Full Freeview on the Bluebell Hill (Medway, England) transmitter

Brian Butterworth first published this on 1st May 2004 at 08:20 - UK Free TV

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51.324,0.520 or 51°19'25"N 0°31'13"E

ME5 9RD

The symbol shows the location of the Bluebell Hill (Medway, England) transmitter which serves 200,000 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 Bluebell Hill (Medway, England) mast?

Bluebell Hill transmitter - Bluebell Hill transmitter: Possible effect on TV reception week commencing 15/04/2024 Pixelation or flickering on some or all channels

Choose from three options: ■ List by multiplex ■ List by channel number ■ List by channel name

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Which Freeview channels does the Bluebell Hill 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.

Mux	H/V	Frequency	Height	Mode	Watts
PSB1 BBCA	H max	C32 (562.0MHz)	242m	DTG-	20,000W
	1 BBC One (SD) South 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	C34 (578.0MHz)	242m	DTG-	20,000W
	3 ITV 1 (SD) (Meridian (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 (Meridian south coast),
PSB3 BBCB	H max	C45+ (666.2MHz)	242m	DTG-	20,000W
	46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD South 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 66 TBN UK,
COM4 SDN	H max	C40 (626.0MHz)	242m	DTG-8	20,000W
	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	C43+ (650.2MHz)	245m	DTG-8	20,000W
	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	C46 (674.0MHz)	245m	DTG-8	20,000W
	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 Bluebell Hill transmitter?

BBC South East Today 0.8m homes 3.2%
from Tunbridge Wells TN1 1QQ, 28km southwest (218°)
to BBC South East region - 45 masts.

ITV Meridian News 0.7m homes 2.7%
from Maidstone ME14 5NZ, 5km south-southeast (155°)
to ITV Meridian (East) region - 36 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 50% evening news is shared with all of Meridian plus Oxford

How will the Bluebell Hill (Medway, England) transmission frequencies change over time?

	1984-97	1997-98	1998-2012	2012-13	19 Jul 2018
	E	E	E	W T	W T
C21					_local
C28				_local
C32					com7
C34					com8
C39				+ArqA
C40	BBC1_waves	BBC1_waves	BBC1_waves	+BBCB	SDN
C43	ITV_waves	ITV_waves	ITV_waves	D3+4	ArqA
C45				SDN	BBCB
C46	BBC2_waves	BBC2_waves	BBC2_waves	BBCA	ArqB
C54_{tv_off}				ArqB
C55_{tv_off}					com7_{tv_off}
C56_{tv_off}					COM8_{tv_off}
C65	C4_waves	C4_waves	C4_waves

_{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 13 Jun 12 and 27 Jun 12.

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

Analogue 1-4	30kW
SDN, ARQA, ARQB, BBCA, D3+4, BBCB	(-1.8dB) 20kW
com8	(-7.8dB) 5kW
com7	(-8.1dB) 4.7kW
Mux 1, Mux B, Mux C, Mux D	(-10dB) 3kW
Mux 2, Mux A	(-11.8dB) 2kW

Local transmitter maps

Bluebell Hill Freeview Bluebell Hill DAB Bluebell Hill TV region BBC South East Meridian (East micro region)

Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Bluebell Hill transmitter area

Sep 1955-Jul 1968	Associated-Rediffusion†
Sep 1955-Jul 1968	Associated TeleVision◊
Jul 1968-Dec 1981	Thames†
Jul 1968-Dec 1981	London Weekend Television♦
Jan 1982-Dec 1992	Television South (TVS)
Jan 1993-Feb 2004	Meridian
Feb 2004-Dec 2014	ITV plc

Feb 1983-Dec 1992	TV-am•
Jan 1993-Sep 2010	GMTV•
Sep 2010-Dec 2014	ITV Daybreak•

• Breakfast ◊ Weekends ♦ Friday night and weekends † Weekdays only. Bluebell Hill 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.

Is the transmitter output the same in all directions?

G

Gazza
10:17 AM

CT5 3HW (Whitstable)

absolutely for all ITV's and C4s same problem as Steve has so cant watch normal TV which is a shame as i just got a Humax HDR FOX-T2 HD 1tb ...... pffff (51.3571,1.0546T53HW)

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Gazza's 10 posts GB flag

G

Gazza
10:27 AM

CT5 3HW

returned to a here now too but week and breaking up a lot and freezing with lines and no sound here and there,., wow superb lol

(51.3571,1.0546T53HW)

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Gazza's 10 posts GB flag

B

b cutmore
10:30 AM

same again last night,same time and came back on the same time this morning.This is also happening to my neighbours.

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b cutmore's 2 posts GB flag

S

Steve

_{sentiment_satisfied}Bronze

10:41 AM
Maidstone

Just checked the site and for all of the ITV are blanked out with a statement saying

"Good news. You should be able to receive some Freeview channels now and the entire service after the ."

Good news, yeh right....

Steve

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Steve's 21 posts GB flag

Steve's: S's Freeview map S's terrain plot S's frequency data S's Freeview Detailed Coverage

P

pamula
11:32 AM
Maidstone

all ch4 and related programmes and ch5 etc are on a low transmission for the area, can't get them in the evenings. so why don't they boost the to maximum or even medium as there are thousands of angry people out there who have paid a fortune updating their equipment and can't watch tv in the evenings. bet the controllers have or virgin!!!!!!!!

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pamula's 2 posts GB flag

pamula's: P's Freeview map P's terrain plot P's frequency data P's Freeview Detailed Coverage

S

Steve

_{sentiment_satisfied}Bronze

3:49 PM
Maidstone

Anybody any idea how to contact ?

Looked on their website and no contact details I can find.

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Steve's 21 posts GB flag

Steve's: S's Freeview map S's terrain plot S's frequency data S's Freeview Detailed Coverage

S

Steve

_{sentiment_satisfied}Bronze

3:51 PM
Maidstone

Found an address, how about everybody write to them letting them know this situation is just not acceptable?

,
DTV Ltd,
27-29 Cursitor Street

EC4A 1LT

Steve

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Steve's 21 posts GB flag

Steve's: S's Freeview map S's terrain plot S's frequency data S's Freeview Detailed Coverage

Briantist

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Owner

4:23 PM

Steve: That's a marking company, they don't do the broadcasts.

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Briantist's 38,915 posts GB flag

Briantist

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Owner

4:26 PM

All: Your problems will be down to the weather conditions over France - see What is the Inversion Effect and why does it effect my Freeview TV reception?
| ukfree.tv - independent free digital TV advice .

This will occur until the whole is , when it should only occur occasionally.

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Briantist's 38,915 posts GB flag

B

barry
5:01 PM
Maidstone

been having this problem for the last couple of nights and called the bbc today who are responsible for and its down to the weather and they said its happening all over the country, not really much we can do about that really. if it goes off again tonight i'll use tv catchup and watch it online live

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barry's 1 post GB flag

barry's: B's Freeview map B's terrain plot B's frequency data B's Freeview Detailed Coverage

Page 9

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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