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Full Freeview on the Oxford (Oxfordshire, England) transmitter

first published this on - UK Free TV
sa_streetviewGoogle Streetviewsa_gmapsGoogle mapsa_bingBing mapsa_gearthGoogle Earthsa_gps51.790,-1.179 or 51°47'25"N 1°10'46"Wsa_postcodeOX3 9SS

 

The symbol shows the location of the Oxford (Oxfordshire, England) transmitter which serves 410,000 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 Oxford (Oxfordshire, England) mast?

Oxford transmitter - Oxford 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 Oxford 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
C41+ (634.2MHz)295mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
1 BBC One (SD) South (Oxford), 2 BBC Two England, 9 BBC Four, 23 BBC Three, 201 CBBC, 202 CBeebies, 231 BBC News, 232 BBC Parliament, plus 17 others

PSB2
D3+4
 H max
C44- (657.8MHz)295mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
3 ITV 1 (SD) (Meridian/Central (Thames Valley 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 (Central west),

PSB3
BBCB
 H max
C47 (682.0MHz)295mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD South (Oxford), 102 BBC Two HD England, 103 ITV 1 HD (ITV Central West), 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 -3dB
C29 (538.0MHz)295mDTG-850,000W
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 -3dB
C37- (601.8MHz)319mDTG-850,000W
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 -3dB
C31 (554.0MHz)319mDTG-850,000W
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

LOX
 H -10dB
C46 (674.0MHz)295mDTG-1210,000W
Channel icons
from 22nd December 2014: 7 That's Oxford,

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 Oxford transmitter?

regional news image
BBC South (Oxford) Today 0.4m homes 1.6%
from Oxford OX2 7DW, 6km west-southwest (258°)
to BBC South (Oxford) region - 6 masts.
BBC South (Oxford) Today shares 50% content with Southampton service
regional news image
ITV Meridian News 0.9m homes 3.4%
from Whiteley PO15 7AD, 102km south (182°)
to ITV Meridian/Central (Thames Valley) region - 15 masts.
Thames Valley opt-out from Meridian (South). All of lunch, weekend and 50% evening news is shared with all of Meridian+Oxford

How will the Oxford (Oxfordshire, England) transmission frequencies change over time?

1950s-80s1984-971997-981998-20112011-132013-182013-1723 May 2018
VHFC/D EC/D EC/D EC/D EC/D E TW TW T
C2BBCtvwaves
C29SDN
C31com7com7
C37com8com8
C41BBCA
C44D3+4
C46_local
C47BBCB
C49tv_offC5wavesC5waves
C50tv_off SDNSDN
C51tv_offLOXLOX
C53tv_offC4wavesC4wavesC4waves+BBCA+BBCA+BBCA
C55tv_offArqBArqBArqBcom7tv_off
C56tv_offCOM8tv_off
C57tv_offBBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBCBBBCBBBCB
C59tv_off-ArqA-ArqA-ArqA
C60tv_offITVwavesITVwavesITVwaves-D3+4-D3+4-D3+4
C62SDN
C63BBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBC2waves

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 14 Sep 11 and 28 Sep 11.

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

Analogue 1-4 500kW
BBCA, D3+4, BBCB(-7dB) 100kW
SDN, ARQA, ARQB(-10dB) 50kW
Analogue 5(-11dB) 40kW
com8(-14.7dB) 17.1kW
com7(-14.8dB) 16.4kW
Mux 1*, Mux 2*, LOX(-17dB) 10kW
Mux C*, Mux D*(-18dB) 8kW
Mux A*, Mux B*(-19.2dB) 6kW

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

Feb 1956-Jul 1968Associated TeleVision†
Feb 1956-Jul 1968Associated British Corporation◊
Jul 1968-Dec 1981Associated TeleVision
Jan 1982-Dec 2006Central Independent Television
Dec 2006-Feb 2009ITV Thames Valley
Feb 2009-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. Oxford 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, 25 April 2012
S
Stephen P
sentiment_satisfiedGold

10:12 AM

Sounds like interference. Maybe something that comes on at night?

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Stephen P's 1,173 posts GB flag
M
Mike Dimmick
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

2:31 PM

Robert: Everyone's case is different depending on their exact location. Signal levels can vary greatly over just a few metres - good positioning of the aerial is important. How important it is, is down to the actual signal levels available: in areas with high field strength, and low or no co-channel interference, it's not important; in areas with high levels of interference, it's very important.

Signal levels vary with weather conditions. TV signals behave like light - they reflect, they refract, and they can be selectively absorbed by the atmosphere, depending on the amount and size of particles (dust, raindrops). The transition from night to day and day to night usually sets up different layers of warm and cold air, and signals can bounce off the boundaries between these layers rather than passing through, usually called 'tropospheric enhancement'. Less-common conditions, like extensive high pressure, can cause layers where the signals bounce along between upper and lower layers, exiting a long distance from the transmission point: this is usually called 'ducting'. Generally this increases the level of interference: if you don't have enough signal margin, the difference between the level of the wanted signal and the level of the interference, it causes the picture to break up. The distance between transmitters using the same frequencies is far enough apart that, for people in the expected coverage area, changes in weather conditions shouldn't cause problems 99% of the time.

