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Full Freeview on the Sudbury (Suffolk, England) transmitter

first published this on - UK Free TV
sa_streetviewGoogle Streetviewsa_gmapsGoogle mapsa_bingBing mapsa_gearthGoogle Earthsa_gps52.005,0.786 or 52°0'17"N 0°47'8"Esa_postcodeCO10 5NG

 

The symbol shows the location of the Sudbury (Suffolk, England) transmitter which serves 440,000 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 Sudbury (Suffolk, England) mast?

Sudbury transmitter - Sudbury 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 Sudbury 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
C44 (658.0MHz)229mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
1 BBC One (SD) East, 2 BBC Two England, 9 BBC Four, 23 BBC Three, 201 CBBC, 202 CBeebies, 231 BBC News, 232 BBC Parliament, plus 16 others

PSB2
D3+4
 H max
C41 (634.0MHz)229mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
3 ITV 1 (SD) (Anglia (East micro region)), 4 Channel 4 (SD) South ads, 5 Channel 5, 6 ITV 2, 10 ITV3, 13 E4, 14 Film4, 15 Channel 4 +1 South ads, 18 More4, 26 ITV4, 28 ITVBe, 30 E4 +1, 35 ITV1 +1 (Anglia east),

PSB3
BBCB
 H max
C47 (682.0MHz)229mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD East, 102 BBC Two HD England, 103 ITV 1 HD (ITV Meridian Southampton), 104 Channel 4 HD South 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
C29 (538.0MHz)186mDTG-100,000W
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
C31- (553.8MHz)228mDTG-8100,000W
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
C37 (602.0MHz)228mDTG-8100,000W
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

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

The Sudbury (Suffolk, England) mast is a public service broadcasting (PSB) transmitter, it does not provide these commercial (COM) channels: .

If you want to watch these channels, your aerial must point to one of the 80 Full service Freeview transmitters. For more information see the will there ever be more services on the Freeview Light transmitters? page.

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

regional news image
BBC Look East (East) 0.8m homes 3.2%
from Norwich NR2 1BH, 77km north-northeast (24°)
to BBC East region - 27 masts.
70% of BBC East (East) and BBC East (West) is shared output
regional news image
ITV Anglia News 0.8m homes 3.2%
from NORWICH NR1 3JG, 78km north-northeast (24°)
to ITV Anglia (East) region - 26 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 80% evening news is shared with Anglia (West)

Are there any self-help relays?

Felixstowe WestTransposer1000 homes +1000 or more homes due to expansion of affected area?
WithamTransposer14 km NE Chelmsford.118 homes

How will the Sudbury (Suffolk, England) transmission frequencies change over time?

1984-971997-981998-20112011-131 Aug 2018
B E TB E TB E TE TK T
C29SDN
C31ArqA
C35C5wavesC5waves
C37ArqB
C41ITVwavesITVwavesITVwavesD3+4D3+4
C44BBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBCABBCA
C47C4wavesC4wavesC4wavesBBCBBBCB
C51tv_offBBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBC1waves
C56tv_offArqB
C58tv_offSDN
C60tv_off-ArqA

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 6 Jul 11 and 20 Jul 11.

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

Analogue 1-4 250kW
SDN, ARQA, ARQB, BBCA, D3+4, BBCB(-4dB) 100kW
Analogue 5(-7dB) 50kW
Mux 2*(-14.9dB) 8.1kW
Mux B*(-15.2dB) 7.5kW
Mux 1*(-15.5dB) 7kW
Mux A*(-17dB) 5kW
Mux C*(-22.2dB) 1.5kW
Mux D*(-23.6dB) 1.1kW

Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Sudbury transmitter area

Oct 1959-Feb 2004Anglia 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. Sudbury 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
Wednesday, 14 December 2011
S
Stephen
8:45 AM

I'm not sure what cooking has to do with anything on this site. Very strange



Dave

Two out of three isn't bad. But when you have had three out of three and lose one you tend to notice these little things.

link to this comment
Stephen's 4 posts GB flag
Thursday, 15 December 2011
N
Norm De Plume
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

7:13 AM

Stephen,

Try swapping devices between rooms, if they are being used in different rooms. Pr swap the aerial leads around - some devices are more sensitive to signal loss than others and looping through another device rarely improves the signal level. Consider having custom leads made up with quality wire - it's generally cheaper than buying new leads and the improvement is worth it.

If all else fails, wait until June 27th 2012 when there will be yet another retune and your Film4 signal should be readily received.

link to this comment
Norm De Plume's 36 posts GB flag
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

8:56 AM

Stephen: Plus in addition to the very valid suggestion made by Norm De Plume, it should be pointed out that because some programmes can be received on one piece of equipment but not another does not mean that a good signal is being received, as a signal that's just and no more above the reception threshold of the receiving device gives exactly the same quality as one that's touching near to 100%, 95% or so being a safe level on most equipment to avoid any tendencies for intermittent signal overload situations to occur in its tuner, some tuners being more vulnerable to this than others.

