Winter Hill in danger as fires merge and close in

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Radio may be affected:

https://radiotoday.co.uk/amp/2018/06/winter-hill-fire-could-disrupt-radio-services/

Arqiva’s tweet says it’s looking safe.

The fire has diminished in the area surrounding the Winter Hill mast and there is growing confidence that there will be no service disruption. Huge thanks and gratitude to the Emergency Services for their incredible efforts in very difficult circumstances.

— Arqiva (@arqiva) June 30, 2018

I drove down the M61 late last night and there was a lot of smoke drifting across the carriageway near Rivington, but no visible flames from Winter Hill itself. Although the fires are still a concern, it’s good to know the transmitting station itself is safe.

I can usually see Winter Hill from the back of my house, and more clearly when I drive into Leigh (about 5 mins from home), yesterday all I could see was thick smoke. Even at 12am last night, good thing the scale of the smoke hasn’t grown, well done to the emergency services for keeping it under control.

Nothing was removed from the BT tower next door, what was installed at the top a few days later was a simple dipole to allow national radio services to be restored. Although Classic FM managed to get back on the air just 18 hours after the collapse from the nearby ILR site at Gunthorpe. Orange and O2 services were lost over a wide area, as the broadcast mast was their node point. Take a look on mb21, the whole story is catalogued on there, ( and the Emley story is interesting too)

The Manchester and Merseyside areas are swamped by signals from Moel y Parc in north Wales, so much so that during Freeview scans, its channels often grab primary EPG positions. If Winter Hill does fail, many will probably receive a usable service from MyP off the back of their aerials

Certainly it’s easier in Merseyside to pick up signals from Moel-Y-Parc than it is Manchester. When DSO happened there were reports that Moel-Y-Parc signals were being picked up as far north as Blackpool.

A BBC News article yesterday implied that Radio was more at risk than TV should the fire had spread.

Not sure why they said that. National FM radio services, and BBC Radio Manchester come from Holme Moss, and Key 103 is from Saddleworth. DAB services are present from a multitude of other sites, and quite honestly the other radio services from Winter Hill are candy floss stuff

That tweet's been posted 3 times now...

Radio Lancashire is on WH, and it is a reasonably important relay of Holme Moss for radio.

I suspect that non broadcast services from the site (or neighbouring sites) may be a bigger issue - are things like police radios (airwave?) still up there?

It's been posted six times now if you include all the quoted posts, including this one.