Video: View from Emley Moor as Ian McMillan talks up D (for digital) Day

The mast, at 1,084ft (330m) the tallest free-standing structure in the UK, is waving goodbye to old analogue technology that has been beaming out TV and radio signals for decades.

Wednesday is the final stage of the digital switchover for TV viewers in West and South Yorkshire.

Bard of Barnsley Ian McMillan, official switchover poet for Yorkshire, went up the mast yesterday to mark the occasion.

He said it was time to “forget the old five-channel mast” and welcome the digital age.

“People are going to be watching a lot more channels yet they are still coming from this fantastic concrete pole.”

Engineers at the tower, near the village of Emley, West Yorkshire, admitted feeling a bit nostalgic for all the older and bigger analogue equipment.

Geoff Potter, transition manager at the Emley transmitter, said: “I’m sorry to see analogue go. Myself and colleagues have worked on it many years and have become quite attached to it.”

But he said there had been tears in the past when it had broken down.

He was not sure where the old equipment would end up. But if it was headed to the Media Museum in Bradford they would need to build an extension to house it all, he joked.

Turning off analogue TV signals will allow digital terrestrial TV (Freeview) coverage to be boosted to reach virtually all homes.

Thousands of homes previously in digital blackspots such as Skipton and Halifax will get Freeview channels for the first time.