The Blaenplwyf transmitting station (sometimes written "Blaen Plwyf" or "Blaen-Plwyf") is a broadcasting and telecommunications facility located near the village of Blaenplwyf about 10 kilometres (6 mi) to the south west of the town of Aberystwyth, in Ceredigion, Wales (grid reference SN569756).

It had been planned that the BBC's 405-line VHF television service would commence on the same date, but delays at Rowridge[1] caused the official switch-on to happen six months later on 29 April 1957.

[2][3] Blaenplwyf was considered a main transmitter for VHF television (despite radiating only 3 kW ERP) as it was fed from a microwave link from Mynydd Pencarreg just south of Lampeter.

The technical report from the BBC[7] disagrees, pointing out that the mean ERP was 0.8 kW at launch, and was uprated to twice that value on 8 August 1958.

The launch of Channel 4 (S4C in Wales) took the UHF capabilities of the site to its design maximum.

In common with the situation across much of the UK, Blaenplwyf was forced to transmit this extra service well out-of-group and at low power compared with the main four.

The UK's initial experimental digital television service was rolled out, using low power for the transmissions and interleaved with the analogue transmissions in an attempt to make the whole set receivable with the original aerial group.

Digital switchover was completed, seeing the shutdown of all the remaining analogue TV services from this site.

Blaenplwyf started transmitting VHF FM radio only a year and a half after the then-novel service was initiated in the UK.