Winter Hill in danger as fires merge and close in

Getting really close now and despite the best efforts of the fire service and army it seems mother nature is dictating this one.

The radio and TV transmitters at Winter Hill in the North West may be about to go quiet for a while 😮 Thank you to everyone from the emergency services working so hard to try and slow it down 🙏🏻🇬🇧 pic.twitter.com/ctCsoVeAYX

— Ashley Tabor-King OBE (@AshleyTaborKing) June 30, 2018

https://www.a516digital.com/2018/06/major-fire-puts-granada-region-tv-and.html?m=1

Would also affect radio services. More pics here:
http://radiotoday.co.uk/amp/2018/06/winter-hill-fire-could-disrupt-radio-services/

Will the mergers result in a rebrand?

Stunning but terrifying photo. Obviously, Winter Hill has no sister transmitter (unlike Crystal Palace and Croydon in London) - really hope they can save it.


Keeping on brand for TVF

Even at that distance from the base of the tower it could be affecting the guy wires? Not sure the heat of the fire of course.. Fingers crossed they get it out.

Do Virgin Media still get their ITV regions from the transmitters? Will that go black too?

This is being discussed on the Granada thread too. Maybe those posts should be brought over here?

If not, here's my post speculating about the possible issues it could cause:
https://tvforum.uk/forums/post1120168#post-1120168

I’m guessing they’ve probably saturated the land to ensure the fire doesn’t move any further in that direction.

A bit off topic, I know, but Key 103 no longer exists under that name.

https://radiotoday.co.uk/2018/06/hits-radio-manchester-replaces-key-103/

EDIT: Also, how far do any temporary masts cover, because surely if Winter Hill goes down, it would take a load of relays down with it, and how would any temporary transmitter cover any relays?

Doesn't sound like it. There's a lack of water up there so they're having to bring it all up in tanks. Doesn't sound like they'd have enough to saturate miles of land, even by helicopter

There's some video here showing the Firefighters efforts over the last 48 hours or so.

So if you have Sky or Freesat, you should be ok as the uplink to the satellites isn't affected. I suppose Freeview viewers will become reliant on VOD services or the likes of TV Player.

Virgin is the one where we don't really know, I suspect they use terrestrial links.

I supppse the other big risk other than the mast coming down is cutting the power to it if it gets too close. Don't want that coming down whilst power is still going up the thing.

Some video of the firefighting efforts over the last few days.



Kind of reminds me of the fire at the Peterborough/Morbourne mast in 2004. Obviously that only served local and national radio and the fire started up the mast but when it collapsed on bonfire night it knocked out radio for a good few days/weeks in the area.