History

The BBC television transmitter at Rowridge, Isle of Wight, entered service in November 1954. The Post Office initially provided a single-hop 4 GHz link from Golden Pot using off-air reception of the Alexandra Palace transmitter. This is referred to in archive documents articles as "Stage 1". By early 1956 "Stage 2" was available - a "fully engineered" link from London (Museum Exchange) including a return path to London which could be used for outside broadcasts. At this point the BBC had no regional studio in Southampton and the Rowridge transmitter continued to carry the London service.

The ITV franchise for the south was awarded to Southern Televison who planned to establish studios in Southampton with their main transmitter at Chillerton Down, not far from Rowridge. The Post Office arrangements in "Stage 3" were convoluted. A further channel was added to the London to Rowridge system and a two-way link at 2 GHz was provided between the Chillerton Down transmitter and the central exchange at Ogle Road, Southampton. Cable links were addded between the two transmitter sites on the Isle of Wight and from the exchange to the studios. The end-to-end routing was as follows:

• the ITV "network" feed was sent from London to Rowridge, then to Chillerton Down and Ogle Road and to the studios
• the studio either routed "network" back to Ogle Road or replaced it with locally presented programmes or advertisements
• from the exchange, the studio output was sent over the 2 GHz link to the transmitter

To cover the eastern part of the franchise area, Southern used a second main transmitter near Dover which entered service in 1960. This led to "Stage 4" which added a second return link between Rowridge and London where the circuit was extended over a trunk cable to Dover.

The introduction of BBC2 and 625-line colour broadcasts for BBC1 and ITV led to a new route being planned between London and Southampton. Delays with completion of this route led to temporary provision to allow BBC2 to broadcast from Rowridge. The new arrangements included a new Television Network Switching Centre in Southampton. Once the TVNSC and new route were fully operational the 2 GHz link was taken out of service along with the route via Golden Pot.