Oxford Transmitter Mast Fire

Oxford transmitter incident latest (6.00pm)
„h Fire on the Oxford mast at Beckley
„h TV services affected
A fire at the top of the Oxford TV mast this afternoon has resulted in all analogue and digital TV (except analogue Five) being off-air.
The fire is out and we will attempt to assess the damage this evening. Only then can we give an update on when services can be safely restored using reserve facilities. Arqiva is doing all it can to resolve the situation as quickly as possible and we ask viewers to bear with us.

www.arqiva.com

Could be a while

TV services restored from the reserve aerial at 21:30hrs last night. Seems a full power test on the newly installed main aerial went a bit 'pear shaped' yesterday afternoon !

Services went off air at 1421 yesterday and returned at around 2130. Most channels are on reduced power and are liable to interruption today while engineers work out how much damage there has been.
There's a picture of the fire on this page from the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfordshire/8680692.stm
There were some concerns about the mast faling down initially which reminded me of the Emley Moor collapse in the 60s. Back then, both the BBC and ITA had channels back on air within days from temporary masts.

The most recent example of a mast collapse was at Peterborough in Oct 2004, however that only affected radio (as far as broadcast services were concerned).

http://tx.mb21.co.uk/gallery/peterborough/index.php

The last major aerial fire similar to this was at Durris in 1984

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qqva2pB63c

I rather enjoyed this article from the implausibly-named Banbury Cake.

Oxford transmitter incident - latest (16.30 Friday 21 May)
• Fire on the Oxford mast at Beckley
It is now clear that the main TV transmitting antenna on the Beckley mast was damaged beyond repair during the fire on 13 May.
A complete replacement antenna is being procured, and this will be installed and commissioned as soon as possible. Meanwhile, TV services from this site will continue to be transmitted from the reserve antenna (as they have been since February this year).
Arqiva apologises for the ongoing inconvenience caused to viewers in this area.

from Arqiva

Are they still maintaining that DSO for next year is still on-schedule even as a result of this?

There's no comment about that yet, it would probably cause considerable disruption to DSO in the London, Central, and Meridian regions, and would delay Mendip's COM muxes going to full power next year.

I suspect to avoid that, they might erect a temporary mast to carry TV services pre and post DSO, while they work on the main mast. That's what routinely happened at Wenvoe and is happening now at Sutton Coldfield. I suspect the beancounters put the brakes on that idea at Oxford, which (as so often happens) might turn out to be a false economy !

As Marky Mark says DSO at Oxford MUST go ahead as scheduled (or damn close to schedule) otherwise the knock on will be very bad for the programme. It and Sandy Heath have always been the lynchpin for the Central, Anglia, Meridian and London SOs due to the mass of conflicting signals in their respective service areas.

As I said on DS, Oxford was (in a very early DSO draft) to be switched off completely for a period during SO, a decision that was declared to be far too controversial to be actioned.

It wasn't 'routine' at Wenvoe and SC (and a couple of others*), the only reason they had temporary masts is because the original ones needed structural alterations - either strengthening or made taller. If Oxford (like most transmitter sites) didn't need that work done then there's no need for a temporary one, just a new set of aerials and feeders. The temporary masts don't provide the same level of service as the permanent ones, not least because there's another mast next to them partially blocking the signal.

I can't see how not using a temporary mast and there being a fire can be connected, especially as it's the only site where it's happened out of about 20 or so where DSO has taken place.

Deciding to go down that route now would delay DSO at Oxford even more, building a temporary new mast isn't exactly something that's done quickly (SC and Wenvoe required planning permission which takes time). I'm not sure of the extent of the damage but I'd have thought that replacing the damage should be quicker than the job of putting them up there in the first place - all the preperatory work has been done



*Caldbeck had a totally new permanent mast due to strength issues, but then it had more new UHF aerials installed than the others as it provides BBC Scotland too

Yes, but Oxford has the problem that its reserve UHF aerials are only 2/3rds the way up the mast. It's been running analogue and DTT on those since February, and many viewers have received an impaired, and in some cases no DTT reception. That looks set to continue for some months now. A temporary mast to carry services at the same height would have prevented that, and enabled work to extend the existing mast, to allow the reserve array to be placed below the main array, which is exactly what's happened/going to happen at Wenvoe and SC. The present arrangement, and final solution at Oxford does smack of cost cutting.



I never suggested they were connected !



Probably yes, ISTR at Peterborough in 2004 a temporary mast took about 6 months to appear.

Oxford obviously isn't having much luck, I seem to recall that there was a problem here when they brought the reserve on-line in Feb 2010.

I know a bit (understatement) about Beckley and several other of the DSO sites and there is no room on site for a temp mast (either the industry '150m emergency spare' or the 200m ex-Wenvoe temp). Unless the fire damaged the top of the structure there is little need for one. I can only assume the RFS main antenna is totally cooked. The only photo I saw of the fire looked like the flames were around the power dividers - there is a clue in the name here.......

On of the biggest issues at Oxford is the VHF services which effectively prevent a wrap around reserve antenna below the main antenna and was the reason it was placed lower down the mast - this was a compromise agreed with the broadcasters - in reality it was a concession as Oxford was a 'problem child' which has now grown into a particularly troublesome adolesent!

I'd guess the good people at Arqiva are having a look at re-using the trusty RFS Wenvoe temp antenna (or at least the spine) as well as re-running the whole switching plan to see what needs to happen to make sure Crystal Palace hits its DSO date in time for the Olympics in 2012.

The Oxford antenna was a heli-lift on so without going back to start all DSO work from scratch it will have to be a helilift off - assuming the fire damage isn't too structural. Could be an 'interesting' day......

I'll watch progress with interest......

PS The temp masts at Wenvoe and Sutton Coldfield did not require planning permission - they were 'temporary enabling works'....... The permanent mast extensions at both sites did need permission. At Peterborough the planning issues for the deployment of the emergency temp mast did not delay anything.......