1st September 1962

Freemont Point transmitting station opens

The 139m transmission tower at Freemont Point was built by the Independent Television Authority (ITA) to serve the whole of the Channel Islands. Although its signal is strong enough to cover the whole region, it is backed up by relay stations at St Brelades, St Helier and Gorey on Jersey, and at Torteval, St Peter Port and Les Touillets on Guernsey. There is a seventh relay on the eastern side of Alderney.

Being so close to France meant that planning for the transmitter’s opening took a lot of work. Thus, it was inevitably the last piece of the independent television network puzzle to be put in place and, even then, engineers had to be careful about power. They used the relay station on Alderney to get mainland signals to Jersey for rebroadcast from the tower, the power of which was carefully trimmed so that, to the east, where it would have strayed towards France, it was less powerful than in other directions. Work to ready it for digital TV took place in August 2010, with the Channel Islands switching from analogue on 17 November that year.

The tower doesn’t only handle television broadcasts; it also hosts the transmitters for both BBC Radio and local commercial station Channel 103.