History
Dunstable was selected around 1946 to provide a repeater station for the 1949 900 MHz London to Birmingham television link . Archive photos of the site show progression from a guyed mast, used for the first one-way (reversible) version of the 900 MHz link, then a small square tower when the system was upgraded to two-way operation, with the current tower built in the mid-1960s initially carrying horn antennas for an upgraded route between London and Birmingham. The tower at Harrow Weald is similar to that at Dunstable however the next site towards Birmingham, at Charwelton, was provided with a concrete tower.
1980s diagrams of television circuits in the Birmingham area (which include those passing through Morborne Hill towards Norwich) show a link for an Anglia TV studio in Luton. This ran via cable to the main exchange in Luton then an SHF link to Dunstable, continuing via the existing network. Apart from this minor addition Dunstable seems to have been purely a repeater station on the London to Birmingham route from its original use at 900 MHz through subsequent use of 2, 4 and 6 GHz bands and eventual use for 11 GHz digital links from the 1980s onwards.
The site was used in 1970 as a location for the Doctor Who episode Terror of the Autons. The towers appear unchanged from the 1965 archive photo below but two large steerable dishes were added - presumably as an overlay onto the film. The exterior of the building also appears in the episode, confirming it was of the standard pattern and finished in yellow brick. A 1973 OS plan shows both towers and the two older buildings still in place. More recent aerial views show two further buildings of similar size have been added - presumably for site-sharing. The horn antennas appear to have been removed by 2003 and the main dishes around 2009 - some being left on site for a number of years before final disposal.
The site is used for FM radio and DAB broadcasts and known as "Zouches Farm". The site code YZFM suggests this may have been the original name - this also appears on a 1948 diagram of the Control Circuit (a 4-wire telephone cable) for the Radio Link.
