On 17 December 1949, it became the first television transmitter to broadcast outside London and the Home Counties, bringing BBC Television to viewers outside of the south-east of England for the first time. For most of 1965, it had a low-power BBC2 service; this was turned onto full power on 4 October 1965; the East Midlands had no BBC2 service until Waltham began transmissions on 31 August 1968. A new mast was built around 1983 to replace the original structure, primarily to support new mixed-polarisation FM antennas. A 240.2m temporary mast was erected alongside the original mast in the spring of 2009 so that work could proceed in raising the height of the original mast by 31m. After four years in service and almost a year after the completion of digital switch over, the temporary mast was removed during August 2013. All analogue TV transmissions ceased on 21 September 2011, as part of the digital switchover. This made it one of the oldest transmitters in the country to formally end analogue broadcasts.
Services
With a mast height of, it is one of the most powerful transmitters in England, powered at 200 kilowatts ERP for digital television and 250 kW for FM radio. The coverage extends as far south as Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire and as far north as Stoke-on-Trent. However, there are many relay transmitters around the Midlands that extend coverage even further. The transmitter broadcasts eight digital televisionmultiplexes, as well as VHF or FM transmitters for the four BBC national stations; the BBC's local serviceBBC WM on FM and DAB; independent national station Classic FM and local commercial radio stations Free Radio, Heart, Greatest Hits West Midlands and Smooth Radio. When opened as a UHF TV transmitter Sutton Coldfield was a B grouping, but with the advent of Digital broadcasting one of the six muxes could not be fitted into the original B group due to co-channel considerations. Thus mux 6 was transmitted slightly out of band on UHF Channel 55, though this would still be receivable on most B group aerials as this makes clear. In July 2007 it was confirmed by Ofcom that Sutton Coldfield would return to an undisputed B group transmitter post-Digital Switchover, a process that was completed on 21 September 2011. An MF transmitter for Radio Birmingham used to be installed at this site, but could only be operated at 5 kW instead of the planned 10 kW because of interference to video equipment on the site. It was eventually replaced with a transmitter at the nearby Langley Mill MF site owned by Arqiva. This transmitter is currently used for the BBC Asian Network. The station is now owned by Arqiva.
Radio
Analogue (FM)
Digital (DAB)
Television
Digital
Before switchover
Analogue
Analogue television signals are no longer broadcast from Sutton Coldfield as of 21 September 2011.
The transmitter is served by a set of 35 local relays, delivering signals to areas shaded from it by hills and the curve of the Earth. These are:
Digital switchover
took place at Sutton Coldfield in September 2011. In preparation for this, major engineering works took place at the station. The mast height was increased from to and the UHF television antennas were replaced. This was accomplished through the use of a temporary mast constructed to broadcast all the area's services so that the main mast could be worked on 'cold'. As at other stations, the digital switchover took place in two stages: In the first stage :
BBC Two analogue closed down
Low-power BBC multiplex on channel 41 closed down
Low-power SDN multiplex moved from channel 47 to channel 41
Mux 1, Mux 2, Mux A, Mux B, Mux C and Mux D closed down
All multiplexes increased in power to 200,000 watts
New multiplexes came on air: SDN on C42, Arqiva A on C45, Arqiva B on C39, Digital 3&4 on C46 and BBC B on C40.
HD broadcasts were moved from the Lichfield transmitter to Sutton Coldfield on the BBC B multiplex. The Lichfield transmitter ceased the broadcast of all television services, with all six multiplexes being broadcast from Sutton Coldfield.