The old advice to retune if you had a problem was because a number of boxes had buggy software that would corrupt their own settings over time. Resetting to factory defaults and retuning restores a good set. However, that advice is flawed after switchover, because so many boxes will happily store distant signals that are too weak to be reliable. I now tend to advise manual retuning if the person with the problem is predicted to have good enough signals. Only after confirming that the box has actually tuned to the correct transmitter is an aerial check indicated.

There are some boxes, however, which have no manual tuning functions. I was reading a TV manual a couple of days ago to try to help someone - can't recall which brand - that had manual tuning for analogue, but not for digital.

Equipment that's now on the market is *supposed* to tune to the best quality signals available, and if it detects more than one region, it's supposed to ask which one you want to store. However, I'm aware that the Humax Freeview HD equipment still doesn't do this correctly.

Retuning when you have a problem, and that problem is caused by higher-than-normal levels of interference, is likely to cause many boxes to store services from the wrong transmitter. In the wrong conditions, even those that normally do it properly might get it wrong, if the wanted signals are particularly badly affected.

For your particular case: make sure that your receiver is correctly tuning into the Oxford transmitter. BBC One (logical channel number 1) should be found on UHF frequency C53, ITV1 (LCN 3) on C60, ITV3 (LCN 10) on C62, Pick TV (LCN 11) on C59 and Yesterday (LCN 12) on C55. If that isn't the case, see Digital Region Overlap for ideas on how to make it do it, or replace the box with one that does it right.

For you, a box that stores the first version it finds could well pick Oxford for the BBC, but Mendip for all other services, if the Mendip services are strong enough to be decodable at all.

If it is definitely tuned to Oxford, then you should be looking at aerial problems. Looking at that postcode, there appears to be a stand of tall trees to the north-east of the buildings, which would be approximately in the direction of the transmitter. You may find you get better results if you can aim the aerial between the trees, or if you can get them reduced in height so the aerial can look over them.

You've posted before that you have multiple aerials for multiple TV points. You're likely to get more consistent results from one well-placed aerial, with the signal being distributed to the TV points. Look for installers specialising in MATV (Master Antenna TV) or SMATV (Satellite + Master Antenna TV) systems. The installer should ensure that the signal levels at each TV are adequate to ensure reliable reception.

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Mike Dimmick's 2,486 posts GB flag
Thursday, 3 May 2012
T
Tigminor
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

11:08 PM

Have been away since 10 April, so have only just checked the post-April 18th situation - all my channels seem fine (SN7 postcode) but have just realised that I don't have Channel 62 (TV Stars) on my digital tv downstairs, although it appears through the set top box connected to my tv upstairs. Not that there is anything on Channel 62 - it just says "coming soon". Very odd. Ihave all the other channels I am supposed to have and good signal strength as well.

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Tigminor's 28 posts GB flag
T
Tigminor
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

11:22 PM

Does anyone remember the days when we all watched analogue with only a few channels but no problems at all........?? Wasn't it great! No problems with adverse weather conditions, or picture breaking up, or no signal and just a simple aerial... I could go on, but I won't.

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Tigminor's 28 posts GB flag
Friday, 4 May 2012
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

12:12 AM

Tigminor; EPG programme channel 62 is on mux channel 59 from Oxford, and so if no actual programme is seen on the other TV either then it suggests that the programme hasn't actually started as yet, as Pick TV on EPG 11 and Dave on EPG 19 is on the same mux transmitter as Stars TV on EPG 62.

You should check with someone else local to you, as I have no way of verifying if the programme is operational as yet, but have you carried out a factory reset before re-tuning? as that's always advisable as it gets rid of any corrupted data that might be stored in the memory.

Regarding analogue, yes!! it did have a certain robustness attached to it that digital TV most certainly does not have, basically because of its reception threshold level whereby that under a certain signal strength it cuts off completely, unlike analogue that could slowly vanish into the background speckles.

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jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
T
Tigminor
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

9:52 AM

jb38: Many thanks for that. I can get both Pick TV and Dave - and when I checked on my digital tv this morning, TV Stars is now there as well, though it has not actually started yet - coming soon. So it looks as though all is well. I probably won't want to watch it anyway - I just wanted to make sure I actually receive everything I am supposed to!! I will also remember your tip about the factory reset in case of need. Thanks again.

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Tigminor's 28 posts GB flag
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

8:53 PM

Tigminor: Yes, you have nothing to worry about as you are not missing anything, matter of fact I carried out a check on my own TV earlier on and found that "TV Stars" was one of three new channels found, and of course with the "coming soon" caption appearing (albeit sluggishly) exactly as you have described.

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jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
Saturday, 5 May 2012
R
Robert
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

6:53 AM

Well a different problem last night, although similar time. My bbc3 was freezing even though bbc 1 & 2 were fine.

I also noted the comments about C62. according to the list and my set up C62 is active with the '5's, ITV3 etc.

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Robert's 75 posts GB flag
Sunday, 13 May 2012
S
Stephen
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

10:37 PM

Lost all my Freeview channels from the Oxford transmitter today on both my stbs, anybody else having problems?

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Stephen's 38 posts GB flag
Monday, 14 May 2012
R
Robert
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

7:37 PM

Didn't notice any in SN3 just for a change.

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Robert's 75 posts GB flag
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