Wind farms and wind turbines can cause interference to the reception of television signals and other wireless technologies. While understanding the potential impacts to fixed wireless links (microwave links and rebroadcast links) is relatively straightforward, understanding the possible impacts to local television reception can be far more challenging, especially if the area surrounding the site presents signal propagation challenges.
Our technical team has been collectively modelling the impacts on television reception since the early 2000s, and we have refined modelling techniques to understand the possible impacts and effects on television reception. Even though the UK moved to a digital only transmission format (all analogue transmissions ceased by 2012), reception of digital terrestrial television (DTT, commercially known as Freeview) services can still be affected by wind turbines, especially if certain local terrain features are present (hilltops causing signal refraction for example) or the ratio between the wanted and unwanted signals becomes too small. This is detailed in a research paper produced by BBC R&D (Interference to television reception from large wind turbines – J.L. Eaton B.Sc., M.I.E.E., R.I. Black, G.H. Taylor B.A., Dip.E.E., March 1983) and still is valid for today’s digital television domain.
We undertake TV, radio, telecommunications, and mobile phone network pre- and post-construction signal surveys to assist developers in discharging associated planning conditions. We work in England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and Northern Ireland to assess the impacts from a single wind turbine to 90+ turbine schemes. To date, we have undertaken over 520 wind farm / wind turbine impact assessments for large ES scale projects (SSE’s Viking Wind Farm for example) to smaller single turbine developments.
Contact us on 01926 744771 to discuss any planning or S106 telecommunications requirement, radio, mobile phone or TV signal survey work. For more information about the current projects we are working on and the companies we are working with, please visit our Current Projects & Clients web page and follow us on X.