Radio Aerials/Telecommunications Equipment in Church Towers

This is an updated version of an article, written by a member of the Towers & Belfries Committee, originally published The Ringing World 18 January 2002 p67. This new version puts greater emphasis on the acoustic effects of installing radio/telecommunications equipment in a church tower.

Technical aspects of this topic are covered in the Towers & Belfries Committee leaflet Radio Transmitters installed in church towers available from Central Council Publications. Please click here for ordering information or click here to download in the form of a PDF file. (PDF files can be viewed and printed with Adobe Acrobat Reader, downloadable free of charge.)

Introduction

This topic is broader and more complex than it first appears to be. The aspects of it which might affect ringers are not confined to those directly related to the radiation issue. The following notes have already been useful to PCC officers and their ringers when assessing proposals made to them by telecommunications companies, or their representatives or agents.

Such proposals are not simply about mounting aerials, brackets and cables on the outside of the church tower. The telecommunications aerials have to be driven by telecommunications equipment. Also they have associated ancillary systems which need appreciable space to house them.

Examples Of Telecommunications Equipment and Alterations Proposed For Towers

Radio aerials and mounting brackets, the associated cabling, the telecommunications equipment room itself, transmitters and ancillary equipment, power supplies and isolators, fire alarms, air conditioning plant with condenser units, the associated pipework and cabling, additional open-mesh floors, rope hole anti-draught shields, typically 4-off large steel equipment cabinets with swing-open doors, sturdy baseboards screwed down to floors, additional steelwork ladders and steelwork platforms. Also a series of associated alterations needing to be made to doors, doorways, traps, trapways, ladders, step ladders and other existing means of access.

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Issues Requiring Careful Attention

The problems which might result from introduction of telecommunications equipment into cramped spaces within a church tower whose proper purpose is to house the clock, the bell installation and the bell ringers.
The fact that the telecommunications company's sub-contract and sub-sub-contract installers might know nothing about the Faculty Jurisdiction, church bells, bellframes and bell fittings, or about the heritage activity of English change ringing. They might push on as fast as possible with installation work without that knowledge, and afterwards their actions might turn out to be irreversible in the conservation sense of the word.
The risks of installation of equipment without prior and full consultation with the PCC officers and ringers, and the possibility of unauthorised modification of, or damage to, the bells, bell fittings, bellframes, tower walls, floors and structural beams, fittings and fixtures.
The risks which might result from division of responsibility for the security of the tower if a telecommunications equipment room were to be sited within it. Tower security is, in normal circumstances, the proper sole responsibility of the ringers because of the particular health and safety issues associated with church bells, bell fittings and bellframes.
The personal safety of the ringers might be affected if access were to be required at short notice by a telecommunications company or companies, or by their sub-contractors and sub-sub-contractors.
The actual levels of radiation from telecommunications equipment within the tower to which ringers might be exposed, sometimes for hours at a time. These are said not to exceed the levels met in the home during use of microwave ovens. Guidance on levels of radiation from transmitter equipment is given in a paper by H M Windsor MBE CEng MIEE, of the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers Towers & Belfries Committee, available from the Central Council's Publications Committee. It is also viewable and printable from the Council's website at www.cccbr.org.uk
Introduction of telecommunications equipment and ancillaries might alter the acoustic properties of the church tower.

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Points Of Principle

Church bell ringing is a part of the Church's life and work. The church tower is, first and foremost, the church bell ringers' workspace. It has always been thus and, for practical reasons, it should remain so. The bells and the tower together form, in their acoustic combination, a public musical instrument belonging to the PCC officers and performed upon by church workers, the bell ringers.
Alterations and/or additions that might adversely affect the internal or external acoustics of the bells/tower combination must not be carried out on the tower, fixtures or fittings.
Sharing the access to a common workspace would have complex implications for each group of users. Misunderstandings might occur, mistakes might be made and accidents might happen. There are risks associated with church bells, bellframes and bell fittings. They are fully understood and properly managed by ringers. The church tower, as a workspace, must continue to be managed and secured under the responsibility of the ringers alone.
Scheduled ringing events in a tower must not be interrupted simply because a group of non-church users of the workspace desires access for a purpose which is unrelated to The Church's work.
Church bell ringing and English change ringing will only continue if recruits continue to come forward to learn the ancient skills. Recruitment of young people, who make the best recruits to bell ringing, is already becoming more difficult throughout the country. The questions being asked about transmitter equipment radiation levels are unlikely to go away. They affect the decisions of potential recruits, young or mature, who are considering whether or not to learn to ring in a church tower which houses telecommunications equipment. There is therefore a chance that the number recruited to the heritage activity of church bell ringing might be reduced by the presence of transmitter equipment.
Effective two-way communication between the ringers and the PCC officers must take place regularly, reliably and frequently. It is a matter for note and concern that some PCCs or their lay parish managers/administrators have held discussions with telecommunications companies or their representatives or agents, but without the PCC officers having had any prior consultation with their ringers' officers.

