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Full Freeview on the Divis (Northern Ireland) transmitter

first published this on - UK Free TV
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The symbol shows the location of the Divis (Northern Ireland) 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 Divis (Northern Ireland) mast?

Divis transmitter - Divis 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
_______

Which Freeview channels does the Divis 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)551mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
1 BBC One (SD) Northern Ireland, 2 BBC Two Northern Ireland, 9 BBC Four, 23 BBC Three, 201 CBBC, 202 CBeebies, 231 BBC News, 232 BBC Parliament, plus 14 others

PSB2
D3+4
 H max
C21+ (474.2MHz)551mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
3 UTV (SD) (UTV), 4 Channel 4 (SD) NI ads, 5 Channel 5, 6 ITV 2, 10 ITV3, 13 E4, 14 Film4, 15 Channel 4 +1 NI ads, 18 More4, 26 ITV4, 28 ITVBe, 30 E4 +1, 35 UTV +1 (UTV),

PSB3
BBCB
 H max
C24 (498.0MHz)551mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD Northern Ireland, 102 BBC Two HD Northern Ireland, 103 UTV HD (UTV), 104 Channel 4 HD NI 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
C23 (490.0MHz)551mDTG-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
C26 (514.0MHz)528mDTG-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
C30 (546.0MHz)528mDTG-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

LBT
 H -13dB
C36 (594.0MHz)528mDTG-125,000W
Channel icons
from 29th September 2014: 7 NvTv,

NIMM
 H -40dB
C48 (690.0MHz)551mDTG-10W
Channel icons
from 4th September 2019: 53 TG4, 54 RTÉ One, 55 RTÉ Two,

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 Divis transmitter?

regional news image
BBC Newsline 0.6m homes 2.5%
from Belfast BT2 8HQ, 1,044km northeast (51°)
to BBC Northern Ireland region - 46 masts.
regional news image
UTV Live 0.6m homes 2.5%
from Belfast BT7 1EB, 1,044km northeast (51°)
to UTV region - 46 masts.

Are there any self-help relays?

Chapel FieldsTransposerCentral Belfast61 homes

How will the Divis (Northern Ireland) transmission frequencies change over time?

1950s-80s1984-971997-981998-20122012-134 Mar 2020
VHFA K TA K TA K TK TW T
C1BBCtvwaves
C21C4wavesC4wavesC4waves+D3+4D3+4
C23SDNSDN
C24ITVwavesITVwavesITVwavesBBCBBBCB
C26ArqAArqA
C27BBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBCABBCA
C29ArqB
C30LBT
C31BBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBC1waves
C33com7
C34com8
C36_local
C48NIMMNIMM
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 10 Oct 12 and 24 Oct 12.

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
com8(-16dB) 12.7kW
com7(-16.1dB) 12.4kW
LBT(-20dB) 5kW
Mux 1*, Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*(-23.4dB) 2.3kW
Mux C*(-24dB) 2kW
Mux D*(-24.9dB) 1.6kW
NIMM(-47dB) 10W

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

Oct 1959-May 2006Ulster Television
May 2006-Dec 2014UTV plc
Feb 1983-Dec 1992TV-am•
Jan 1993-Sep 2010GMTV•
Sep 2010-Dec 2014ITV Daybreak•
• Breakfast ◊ Weekends ♦ Friday night and weekends † Weekdays only. Divis 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
Saturday, 20 October 2012
K
KMJ,Derby
sentiment_satisfiedGold

10:29 PM

KDM: As with my post above to elaine, following DSO stage 2 on Wednesday 24th October 2012, when the Divis PSB muxes will all radiate at 100kW and the COM muxes will be at 50kW you should notice a considerable improvement in reception. At present some receivers do not perform well on the low power transmissions due to the presence of the high power Mux BBCA.

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KMJ,Derby's 1,811 posts GB flag
K
KDM
10:50 PM

Thanks for response. I understand the signal boost on 24th and I'm also given to believe that we have a third retune sometime in November which not everyone does. Am I reading you right that, basically, some channels have already been boosted and they're overpowering the others as far as my TV is concerned? Thanks again.

link to this comment
KDM's 2 posts GB flag
Sunday, 21 October 2012
Dave Lindsay
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

10:46 AM

Briantist: Going back to what devices will receive the NIMM, what about Full HD TVs that don't have a DVB-T2 tuner in?

