The Cairn Hill transmission site is a radio and television broadcasting facility located on a 277 metre hill (Carn Clonhugh) at Dernacross, 10 km northeast of Longford town in County Longford, Ireland.
History Cairn Hill was the first of two new UHF television transmission sites to be opened in Ireland by RTÉ in 1978, the other being Three Rock in County Dublin. This was to facilitate the introduction of the second television channel RTÉ 2 on UHF, as all the available VHF frequencies were in use by existing transmitters in Ireland. The site was located to cover an area of poor reception in the Irish midlands, and when it opened it was the most powerful television transmitter in all of Ireland, with an Effective Radiated Power (ERP) of 800 kW. In later years another two television channels were added, TG4 and TV3.
Digital terrestrial television (DTT) broadcasts began from Cairn Hill in February 2009, with analogue television services subsequently ending nationally on 24 October 2012. Today the transmission site, owned and operated by 2RN (a subsidiary of RTÉ), provides the Irish national DTT service Saorview to an extensive area in central Ireland and also into Northern Ireland.
FM radio transmission from the site began in 2005 with only RTÉ Radio 1 being broadcast, but since 2023 all four RTÉ national stations, along with independent national stations Today FM, Newstalk, and local station iRadio, are broadcast from the site.
Current transmissions Digital television FrequencyUHFERPMultiplexPol682 MHz47160 kwSaorview 1H658 MHz44160 kwSaorview 2H
FM radio FrequencyERPService89.8 MHz20 kwRTÉ Radio 192.0 MHz20 kwRTÉ 2fm99.4 MHz20 kwRTÉ lyric fm94.2 MHz20 kwRTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta101.6 MHz20 kwToday FM103.1 MHz5 kwiRadio106.9 MHz5 kwNewstalk99.8 MHz10 kwTemporary Services, Christmas FM
Cairn Hill relay transmitters DTT relayCountyMux 1Mux 2ERPPolKilduffTipperary31 37 25 kwHMonaghanMonaghan40 432 kwH
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