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Full Freeview on the Sandy Heath (Central Bedfordshire, England) transmitter

first published this on - UK Free TV
sa_streetviewGoogle Streetviewsa_gmapsGoogle mapsa_bingBing mapsa_gearthGoogle Earthsa_gps52.130,-0.242 or 52°7'47"N 0°14'33"Wsa_postcodeSG19 2NH

 

The symbol shows the location of the Sandy Heath (Central Bedfordshire, England) transmitter which serves 920,000 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 Sandy Heath (Central Bedfordshire, England) mast?

Sandy Heath transmitter - Sandy Heath 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 Sandy Heath 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
C27 (522.0MHz)291mDTG-180,000W
Channel icons
1 BBC One (SD) Cambridge, 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
C24 (498.0MHz)291mDTG-180,000W
Channel icons
3 ITV 1 (SD) (Anglia (West 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
C21+ (474.2MHz)291mDTG-180,000W
Channel icons
46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD Cambridge, 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 -0.2dB
C33 (570.0MHz)291mDTG-8170,000W
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 -0.2dB
C36 (594.0MHz)289mDTG-8170,000W
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 -0.2dB
C48 (690.0MHz)289mDTG-8170,000W
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)

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

regional news image
BBC Look East (West) 1.0m homes 3.7%
from Cambridge CB4 0WZ, 29km east-northeast (65°)
to BBC Cambridge region - 4 masts.
70% of BBC East (East) and BBC East (West) is shared output
regional news image
ITV Anglia News 1.0m homes 3.7%
from Norwich NR1 3JG, 119km east-northeast (60°)
to ITV Anglia (West) region - 5 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 80% evening news is shared with Anglia (East)

How will the Sandy Heath (Central Bedfordshire, England) transmission frequencies change over time?

1965-80s1984-971997-981998-20112011-1312 Feb 2020
VHFA K TK TK TW TW T
C6ITVwaves
C21C4wavesC4wavesC4waves+BBCBBBCB
C24ITVwavesITVwavesITVwavesD3+4D3+4
C27BBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBCABBCA
C31BBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBC1waves
C32com7
C33SDN
C34com8
C35_local
C36ArqA
C39C5wavesC5waves
C43_local
C48ArqBArqB
C51tv_offSDN
C52tv_offArqA
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 30 Mar 11 and 13 Apr 11.

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

Analogue 1-4 1000kW
BBCA, D3+4, BBCB(-7.4dB) 180kW
SDN, ARQA, ARQB(-7.7dB) 170kW
com7(-13dB) 49.6kW
com8(-13.1dB) 49.1kW
Mux 1*, Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*, Mux C*, Mux D*(-17dB) 20kW
Analogue 5(-20dB) 10kW

Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Sandy Heath 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.

Comments
Saturday, 31 December 2016
C
Coach
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

8:35 AM

jb38: interesting comment about high pressure.
Have had reception issues for several days
but Hepburn map does not show any potential
atmosphere issues. Am I reading it correctly?

link to this comment
Coach's 33 posts GB flag
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

11:43 PM

Coach: I don't feel that you can be!, as a re-check made earlier on this evening clearly indicated (on an 18.00 forecast) that Southern regions of the UK from a line drawn between Hull and Cardiff were still moderately affected by a high pressure. That said, the forecast has actually changed for the better since my posting yesterday insomuch that the UK is predicted as being clear from approximately 12.00 midnight today (31st)

As far as accessing the site is concerned, I don't know the method you used? but the best way is via the links on this site.

Scroll to the very top of this page (above Sandy's TX map) and click on Faults, then again on the following page followed by selecting and clicking on "Atmosphere interference maps", this opening on William Hepburns Tropospheric ducting Forecast. Finally, for a better view of the UK select "Northwestern Europe" in the region select drop down menu.

Although I fully appreciate that you may well be already fully aware of this, but I would like to point out that the headings used to describe the coloured area's of the map, e.g: No4 "Good" and other favourable references have to be looked at in reverse, as these maps are really intended for the purpose of providing / informing amateur Radio Hams as to the possibilities of them making long distant contacts via short wave (HF) transceivers using the very mode that's responsible for TV reception problems, i.e: the ducting effects relating to high pressure zones.

link to this comment
jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
Monday, 9 January 2017
H
Helen290
11:17 AM
Milton Keynes

I have lost ITV3 and Drama channels in the last 2 weeks, which are the ones I watched the most.
I have reset the Freeview a few times but am still unable to pick these up any more. Any suggestions would be most welcome - my postcode is MK17 0JQ, thank-you.

link to this comment
Helen290's 1 post GB flag
Helen290's: mapH's Freeview map terrainH's terrain plot wavesH's frequency data H's Freeview Detailed Coverage
MikeP
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

4:16 PM

Helen290:

There is a hill just under 10km from you in the direction of the Sandy Heath transmitter. If that has trees it is likely to cause reception problems when the leaves/trees are wet.

Rather than retuning, which risks losing even more channels, check all your aerial connections carefull.



link to this comment
MikeP's 3,056 posts GB flag
Friday, 20 January 2017
J
J Knights
9:19 AM

Yet again no signal. ITV etc bad for over 24 hours and BBC no signal this morning. Due to the weather ???

link to this comment
J Knights's 12 posts GB flag
J
John
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

10:21 AM

It's strange that over the past few weeks I have had odd moments of no signal and last night I had no signal on both BBC and ITV for about 10 minutes, that was between 8.15pm and 8.30pm. In 13 years our TV reception has always been great.

link to this comment
John's 21 posts GB flag
M
MikeB
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

2:49 PM

John: we have no idea what your signal should be like, since you've not supplied a postcode, but at a guess, your aerial system has a problem. Your TV's manual will say that your not getting any signal, and its either something simple like a loose connection, etc, or there is a bigger problem, and while that mux has gone, the others are just about holding on.

The other thing it could be is single source interference.

link to this comment
MikeB's 2,579 posts GB flag
Sunday, 22 January 2017
J
John
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

9:50 AM

MikeB: Post code PE16 always had 100% signal and since my last post it hasn't occurred again, I will have to put down to some sort of interference.

link to this comment
John's 21 posts GB flag
M
MikeB
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

10:11 PM

John: PE16 isn't much use - thats a huge area, and 100% signal means what? 100% strength (in which case look at 'too much of a good thing' on this site), or 100% quality?

Check signal strength and signal path. If its interference, then whats caused it? It could be just a glitch, but if it happens again, then its the sympton of a problem that will probably reoccur.

link to this comment
MikeB's 2,579 posts GB flag
Friday, 27 January 2017
A
Adrian
7:59 AM

Good morning, I have had problems this week W/c 23.01.17 with freeview, which is connected to an outside digital aerial, all of our bedrooms TV's have had "no signal". We live in MK2 near the old BT building which I believe have several different aerials on which is used for different things to do with Thames Valley Police. The last 2 weeks big cranes have been moving them about - out signal starts off great at 70% and drops within minutes to 20% or lower and the picture/speech completely breaks down. Not sure if it our equipment, the weather, the movement on the BT roof - this morning 27.01.17, a great picture and reception - last night nothing

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Adrian's 1 post US flag
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