Will these be able to decode the MPEG4 using DVB-T?

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Dave Lindsay's 5,724 posts GB flag
Dave Lindsay
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

10:48 AM

Briantist: Sorry, I confused NIMM and Saorview!

The question should be will Full HD TVs that don't have DVB-T2 built in be able to receive Saorview? I guess that they might be able to do as they will have MPEG4 decoders in. Is this correct?

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Dave Lindsay's 5,724 posts GB flag
Tuesday, 23 October 2012
N
Neil Robertson
11:33 AM

Not really a question or comment but a little bit of news of what can be one with
a little bit of ingenuity and luck.

I live in Largs on the west coast of Scotland and we have been able to get a reasonable
(but not perfect) analogue picture from Divis provided we pointed our group A aerials in the right direction (I have a sea-path all the way although I am only about 30ft above sea-level). When we switched over to digital we were only provided with the usual 3 x multiplexes from our local relay (Rothesay) which gave us more channels than the 4 analogue
ones we had. There is no possibility of receiving the other multiplexes from a main station
due to topography.

Since my new Smart TV has USB record and will only record from terrestrial digital
and not from SCART/HDMI I wondered if I could get some extra channels from Divis
post-DSO which I could record.
I built (Yes-built) myself another Group A aerial and pointed it at Divis. This last week
has been really handy as I have been able receive both analogue and digital signals from
Divis. The analogue signals make it easy to align the aerial.

Today (1 day before switch-over) with my aerial in the roof-space I can get a noisy analogue signal from Divis (at 500KW) which would be almost watchable while the BBCA Multiplex (at 100Kw) is fine with no dropouts. Interesting that there is enough resilience
in the data stream to cope with this!

Tomorrow (post-DSO) I will find out if my plan to get more channels via the SDN ARQA
and ARQB multiplexes from Divis will work -these will be at 50Kw so they are 3db down
on the BBCA Multiplex

if my plans work out I will have digital TV on
Ch 21 Divis D3+D4
Ch 22 Rothesay BBC
Ch 23 Divis SDN
CH 24 Divis BBC B
Ch 25 Rothesay D3+D$
Ch 26 Divis ARQA
Ch 27 Divis BBC A
Ch 28 Rothesay BBC A
CH 29 Divis ARQB

This is something the frequency planners never foresaw - will the tuner cope?

link to this comment
Neil Robertson's 1 post GB flag
Dave Lindsay
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

8:01 PM

Neil Robertson: The frequency planners use the frequencies that are available. There are some areas that can receive the "right" region from the local PSB-only relay and the COM channels from a transmitter of another region, but who cannot combine the two due to the channels used not allowing so.

Largs has its own relay on top of the Academy which is Group B, so can you receive from it you could diplex it with Divis. Or is there another transmitter that you could pick-up from?

The other alternative is to have two tuners. Make the "main" one (e.g. that in your TV) tuned to Divis for PSB and COM channels. Then switch to the secondary (set-top box) for regional programming.

I don't know how much of an issue receiving channels from different regions will be with regards the EPG data and recording. I know that a few regions broadcast EPG data for neighbouring regions for this reason, but this isn't something that reciprocates between Black Hill and Divis regions (that I know of). If it does prove to be an issue, then you may have to resort to using Divis except where there is regional programming only available from your local transmitter.

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Dave Lindsay's 5,724 posts GB flag
Wednesday, 24 October 2012
W
william
1:55 PM

what is needed to get RTE on freeview in Ballyclare area?

Have re-tuned and have 120 channels but RTE isn't amongst them

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william's 1 post GB flag
Dave Lindsay
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

2:08 PM

william: Reception of RT from Black Mountain (which is adjacent to Divis) requires a Freeview HD receiver. This is because the signal uses the DVB-T2 specification which is that used by Freeview HD broadcasts, although these channels are in standard definition only.

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Dave Lindsay's 5,724 posts GB flag
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