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Full Freeview on the Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham, England) transmitter

first published this on - UK Free TV
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The symbol shows the location of the Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham, England) transmitter which serves 1,870,000 homes. The bright green areas shown where the signal from this transmitter is strong, dark green areas are poorer signals. Those parts shown in yellow may have interference on the same frequency from other masts.

Are there any planned engineering works or unexpected transmitter faults on the Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham, England) mast?

Sutton Coldfield transmitter - Sutton Coldfield transmitter: Possible effect on TV reception week commencing 22/04/2024 Pixelation or flickering on some or all channels Digital tick


Choose from three options: ■ List by multiplex ■ List by channel number ■ List by channel name
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Which Freeview channels does the Sutton Coldfield transmitter broadcast?

If you have any kind of Freeview fault, follow this Freeview reset procedure first.

Digital television services are broadcast on a multiplexes (or Mux) where many stations occupy a single broadcast frequency, as shown below.

MuxH/VFrequencyHeightModeWatts
PSB1
BBCA
 H max
C43 (650.0MHz)433mDTG-200,000W
Channel icons
1 BBC One (SD) West Midlands, 2 BBC Two England, 9 BBC Four, 23 BBC Three, 201 CBBC, 202 CBeebies, 231 BBC News, 232 BBC Parliament, plus 19 others

PSB2
D3+4
 H max
C46 (674.0MHz)433mDTG-200,000W
Channel icons
3 ITV 1 (SD) (Central (West micro region)), 4 Channel 4 (SD) Midlands ads, 5 Channel 5, 6 ITV 2, 10 ITV3, 13 E4, 14 Film4, 15 Channel 4 +1 Midlands ads, 18 More4, 26 ITV4, 28 ITVBe, 30 E4 +1, 35 ITV1 +1 (Central west),

PSB3
BBCB
 H max
C40+ (626.2MHz)433mDTG-200,000W
Channel icons
46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD West Midlands, 102 BBC Two HD England, 103 ITV 1 HD (ITV Central West), 104 Channel 4 HD Midlands ads, 105 Channel 5 HD, 106 BBC Four HD, 107 BBC Three HD, 204 CBBC HD, 205 CBeebies HD, plus 1 others

COM4
SDN
 H max
C42 (642.0MHz)433mDTG-8200,000W
Channel icons
20 Drama, 21 5USA, 29 ITV2 +1, 32 5STAR, 33 5Action, 38 Channel 5 +1, 41 Legend, 42 GREAT! action, 57 Dave ja vu, 58 ITVBe +1, 59 ITV3 +1, 64 Blaze, 67 TRUE CRIME, 68 TRUE CRIME XTRA, 78 TCC, 81 Blaze +1, 83 Together TV, 89 ITV4 +1, 91 WildEarth, 209 Ketchup TV, 210 Ketchup Too, 211 YAAAS!, 267 Al Jazeera English, plus 30 others

COM5
ArqA
 H max
C45 (666.0MHz)433mDTG-8200,000W
Channel icons
11 Sky Mix, 17 Really, 19 Dave, 31 E4 Extra, 36 Sky Arts, 40 Quest Red, 43 Food Network, 47 Film4 +1, 48 Challenge, 49 4seven, 60 Drama +1, 65 That's TV 2, 70 Quest +1, 74 Yesterday +1, 75 That's 90s, 233 Sky News, plus 11 others

COM6
ArqB
 H max
C39+ (618.2MHz)433mDTG-8200,000W
Channel icons
12 Quest, 25 W, 27 Yesterday, 34 GREAT! movies, 39 DMAX, 44 HGTV, 52 GREAT! romance, 56 That's TV (UK), 61 GREAT! movies extra, 63 GREAT! romance mix, 71 That’s 60s, 73 HobbyMaker, 82 Talking Pictures TV, 84 PBS America, 235 Al Jazeera Eng, plus 18 others

LB
 H -13dB
C48 (690.0MHz)433mDTG-1210,000W
Channel icons
from 31st October 2014: 7 Big Centre TV,

DTG-8 64QAM 8K 3/4 27.1Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2
DTG-12 QSPK 8K 3/4 8.0Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2
H/V: aerial position (horizontal or vertical)

Which BBC and ITV regional news can I watch from the Sutton Coldfield transmitter?

regional news image
BBC Midlands Today 2.9m homes 10.9%
from Birmingham B1 1RF, 15km south-southwest (200°)
to BBC West Midlands region - 66 masts.
regional news image
ITV Central News 2.9m homes 10.9%
from Birmingham B1 2JT, 15km south-southwest (201°)
to ITV Central (West) region - 65 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 80% evening news is shared with Central (East)

Are there any self-help relays?

Burton (shobnall)Transposer1 km W Burton-on-Trent60 homes
CoalvilleTransposer18 km NW Leicester600 homes
SolihullTransposerLand Rover building400 homes

How will the Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham, England) transmission frequencies change over time?

1950s-80s1984-971997-981998-20112011-137 Mar 2018
VHFB E TB E TB E TB E K TW T
C4BBCtvwaves
C33com7
C35com8
C36LOCAL2
C39+ArqBArqB
C40BBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBC2waves+BBCBBBCB
C42SDNSDN
C43ITVwavesITVwavesITVwavesBBCABBCA
C45ArqAArqA
C46BBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBC1wavesD3+4D3+4
C48_local
C50tv_offC4wavesC4wavesC4waves
C51tv_offLB
C55tv_offcom7tv_off
C56tv_offCOM8tv_off

tv_off Being removed from Freeview (for 5G use) after November 2020 / June 2022 - more
Table shows multiplexes names see this article;
green background for transmission frequencies
Notes: + and - denote 166kHz offset; aerial group are shown as A B C/D E K W T
waves denotes analogue; digital switchover was 7 Sep 11 and 21 Sep 11.

