Qualla: Preseli Transmitting Station

Preseli Transmitting Station: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In 1971, three members of the Welsh-language pressure group Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg climbed the lower section of a 235-metre television mast on the eastern end of the Preseli Mountains. They were arrested. They were tried for conspiring to trespass. They were jailed. The campaign they were part of - demanding a dedicated Welsh-language television channel - took another eleven years to succeed, but it eventually produced S4C, Sianel 4 Cymru, which launched in November 1982. The mast they climbed still stands on the same hilltop today. It carries Classic FM, Heart South Wales, three national DAB multiplexes, and the digital television signal for most of west Wales. And in a curious geographical accident, it has spent six decades broadcasting Welsh television to Ireland.

Preseli Transmitting Station: Built for 405-Line ITV

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Independent Broadcasting Authority built the Preseli transmitting station in 1962 to bring commercial television to west Wales. The mast is a guyed steel lattice structure 235.4 metres tall, anchored at 1,835 feet above sea level on a hilltop near the villages of Crymych and ...

Preseli Transmitting Station: The Climb and the Channel

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

By 1971, Welsh-language activism had been pressing for a dedicated television channel for years. Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, the Welsh Language Society, had pursued direct action since its founding in 1962, including the painting-out of English-only road signs and the disruption...

Preseli Transmitting Station: Across the Irish Sea

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Preseli mast was designed to cover west Wales. What its planners did not fully anticipate was that the signal would carry across the Irish Sea. From 1962 onward, households along the east and southeast coast of the Republic of Ireland - mainly in counties Dublin and Wicklow -...

Preseli Transmitting Station: Switching Off Analogue

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The VHF 405-line transmissions ended in January 1985 after 22 years and three months of service. Channel 5 launched as an analogue UHF service in 1997 on out-of-band channel 37, an unusual configuration forced by the fact that British UHF television planners had never expected a ...

Preseli Transmitting Station: Still Broadcasting

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Today the Preseli transmitter is operated by Arqiva. It carries Classic FM on 100.5 MHz, Heart South Wales on 105.7 MHz, and since 2017 Nation Radio on 107.10 MHz, broadcasting at 2.5 kilowatts on a directional antenna that pushes the signal across all of Pembrokeshire and most o...