UHF TV in England...

[ARC Tech-109]

I don't know how things work on that side of the pond but UHF will never measure up to VHF for the raw coverage and penetration in the real world. I'm small town USA and ever since we went DTV and the b'cast went UHF it's been a challenge for reception. We have a few sub-channels running on ch-9 (186 MHz) that I can pick up with my amateur 2M Ringo but UHF is a little difficult despite their sub-megawatt ERP and 1470 AGL towers.
I applaud the forward thinking engineers who developed the PAL standard and 625 line system as it is far superior to our NTSC in many ways however I've always questioned the wisdom behind going exclusive UHF.