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Full Freeview on the Sudbury (Suffolk, England) transmitter

first published this on - UK Free TV
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The symbol shows the location of the Sudbury (Suffolk, England) 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 Sudbury (Suffolk, England) mast?

Sudbury transmitter - Sudbury 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 Sudbury 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
C44 (658.0MHz)229mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
1 BBC One (SD) 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
C41 (634.0MHz)229mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
3 ITV 1 (SD) (Anglia (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 (Anglia east),

PSB3
BBCB
 H max
C47 (682.0MHz)229mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD 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 max
C29 (538.0MHz)186mDTG-100,000W
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
C31- (553.8MHz)228mDTG-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
C37 (602.0MHz)228mDTG-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

DTG-8 64QAM 8K 3/4 27.1Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2
H/V: aerial position (horizontal or vertical)

The Sudbury (Suffolk, 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 Sudbury transmitter?

regional news image
BBC Look East (East) 0.8m homes 3.2%
from Norwich NR2 1BH, 77km north-northeast (24°)
to BBC East region - 27 masts.
70% of BBC East (East) and BBC East (West) is shared output
regional news image
ITV Anglia News 0.8m homes 3.2%
from NORWICH NR1 3JG, 78km north-northeast (24°)
to ITV Anglia (East) region - 26 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 80% evening news is shared with Anglia (West)

Are there any self-help relays?

Felixstowe WestTransposer1000 homes +1000 or more homes due to expansion of affected area?
WithamTransposer14 km NE Chelmsford.118 homes

How will the Sudbury (Suffolk, England) transmission frequencies change over time?

1984-971997-981998-20112011-131 Aug 2018
B E TB E TB E TE TK T
C29SDN
C31ArqA
C35C5wavesC5waves
C37ArqB
C41ITVwavesITVwavesITVwavesD3+4D3+4
C44BBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBCABBCA
C47C4wavesC4wavesC4wavesBBCBBBCB
C51tv_offBBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBC1waves
C56tv_offArqB
C58tv_offSDN
C60tv_off-ArqA

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 6 Jul 11 and 20 Jul 11.

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

Analogue 1-4 250kW
SDN, ARQA, ARQB, BBCA, D3+4, BBCB(-4dB) 100kW
Analogue 5(-7dB) 50kW
Mux 2*(-14.9dB) 8.1kW
Mux B*(-15.2dB) 7.5kW
Mux 1*(-15.5dB) 7kW
Mux A*(-17dB) 5kW
Mux C*(-22.2dB) 1.5kW
Mux D*(-23.6dB) 1.1kW

Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Sudbury 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. Sudbury 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, 29 January 2014
J
Jason
4:47 AM

My current 15inch flat screen tv in the kitchen went wrong on Friday 24th January so rather than buying another I decided to dust off an old but perfectly working 14inch 4:3 Phillips set, I nipped to Tesco and brought a set top box and connected everything up. After tuning everything in and adjusting the settings I then set the picture mode to 4:3 pan and scan, I had already noticed on a family members old 4:3 portable with set top box that channel 4 and its sister channels had black lines top and bottom during the broadcasts and the pan and scan feature did not work on these channels (all others channels were ok) never did find out what the problem was tho.

My set top box and 4:3 portable did exactly the same with channel 4 and its sister channels too regarding the black lines, however turning on the kitchen tv on Tuesday morning 28th I noticed that BBC One also had black bars top and bottom (no other BBC channels were affected) but when it got to lunchtime and the local Look East news came on the pan and scan setting worked fine and the black bars disappeared, then after the local news finished and the usual broadcast returned the black bars returned.

Were the BBC carrying out any tests on BBC One or has something changed in the signal, the black bars are the same size as those on channel 4 and its sister channels so could it be the same sort of thing, any thoughts or help would be much appreciated.

link to this comment
Jason's 11 posts GB flag
Thursday, 30 January 2014
J
Judy
8:20 PM
Harwich

It appears the engineering work at Sudbury is finished. We've retuned our telly, twice, but it's no better than it was during the work. Is anyone else still having problems?

link to this comment
Judy's 1 post GB flag
Judy's: mapJ's Freeview map terrainJ's terrain plot wavesJ's frequency data J's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Monday, 3 February 2014
J
Jason
4:17 AM

Well whatever was going on with BBC One it appears to have only lasted a day, turned the telly on Thursday morning (30th) and picture has no black bars, gave it till the end of the weekend before posting just in case something was still not right.

