The original 230 m (750 ft) mast at the site was built in 1952 by the BBC to provide 405-line VHF television to south Wales and the west of England.

It was presumably thought that the 125 kW transmitter at Mendip would serve a satisfactory number of homes in Wenvoe's service area.

At the time, many homes within range of Mendip already had aerials pointing at it so as to receive the English-only Channel 4 rather than the bilingual English/Welsh S4C transmitted from Wenvoe.

Work began on a new temporary 217.7 m (714 ft) stayed mast (Wenvoe "C") on 14 June 2006 and it was completed in September 2006.

This carried the analogue signals whilst Wenvoe "A" was to be structurally improved and extended by 23 metres (75 ft).

This put it in close proximity with the fixings of the top deck of guy wires, requiring some careful engineering so as not to affect the radiation pattern adversely.

405-line transmissions from Kilvey Hill and Llanidloes were due to shut in the second quarter of 1983, leaving Llandrindod Wells to continue alone until January 1985.

The transmitter frequencies and power outputs were chosen not to interfere with the UHF TV channels, but to be received with the same aerial-group.

The QAM constellations and number of carriers were changed around 2002 after the collapse of ITV Digital as the service was taken over by the Freeview consortium.

In addition to the power increase to 100 kW ERP, it was reconfigured to 64QAM and 8k carriers, which resulted in a service area similar to the old analogue transmissions but with much more bandwidth available than Multiplex 1 ever had.

Unusually, the digital switchover at Wenvoe required a third phase to allow time for channels 42 and 45 to be cleared at Ridge Hill.

[17] Wenvoe used a rather erratic set of frequencies at the start, bandplan changes agreed in 1978 were brought into play in 1981.

Nation Radio is broadcast at low power to ensure sufficient penetration of Cardiff, Newport and Bridgend.

Digital Radio is transmitted from Wenvoe at high power and is designed to cover South Wales and the West Country.