If by any chance both recording devices are being used in the same location, then its not advisable to "daisy chain" the aerial feeds as this encourages the sort of problem you are experiencing, but feed the aerial into a three, or more common, four way powered splitter and have each device fed from that, as this arrangement guarantees that each device will be receiving exactly the same signal.

It would have been of assistance though to have had knowledge of your location (pref: post code) in relation to the Sudbury transmitter.

link to this comment
jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
S
Stephen
9:39 AM

Norm De Plume and jb38

Thank you both for your advice.

My location is Maldon.

jb38. I think your reference to the daisy chain linking to all three units may be worth looking into.

I have only had the VHS/DVD recorder from new since the 22nd November. And all three freeview tuners were displaying all channels fine then using the aerial daisy chain method.

Oh well, I shall have a play around. otherwise I'll wait until June and see what happens.

If I get it sorted I'll let you know what the outcome was. Thanks again all.

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Stephen's 4 posts GB flag
K
Kevin Hodges
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

6:28 PM
Chelmsford

Stephen: I agree with all the above, in addition I would suggest as fewer connections as possible between the aerial and TV. To this extent, where possible, I have the aerial lead coming directly out of the wall into the TV. This avoids the possibility of the lead being kinked in the aerail socket wall box. This approach is ideal where a wall mounted flat screen TV is used.

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Kevin Hodges's 27 posts GB flag
Kevin's: mapK's Freeview map terrainK's terrain plot wavesK's frequency data K's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Saturday, 17 December 2011
A
alan
7:18 AM

I live at Bures, 2.3km from the mast.
I have erected on the chimney a 36 element w/b Labgear yagi which has a 5 metre coax run to the TV in my upstairs workshop.
The reception is hopeless, some nights all the C63 channels are missing.
Even with an amp at the back of the set, the picture still pixelates.
Everyone in Bures is complaining.

link to this comment
alan's 9 posts GB flag
spenc
3:10 PM
Chelmsford

yes yes yes i am stuck in the same boat no film4 itv4 or ideal world retuned and no difference guess low power transmitter sudbury have to wait til june 2012 that really takes the biscuit when you spend so much on devices and i miss film4 and christmas film line up freeview stil suckin well after switchover lol

link to this comment
spenc's 7 posts GB flag
spenc's: mapS's Freeview map terrainS's terrain plot wavesS's frequency data S's Freeview Detailed Coverage
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

5:17 PM

alan: I find it a bit amazing that you are able to receive anything at all with the aerial set up mentioned when bring located at only two miles or so from a station containing multiplexes with an ERP of 100Kw, and so I can only assume that you are partially in an "under the umbrella" type of situation whereby being so close to the mast its main power output is radiating above you, as otherwise the tuner in your receiving device would be totally swamped by the signal thereby killing any chances of receiving anything, something many have experienced when their local stations switched to high power operation.

The point is, that tuners have a form of automatic gain control which reduces their sensitivity in strong signal situations, and trying to pick up a weak signal (i.e: Ch54 or Ch63) is made more difficult because the tuners wideband input circuitry will "still" sense the presence of high powered signal levels from the main muxes likewise it reducing its input sensitivity to avoid signal overloading problems, but which in turn reduces the chances of picking up weaker signals on other lesser mux channels, which it has to be said is really caused by the oddball situation at Sudbury, as I cant think of anywhere else operating with the same power differential level between the muxes. (albeit this being temporary)

You should really be trying experiments with a variable attenuator rather than boosting the signal, and although its a time consuming exercise you should scrub everything stored and try manual tuning of Ch54 or Ch63 with the attenuator set to various levels. Of course there is no guarantee that this would work either, as the reference to the "umbrella" effect can also be applied to the outputs from Muxes C / D, so its really a "hit and miss" situation that requires a level of experimenting in an attempt to effect a cure, if at all possible, as it isn't always!


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jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
Sunday, 18 December 2011
A
a c evans
7:47 PM

any idea if the power is going to be increased on the sudbury transmitter for ch50 706.2mlz com6arq if ive got this wrong im orating fil4 itv4 viva etc etctalking about the group of channels with film4 viva itv4 etc etc .The watt output seems very low at only 1100

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a c evans's 1 post GB flag
D
dave
10:23 PM

a c evans
channel line up that was on 50 (channels you are after) are now on channel 63, I lost these at last re-tune, simon at Alpha aerials 01787 312822 was very helpful and very reasonable, now have all freeview back on all my t.v's

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dave's 4 posts GB flag
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