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Full Freeview on the Dover (Kent, England) transmitter

first published this on - UK Free TV
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The symbol shows the location of the Dover (Kent, England) transmitter which serves 190,000 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 Dover (Kent, England) mast?

Dover transmitter - Dover 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 Dover 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
C33 (570.0MHz)370mDTG-80,000W
Channel icons
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
C35 (586.0MHz)370mDTG-80,000W
Channel icons
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
C36 (594.0MHz)370mDTG-80,000W
Channel icons
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

COM4
SDN
 H -3dB
C39 (618.0MHz)370mDTG-840,000W
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
C42 (642.0MHz)370mDTG-840,000W
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
C48 (690.0MHz)370mDTG-840,000W
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)

The Dover (Kent, England) mast is a public service broadcasting (PSB) transmitter, it does not provide these commercial (COM) channels: .

If you want to watch these channels, your aerial must point to one of the 80 Full service Freeview transmitters. For more information see the will there ever be more services on the Freeview Light transmitters? page.

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

regional news image
BBC South East Today 0.8m homes 3.2%
from Tunbridge Wells TN1 1QQ, 69km west (270°)
to BBC South East region - 45 masts.
regional news image
ITV Meridian News 0.7m homes 2.7%
from Maidstone ME14 5NZ, 52km west-northwest (289°)
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 Dover (Kent, England) transmission frequencies change over time?

1960-80s1984-971997-981998-20122012-1316 Oct 2019
VHFC/D EC/D EC/D EC/D E TW T
C10ITVwaves
C33BBCA
C35D3+4
C36BBCB
C39SDN
C42ArqA
C48ArqBArqB
C50tv_offBBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBCA
C51tv_offD3+4
C53tv_offC4wavesC4wavesC4wavesBBCB
C55tv_offSDN
C56tv_offBBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBC2waves
C57tv_off_local_local
C59tv_offArqA
C66ITVwavesITVwavesITVwaves

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 100kW
BBCA, D3+4, BBCB(-1dB) 80kW
SDN, ARQA, ARQB(-4dB) 40kW
Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*(-17dB) 2kW
Mux 1*, Mux C*(-20dB) 1000W
Mux D*(-23dB) 500W

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

Aug 1958-Jan 1992Southern Television
Jan 1982-Dec 1992Television South (TVS)
Jan 1993-Feb 2004Meridian
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
Monday, 21 March 2011
B
brian
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

1:53 PM

Hello Olivier,
the link worked ok though not the you tube one. You have a decent set up there !
I live in London but get my TV from the Bluebell Hill mast. This means my aerial is looking in the same direction as Dover so I can get a snowy analogue picture from there.
I have not noticed any detioration in the signal this last month which likly means the problem you are experiencing is not caused by a digital re tune this side of the channel.
Sometimes BBC2 E56 drops out because of interference from a Belguim MUX at Brussels or Wavre. Has the picure dropped on all 4 analogue channels ?

link to this comment
brian's 32 posts GB flag
O
Olivier
3:19 PM

Hello Brian,

The belgium Mux is from the TOURNAI Transmitter (3,5 Kw), not so far from Lille, for french belgium community with "La Une", "La Deux", "La Trois" and "Euronews".

Since this morning, I receive 4 new Mux digital from Dover (It's the first time for me) :
Mux with Film4 : 55
Mux with BBC : 59
Mux with Five : 60
Mux with Dave : 62
I think the power is 2 Kw

I don't know if it's new or it's because the very good weather conditions but it's stable since this morning.

You can see my video at this link in bottom of the page :
My Hertzian TV Installation - Europe-Television.fr : Réception TNT hertzienne et Satellite française et etrangère en Flandres.

link to this comment
Olivier's 7 posts FR flag
M
Mike Dimmick
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

3:42 PM
Reading

Olivier: The transmitting aerial at Dover has been replaced. It's very likely that the new aerial has been designed not to waste power broadcasting across the channel.

The planning application shows that 10 tiers of panels have been fitted to three sides of a spine with a regular pentagonal cross-section. The panels point to 36°, 324° and 252°.

While the replacement aerial is being wired up, analogue services are coming from the new reserve aerial. This is also 10 tiers of 3 panels, but the panels are attached to the north-west edge of the (triangular) mast. It's hard to read the angles off the diagram, but the panels pointing west and north-east seem to aim slightly further to the north-west than those of the main aerial.