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Tower Acoustics

A ring of church bells is, at any given time, as acoustically satisfactory as the church tower's design, construction and present contents permit.

Alterations to the internal acoustics of the tower might affect what the ringers hear in the ringing chamber, but they might also have an indirect effect on what is heard outside the tower. If the internal acoustics were to be worsened, then the quality of the ringers' musical performances would of course be worsened as a direct result. This would be noticed by members of the public living and working in the neighbourhood of the church.

The main influences on the tower's internal acoustics are the physical properties of the ringing chamber, the intermediate sound attenuation and balancing (ISA&B) chamber, the bell chamber, the tower staircase, and also the physical properties of their respective contents. The features which have marked effects on the acoustic properties of the church tower include:-

The relative sizes and proportions of the three chambers above-mentioned, and of their interconnecting staircase.
The ceiling materials, construction and surface finishes of each chamber.
The wall materials, construction and surface finishes of each chamber.
The materials, proportions and surface finishes of the window recesses and windows of each chamber.
The floor materials, construction and surface finishes of each chamber.
The sizes, proportions, and design configurations of the sound outlet windows in the bell chamber walls, and of their louvres for limiting ingress of wind-driven stormwater.
The materials, construction and surface finishes of the tower staircase.
The size, proportions, materials and construction of the ISA&B chamber (which is positioned between the ringing chamber and the bell chamber) are crucial in influencing the sound of the bells heard by the ringers during ringing. These design details directly control the general sound-level of the bells and also the relative balance of the sound-levels, bell versus bell.
The sizes, positions, materials, construction and degree of fit of the tower staircase doorways, door surrounds and the staircase doors themselves.
The sizes, positions, materials, construction and degree of fit of the trapways, trapway surrounds and trap doors themselves through the floors of the bell chamber and the ISA&B chamber.
The design sizes and positions of bell rope holes, clock wire holes and clock weight shafts through the floors of the bell chamber and ISA&B chamber.
The contents of each of the chambers in the tower.

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Actions And Responsibilities

The ringers must brief their PCC officers fully and effectively. They must do so before the PCC is approached by a telecommunications company or its representative or agent. They must do so before the PCC decides of its own accord, and perhaps without discussion with the officers of the ringers, to make any contact, however slight, with a telecommunications company or its representative or agent. The ringers' officers must keep in touch with the PCC officers. It will be no good for the ringers to complain, too late, that the PCC officers did not keep in touch with the ringers.

The ringers must also prompt the PCC officers to ask the Diocesan Advisory Committee for copies of the DAC's formal guidance document "Guidance for Parishes on Telecommunications Equipment in Churches".

The PCC has access, through the Secretary to the Diocesan Advisory Committee, to the specialist advice available from the DAC Bells Consultant. The PCC has access also, through the General Secretary of the territorial/diocesan ringing association for the locality, county or diocese, to the specialist advice available from the territorial/diocesan ringing association's Bells Adviser. The PCC should obtain both the DAC's formal guidance document, see above, and the specialist advices available from the above two sources, before expressing the slightest interest with a telecommunications company or its representative or agent.

The officers of the territorial/diocesan ringing association must be fully alert in respect of those churches in their area whose towers are silent, either because the bells are at present unringable or because the bells are at present not rung for lack of ringers. They must brief the PCC officers of each of these churches about the risks in taking any step now which might in due course turn out to be irreversible in the heritage sense of the word, or might delay or prevent a bell restoration project, or might discourage the training of a band of ringers.

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A Proposal For The Way Forward

If the PCC wishes to mount radio aerials on its tower, subject of course to both planning approval and faculty approval, then it should insist that the telecommunications company or its representative or agent does not house the aerial driving equipment and its ancillaries within the tower envelope but in an entirely separate room or building. In those cases where this has been the course of action taken the outcome has been satisfactory.

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Date / Change Level Indicator
2004 April jrt/e428TLQ7