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Full Freeview on the Mendip (Somerset, England) transmitter

first published this on - UK Free TV
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The symbol shows the location of the Mendip (Somerset, England) transmitter which serves 720,000 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 Mendip (Somerset, England) mast?

Mendip transmitter - Mendip 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 Mendip 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
C32 (562.0MHz)591mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
1 BBC One (SD) West, 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
C34 (578.0MHz)591mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
3 ITV 1 (SD) (West), 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 (West),

PSB3
BBCB
 H max
C35 (586.0MHz)591mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD West, 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
C48 (690.0MHz)591mDTG-8100,000W
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
C33 (570.0MHz)591mDTG-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
C36 (594.0MHz)591mDTG-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

LBS
 H -10dB
C30 (546.0MHz)591mDTG-1210,000W
Channel icons
from 22nd September 2014: 7 Made in Bristol,

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 Mendip transmitter?

regional news image
BBC Points West 0.9m homes 3.4%
from Bristol BS8 2LR, 25km north (3°)
to BBC West region - 60 masts.
regional news image
ITV West Country News (East) 0.9m homes 3.4%
from Bristol BS4 3HG, 23km north (11°)
to ITV West region - 61 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 50% evening news is shared with West Country (West)

Are there any self-help relays?

CheddarTransposer15 km E Weston-super-Mare1674 homes
LuccombeActive deflector6 km w Minehead38 homes

How will the Mendip (Somerset, England) transmission frequencies change over time?

1984-971997-981998-20102010-132013-182013-1727 Feb 2018
C/D EEEC/D EC/D E TW TW T
C30_local
C32BBCA
C33com7com7
C34D3+4
C35com8com8
C36ArqB
C37C5wavesC5waves
C48SDNSDNSDNSDN
C49tv_off BBCABBCA
C51tv_offLBSLBS
C52tv_offArqBArqBArqB
C54tv_offC4wavesC4wavesC4wavesD3+4D3+4D3+4
C55tv_offcom7tv_off
C56tv_offArqAArqAArqACOM8tv_off
C58tv_offBBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBCBBBCBBBCB
C61ITVwavesITVwavesITVwavesBBCA
C64BBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBC2waves

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 24 Mar 10 and 7 Apr 10.

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

Analogue 1-4 500kW
Analogue 5(-6dB) 126kW
SDN, ARQA, ARQB, BBCA, D3+4, BBCB(-7dB) 100kW
com7(-8.4dB) 72.4kW
com8(-8.6dB) 69.1kW
Mux 1*, Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*, Mux C*, Mux D*, LBS(-17dB) 10kW

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

Jan 1958-Jul 1968Television Wales and the West
Jul 1968-Feb 2004Harlech 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. Mendip 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, 3 April 2013
J
John Crabb
12:31 AM
Chard

The general complaint on these posts is the loss of BBC channels. It was my experience too. Logically, it was bound to be these channels that would have problems as they are the only ones that are now being transmitted at a different frequency; everything else has stayed the same I believe.

Despite the large number of unhappy people conributing to this site, the fact seems to be that the vast majority have survived the retuning without any problems. This suggests that the problem is not with the transmitter. I think the problems arise because the new frequency that we are all now trying to retune to is causing issues with our particular receiver set up. The fact that everything was fine before does not indicate that our receiver is blameless, it just shows that it managed to receive C61 but has problems with C49.

This means that we have to try ways of coaxing our receiver arrangements to behave properly on the new frequency. Once you start fiddling with seemingly trivial things you can be surprised by the results. In my case I ended up replacing the aerial lead that passes between my HDD recorder and my TV with a shorter one that I made up. This took me from zero C49 to quality 90%.

The article on "single channel interference" on this site is well worth reading carefully.

link to this comment
John Crabb's 10 posts GB flag
John's: mapJ's Freeview map terrainJ's terrain plot wavesJ's frequency data J's Freeview Detailed Coverage
C
Colin
5:53 PM

On the West Somerset coast we can have a problem when retuning because Wenvoe is line of sight across the Bristol Channel.This means that even though the aerial is pointing at Mendip sometimes we pickup the Welsh channels.

However I was very pleased that this time the retunes that I did were successful and BBC West is received.

So I must agree with John Crabb and suspect that the problems are at the receiving end and not at the transmitter.

link to this comment
Colin's 20 posts GB flag
Michael Perry
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

6:34 PM

We are north east of Mendip, sitting on a hill above Calne, Wiltshire. All was well until Wednesday 27th March 2013. Now no BBC services at all but all others OK. BBCA multiplex has n=moved from Ch61 to Ch49 but that shouldn't make much difference after a retune. Humax retuned perfectly and all programmes available, but Hauppauge Nova-T stick in laptop has no BBC services at all. They don't know why.

link to this comment
Michael Perry's 3,056 posts GB flag
Dave Lindsay
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

6:38 PM

Michael Perry: The only thing I can say is that you are not alone!

Out of interest, do you know if your reception of C48 (COM4: ITV3 etc) degraded when the change happened? Some people have difficulty with this now when they didn't before.

link to this comment
Dave Lindsay's 5,724 posts GB flag
Michael Perry
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

6:40 PM

To John Crabb
There is still a multiplex at Ch 48 on Mendip so if that is being received well then Ch49 should be as well. The problem you appear to have had is due to reflections within the cable that happened to resonate close to 698 MHz so shortening/lengthening the coaxial cable would change the resonance and possibly solve the problem. A well known phenomenon but us 'old' TV service men.

link to this comment
Michael Perry's 3,056 posts GB flag
Michael Perry
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

6:42 PM

To Dave Lindsay

No change to any other services at all on either receiver, testing software scans of stick output show 100% on all multiplexes. Only those on Ch 49 (ie BBCA multiplex) are affected.

link to this comment
Michael Perry's 3,056 posts GB flag
J
jefferson
6:50 PM

no signal still
but got bbc on analog witch was very poor befor
first time ive used atv on this telly
4 years old in may

link to this comment
jefferson's 7 posts GB flag
J
John Crabb
7:19 PM
Chard

To Michael Perry: Thanks for that info Michael, very interesting. Is there a book that I can read all this practical stuff up in?

In addition to fiddling with the cable length, I have now installed a new wideband, high-gain aerial. This did not initially seem to make much diffence over my ancient C/D Yagi. What finally made it all click into place was moving the HDMI cable coming from the HDD to a second socket on the TV. The second one was further from the aerial socket. Is there any possible explanation for this!? The improvement in the signal quality indicator was quite marked.

link to this comment
John Crabb's 10 posts GB flag
John's: mapJ's Freeview map terrainJ's terrain plot wavesJ's frequency data J's Freeview Detailed Coverage
C
ChrisE
7:39 PM

Dave Lindsay: No, C48 is also not working.

link to this comment
ChrisE's 2 posts GB flag
M
Mazbar
sentiment_satisfiedGold

7:51 PM

Michael Perry: do you have a wideband aerial or a grouped cd aerial. If the latter 49 is at the end of the normal acceptance of the aerial, if the aerial is good and reception fine there will be no problem but if the signal is medium to poor or you have damage to the coax this could make 49 not work.

link to this comment
Mazbar's 384 posts GB flag
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