On a misty morning this week I was early for a job I was doing in Daventry so I decided to visit Borough Hill Country Park. It is the site of the old Daventry long wave and short wave transmitters that I remember well from my youth.
The first thing that strikes you when entering the park is the last of the remaining tower which can bee seen for miles so no excuses for not being able to find it,
The mast now is mainly used for Microwave communications, cell phone antennas and TETRA,
As you walk up towards the mast from the car park you can see the remains of a mast base of the same type as the remaining mast. The mast rests on a gimble consisting of a steel domed plate on a concrete base.
The weight of the mast is supported by a single steel ball of about 1” ½ diameter as is shown by the comparison with a 50p.
The mast is tensioned by the guys onto the gimble and when masts of a similar design in nearby rugby were demolished they just put a small charge on the guy ropes on one side and the masts just fell over. You can see the gimble assembly on the base of the remaining mast.
First they had to replace the detonation cord installed the day before as the rabbits had eaten through them. As you can see from this picture of the anchor point borough hill has its own resident rabbit population.
The park is littered with the remand of guy bases of smaller masts.
As well as the bases remaining from the larger tower structures.
Lager than life close up.
This is another of the tree anchor points and in the background is a tower that was dismantled and stored for spares.
The old BBC compound is still used for storage of communication masts and equipment. This is a transmitter cabinet from a T-Mobile installation. You can see the antenna feeds for the 3 arrays around the mast plus a feed for a G.P.S antenna. The GPS feed is used for precision time synchronisation at the cell.
Hope you found this of interest and being a public park access is open to all, it is surprising what history is on your doorstep at times.
Daventry Site Circa 1980
The first thing that strikes you when entering the park is the last of the remaining tower which can bee seen for miles so no excuses for not being able to find it,
The mast now is mainly used for Microwave communications, cell phone antennas and TETRA,
As you walk up towards the mast from the car park you can see the remains of a mast base of the same type as the remaining mast. The mast rests on a gimble consisting of a steel domed plate on a concrete base.
The weight of the mast is supported by a single steel ball of about 1” ½ diameter as is shown by the comparison with a 50p.
The mast is tensioned by the guys onto the gimble and when masts of a similar design in nearby rugby were demolished they just put a small charge on the guy ropes on one side and the masts just fell over. You can see the gimble assembly on the base of the remaining mast.
First they had to replace the detonation cord installed the day before as the rabbits had eaten through them. As you can see from this picture of the anchor point borough hill has its own resident rabbit population.
The park is littered with the remand of guy bases of smaller masts.
As well as the bases remaining from the larger tower structures.
Lager than life close up.
This is another of the tree anchor points and in the background is a tower that was dismantled and stored for spares.
The old BBC compound is still used for storage of communication masts and equipment. This is a transmitter cabinet from a T-Mobile installation. You can see the antenna feeds for the 3 arrays around the mast plus a feed for a G.P.S antenna. The GPS feed is used for precision time synchronisation at the cell.
Hope you found this of interest and being a public park access is open to all, it is surprising what history is on your doorstep at times.
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