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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 25/03/2024 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
Thursday, 22 September 2011
J
Jon
9:38 AM

Thanks Brian. I don't expect the world to stand still, far from it. But you'd be surprised at how many of my friends, all in their early 30s, IT literate and by no means luddites either, have been caught out by this.

This is due to the message which has been pushed by the Digital Switchover campaign. Which was, broadly, "You will need a digital TV to watch telly after 21 September 2011". Which is true. But ignores the fact that, "You will need an even newer telly to watch the new digital channels after 21 September 2011."

From reading around on this subject, it appers that DVB-T2 relies on an entirely different chipset, which has only been installed in new TV equipment for the past 18 months or so. I don't consider my two and half year old Samsung HD Ready Freeview digital TV to be old or outdated, and I'm obviously disappointed that the HD channels are using an entirely different platform. Especially it was old to me as being "future-proof."

In the meantime, all of the literature pushed through my door about the switchover contains the BBC HD logo. But makes no distinction between HD ready and Freeview HD.


A lot of people will be caught out by this, and be angry that their relatively new hardware is already out of date.

I appreciate it's progress, but I rememebr Betamax was better than VHS, but VHS won out due to its market share. Surely the powers must be must appreciate that the overwhelming majority of digital TV sets in the UK are DVB-T and not DVB-T2?

Frankly, I shouldn't have to keep buying a new box every 3-5 years.

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Jon's 2 posts EU flag
D
David S
9:44 AM
Leicester

A final footnote from me. About midnight on 20th, most of my channels disappeared. Only the BBC Matrix survived. Gave up and went to bed

In the morning, I retuned.

Every channel now working at good strength, and I now have 4 HD channels.



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David S's 4 posts GB flag
David's: mapD's Freeview map terrainD's terrain plot wavesD's frequency data D's Freeview Detailed Coverage
B
beresford
9:44 AM

I live in Hall Green (S Birmingham) and have an old rooftop aerial with a length of fossilised coax feeding two Freeview tuners. Both tuners show signal strength and quality as full scale. Should I (and presumably everybody else from here to Sutton Coldfield) be worrying about attenuation and should you be suggesting appropriate values for different areas?

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beresford's 1 post GB flag
M
MikeRead
9:51 AM
Walsall

I was looking forward to receiving the HD channels on my new Full HD TV after switchover but I still can't get them.

An auto-tune yesterday morning picked up all the MUXs except the HD one so I tried a manual tune where the signal strength is displayed on each channel as you choose it.

Channels 39,42,43,45,46 all show very strong signals but channel 40 where the HD channels should be shows ZERO signal.

It can't be an aerial problem surely since 39 and 42 are both perfect, but in case it's relevant, aerial is in the loft and pointed towards Sutton Coldfield which is 7.2 miles away. Before switchover it sometimes but not always managed to pick up Ch55 so I have inferred it to be a group B aerial.

Ch40 was BBC2 analogue before 07/09, and ITV1 analogue between 07/09 and 21/09 and we always picked them up perfectly.

I have tried retunes on several occasions over the last day and a half and channel 40 always shows zero signal. It's as if it just isn't broadcasting yet but other posters reckon its ok.

Any clues?

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MikeRead's 1 post GB flag
MikeRead's: mapM's Freeview map terrainM's terrain plot wavesM's frequency data M's Freeview Detailed Coverage
R
Ryan
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

10:15 AM

Briantist, thanks for the response. Yes, the aerial is outside and only a few years old and I have a prediction of a good signal.

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Ryan's 39 posts GB flag
J
JohnB
10:19 AM

MikeRead: Is your HD TV definitely "Freeview HD" compatible? If not, it will ignore any signals on the HD mux as if there is nothing there. The set must have a DVB-T2 compatible tuner to receive the HD channels, otherwise you would need a Freeview HD box to receive them. Your manual will confirm. See earlier comments from Brian and others on this issue

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JohnB's 5 posts GB flag
S
Simon
10:34 AM

I am in Coventry. For the last few days (since switch-off of BBC2), the BBC freeview signal has been weak and the picture / sound breaks up (according to a freeview card and window media center). It was fine before.
I am still using the original antenna used for analogue, but I'm led to believe the Sutton Coldfield frequencies are still in the original range.
What could be the reason for this ?

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Simon's 2 posts GB flag
lesnicol
sentiment_satisfiedGold

10:35 AM

Brian - Now here's an interesting story that brought a smile to me and other locals. - My local Pub/Restaurant decided to cancel SKY put in principally for customers following sport; this after their monthly subs had reached the somewhate staggering some of £830.

During the period of notice the landlord had a phone call from SKY to say that an offical would be making a visit to the premises regarding the illegal showing of SKY on the premises. The agent duly turned up and met with the landlord who was able to provide the confirmation of notice of termination condirmed by SKY in witing covering the dates were it was alleged breach of contract.
This matter closed.

However, there was further persual where SKY presented him with an outstanding bill for one pence arrears. The Landlord had paid his account in full and again the evidence on paper and through Bank statemnets to prove settlement in full and simply ignored the demand.

This was followed up by another notifcation advising that they would pursue settlement through the courts. This eventuially ended up in the local Sheriff court. - Outcome £360 awarded to the Landlord with a follow up cheque for £37. I've seen both cheques which came from a SKY Subscibers Payment Account - Now that'sw "Justice4" !!!!

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lesnicol's 991 posts GB flag
J
JohnB
10:51 AM

Simon: I presume you have done a retune through Windows Media Centre since Wednesday? The aerial should be fine, if it was OK before, and Coventry is in a strong area for SC. I am in Coventry and I can get good signals on my laptop runnng Media Centre with a FreeCom DVB-T USB card - and that's using the little rod aerial it comes with. Could be too much signal - try a different aerial on your TV adaptor

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JohnB's 5 posts GB flag
S
Simon
11:12 AM

Thanks JohnB,
I just tried bypassing the distribution amplifier and Media Center said there was no signal at all(the check aerial message).
I wonder if my aerial is not directional enough and there is interference from another transmitter.
We normally use freesat, but I'm getting a TV soon with freeview on it, so I will see how that gets on.

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Simon's 2 posts 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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