The panels have a roughly cardioid radiation pattern, so some signal will go across the channel - but not nearly as much as before.

link to this comment
Mike Dimmick's 2,486 posts GB flag
Mike's: mapM's Freeview map terrainM's terrain plot wavesM's frequency data M's Freeview Detailed Coverage
M
Mike Dimmick
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

3:44 PM

If anyone wants to look at the documents, go to Error and click the External Documents tab, then click View Associated Documents. In the popup window, select 'Existing Elevations'. (RG47SH)

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Mike Dimmick's 2,486 posts GB flag
B
brian
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

4:16 PM

Thanks Mike, this sounds like a plausable explanation. Strange that they should bother to re engineer the analogue aerials with just one year left.
Olivier, there was a lift to London from Dover last night + I was able to get several Mux's from there.
the current allocation is D55,D58,D60,D61,D62 and D68 (with low power D39, D42 and D45 towards Thanet). I think they are all at 2kw altough maybe one or two are less.
I noticed all the digital transmitters near you are powered up with Bovigny knocking out 80kw now. I am hoping to get French digital in London soon !

link to this comment
brian's 32 posts GB flag
M
Mike Dimmick
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

5:01 PM
Reading

brian: At switchover, the 'analogue' aerial BECOMES the full-power 'digital' aerial. There really aren't 'analogue' and 'digital' aerials, either for transmission or reception. There are only UHF aerials, designed for different frequency ranges. The transmitting aerials are grouped just as receiving aerials are (or used to be). The smaller the range of frequencies it supports, the more efficient, so Arqiva have had antennas custom-built for each site rather than taking the off-the-shelf designs.

The low-power digital aerials just can't handle the electrical power that will be needed after switchover. At most sites they don't cover the full area that the main aerials do, either, and they're usually way down the mast to restrict how far the signals travel. They're *designed* to hit the hills to stop signals going further than they ought to.

Aerial upgrades/replacements and transmitter replacements have to be done in advance of switchover. They're not going to shin up the mast between 12am and 6am the day of the switchover! The real switchover to the new equipment happens long in advance of the announced dates - and for some viewers, causes changes in reception because the new aerial's radiation pattern is different.

I'm not sure if the new transmitters actually support both digital and analogue transmission just by flicking a switch (or a virtual switch in some software), or whether an engineer has to replace the 'exciter' unit in the rack. Probably lower-power sites are dual-standard and high-power sites have a replaceable component - I know that both are available on the market, I don't know what Arqiva have purchased.

The equipment at most main sites is approaching or exceeding 40 years old. Dover was built around 1967 with ITV on UHF starting up in December 1969. Channel 4's equipment will be nearly 30 years old, starting on launch day in November 1982. It's all reached the end of its useful life. Some sites had aerial replacements in the 1990s - these sites usually aren't getting another replacement now.

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Mike Dimmick's 2,486 posts GB flag
Mike's: mapM's Freeview map terrainM's terrain plot wavesM's frequency data M's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Tuesday, 22 March 2011
Transmitter engineering
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

4:42 AM

DOVER transmitter - Analogue BBC ONE Reduced Quality from 00:00 today BBC TWO Sound in Mono from 23:08 yesterday to 00:00 today BBC TWO Sound in Mono from 20:37 yesterday to 20:40 yesterday BBC TWO Reduced Quality from 00:00 today [BBC]

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Transmitter engineering's 149,799 posts xx flag
Transmitter engineering
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

4:42 AM

DOVER transmitter - Analogue BBC ONE Reduced Quality from 00:00 today BBC TWO Sound in Mono from 23:08 yesterday to 00:00 today BBC TWO Sound in Mono from 20:37 yesterday to 20:40 yesterday BBC TWO Reduced Quality from 00:00 today [BBC]

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Transmitter engineering's 149,799 posts xx flag
O
Olivier
7:37 AM

Hello Brian,

Of course you can receive Lille-Bouvigny (80 Kw) in DX-TV I think.
But I Think, it's possible for you to receive some other transmitter from our coast:
Boulogne sur Mer - Mont Lambert : 8 Kw
Abbeville : 80 and 30 Kw

I give you a link from a website friend who has made a Card of the North of France Transmitters with all channels and power:
Emetteur TV du Nord Pas de Calais

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Olivier's 7 posts FR flag
Transmitter engineering
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

9:39 AM

DOVER transmitter - Analogue BBC ONE Reduced Quality from 00:00 today to 08:08 today BBC TWO Reduced Quality from 00:00 today to 08:08 today BBC TWO Sound in Mono from 23:08 yesterday to 00:00 today BBC TWO Sound in Mono from 20:37 yesterday to 20:40 yesterday [BBC]

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Transmitter engineering's 149,799 posts xx flag
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