How do the old analogue and currrent digital signal levels compare?

Analogue 1-4 1000kW
SDN, ARQA, ARQB, BBCA, D3+4, BBCB(-7dB) 200kW
com7(-10.5dB) 89.2kW
com8(-10.7dB) 86kW
LB(-20dB) 10kW
Mux 1*, Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*, Mux C*, Mux D*(-21dB) 8kW

Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Sutton Coldfield transmitter area

Feb 1956-Jul 1968Associated TeleVision†
Feb 1956-Jul 1968Associated British Corporation◊
Jul 1968-Dec 1981Associated TeleVision
Jan 1982-Feb 2004Central Independent Television
Feb 2004-Dec 2014ITV plc
Feb 1983-Dec 1992TV-am•
Jan 1993-Sep 2010GMTV•
Sep 2010-Dec 2014ITV Daybreak•
• Breakfast ◊ Weekends ♦ Friday night and weekends † Weekdays only. Sutton Coldfield was not an original Channel 3 VHF 405-line mast: the historical information shown is the details of the company responsible for the transmitter when it began transmitting Channel 3.

Comments
Friday, 9 September 2011
E
ezrapound
12:59 AM

Briantist:

I think this line is missing from above :-

MUX-A Digital on Channel 47 Moves to Channel 41

link to this comment
ezrapound's 10 posts GB flag
Briantist
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

7:36 AM

ezrapound: It does say

"After switchover frequency notes ():
Between the first and second stages of switchover at Sutton Coldfield, SDN will use channel 41 (8kW)."

at the top of the page.

link to this comment
Briantist's 38,915 posts GB flag
E
ezrapound
10:07 AM

Briantist :- Sorry, I expected it to be between 7th Sept and the 21st Sept in your listings

link to this comment
ezrapound's 10 posts GB flag
M
mark bennett
10:45 AM

i can't pick up any channels in group 2! do i need a new aerial?

link to this comment
mark bennett's 1 post GB flag
K
KMJ,Derby
sentiment_satisfiedGold

11:56 AM

mark bennett: If you have good reception of the BBC channels on MuxBBCA just wait until 21st September 2011 when MuxD3+4 (ITV1/2, C4, C5 etc) will start high power transmission. If you had these channels before 7th September try a manual tune on C44+ in order to restore reception of the present low power Mux2.

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KMJ,Derby's 1,811 posts GB flag
G
Graham
1:12 PM
Coventry

Since switchover (part 1), the new BBC signal is showing as 100% strength and 97% quality which isn't bad considering the aerial is in the loft pointing directly at the partition wall between our house and the rest in the row of terrace houses. (3 walls total).

What I do not understand is why the Thompson Top-up TV box shows a signal strength of 6/10 and a quality of 8/10. The signal goes through this box before it gets to the TV. Are the tuners measuring different things?

Sitting in the garden with a 15cm pole aerial gets me perfect picture on the Laptop so the signal is fastastic.

link to this comment
Graham's 2 posts GB flag
Graham's: mapG's Freeview map terrainG's terrain plot wavesG's frequency data G's Freeview Detailed Coverage
P
Paul
1:14 PM

After being told to wait for the switch over on the 7th Sept, why is it I Still can not receive any Freeview HD channels.
I live in Sutton Coldfield and use the Sutton Coldfield transmitter.

Any news on when they will be turned on..

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Paul's 2 posts US flag
M
Mike Dimmick
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

2:49 PM

Graham: There are no standards in the UK specification for what these meters actually mean.

*Usually*, the strength meter is a percentage or proportion of the actual range that the box can accept, but the upper limit is typically the *combined* level of all received transmissions; with six high-power multiplexes, plus overlaps from other transmitters, it may be necessary to ensure that each received signal is quite a bit below 100%.

Different boxes will have different upper and lower limits on what they can accept.

The 'signal quality' meter on a lot of equipment shows you the proportion of data that was received without error, *after* all error correction was applied. Therefore it stays at 100% until signal quality actually drops enough for the error correction to fail, which you will be able to see or hear, making it useless for diagnostics.

Other equipment shows the Bit Error Rate, the number of bits that were corrected by either the first or second stage of error-correction. Really the best information for diagnosis is the pre-Viterbi BER, but many chipsets don't make this available. Professional meter equipment re-encodes the decoded data stream and compares it to what was received, to produce the Modulation Error Ratio (MER), but that does require extra hardware specifically for measuring, so I wouldn't expect consumer equipment to include it.

The Scandinavian standard, NorDig, now does standardize what these displays mean. Ireland's Saorview standard is based on NorDig 2.0 although with the UK's MHEG 5 profile for interactive content rather than NorDig's.

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Mike Dimmick's 2,486 posts GB flag
S
Steve
3:24 PM
Solihull

Ariel is on roof. Can get all channels but all ITV Channel 4 and 5 keep breaking up. Will this resolve itself on 21 September?

link to this comment
Steve's 4 posts GB flag
Steve's: mapS's Freeview map terrainS's terrain plot wavesS's frequency data S's Freeview Detailed Coverage
D
Dave
3:55 PM

Im in Stafford and have a freeview HD TV and although i have re-tuned i cant get HD channels. I have never had these previously but was hoping that i would get them following the DSO. The DSO website says i should be able to get them? Any ideas as would really like to get the full benefits?

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Dave's 1 post GB flag
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Your comment please
Please post a question, answer or commentIf you have Freeview reception problems before posting a question your must first do this Freeview reset procedure then see: Freeview reception has changed, Single frequency interference, and Freeview intermittent interference.

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