bilsdale temporary mast goes live and frequencies change again over the August Bank Holiday. The current set-up ensures at least 200,000 homes can at least get a basic Freeview service.
Radio boost
DAB listeners in the Middlesbrough, Hartlepool and Redcar can now access a wider range of digital radio stations from today. Services from Digital One and Sound Digital, including LBC and Virgin Radio are now live from the Eston Nab transmitter. These were previously broadcast from the Bilsdale transmitter.