Mind you channel 4 and its sister channels are still the same with the black bars on a 4:3 telly, guess I will never really know, its just one of those things that being the sort of person I am, makes me inquisitive.

link to this comment
Jason's 11 posts GB flag
N
nick
sentiment_satisfiedGold

6:43 PM

JB, re your answer of 6 Jan, thanks. The aerial is pointed directly at udbury and if pointed elsewhere does not not work, therefore I cannot see defraction is relevant, and with analogue, although we got interference from the Dutch, we never lost the signal. I am at a high location with near 100% signal...............usually.

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nick's 425 posts GB flag
Monday, 24 February 2014
E
Eddie Stacey
7:07 PM

Just a buyer beware issue here. Our Panasonic Viera flatscreen full HD TV packed it in after 2 years 8 months with about 4000 hours on the clock. The set would normally be expected to do about 60,000 hours minimum. We had no luck with 6 year statutory rights as the supplier wanted a full technical spec as to what went wrong and why. No TV repairer could be that specific, despite agreeing that the set was, effectively, a write off and offering to speak to the supplier direct to that effect. A trawl of the internet appears to indicate that this problem is quite widespread. We have always found Panasonic to be a good and reliable brand in the past but this event, together with a highly temperamental Panasonic DVB recorder (well documented problems here as well), has put us off for good

link to this comment
Eddie Stacey's 2 posts GB flag
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

9:21 PM

Eddie Stacey: Re: Panasonic problems, purely out of curiosity I would be obliged if you could furnish me with the model numbers of the devices in question?

link to this comment
jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
M
MikeB
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

9:32 PM

Eddie Stacey: Panasonic actually has a pretty good reputation with the tech support people where I work. Like all the four big brands, you tend to get pretty good components, etc. However, you can get unlucky (one lady had 5 different TV's from 3 different manufacturers in eighteen months), and I quite understand if you've had a bad experience, you'd want a different brand. I'm surprised that the DVB is touchy (although the tuners are actually very sensitive), but again, these things happen.

What was the model and the actual problem? You said that the TV 'packed up' - was it the panel that went? If it did, then the TV is basically a writeoff. A lady came in a couple of weeks back, after her TV had developed a problem (which had been bought from Argos, not us). Our chap in tech support said that such a TV panel (if one could be sourced), would cost around £250. Considering the cost of a new TV, replacing the panel often makes no sense. Our TV's all come with a five year warrenty as standard, so if it wasn't worth repairing it, we'd just replace with the nearest model.

If you are about to buy another TV, its the end of the TV year (April is when the new models will start), so I'd get in quick, because stocks are really running down. LG, Samsung and Sony are all solid brands, I'd have no problem recommending them.


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MikeB's 2,579 posts GB flag
Tuesday, 25 February 2014
E
Eddie stacey
3:50 PM

In reply to jb38 and MikeB, The TV was a Panasonic Viera TXL32E3B and the DVB recorder with the HAL like attitude is a DMR EX773EB. The 'flashing red light of death' signal from the TV when it expired was a single flash every three seconds which apparently indicates a fault that the TV cannot define. The engineer's diagnosis was a power supply panel failure and, in effect, concurred with MikeB's comments. As I stated before, this wasn't enough for the supplier. Needless to say we have stopped dealing with these people. We bought a new (Samsung) TV locally together with a five year warranty with their own local engineers. I hope this is of some use and thanks for the input.

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Eddie stacey's 2 posts GB flag
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

5:25 PM

Eddie stacey: Yes, the symptoms described would indicate a power supply module failure, what puzzles me is why the engineer who diagnosed the problem did not offer? to search around for a low cost second hand replacement PCB module, as one is even being currently advertised by a trade dismantler on e-bay for £35.00 + £4.00 P&P, the item in question being guaranteed for 30 days and which allows more than ample time for any faults that may exist in the board to show up, as buying new does not by any means always guarantee 100% reliability as some new components (particularly I.C's) can on the odd occasion fail after a few hours use.

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jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
Wednesday, 26 February 2014
Steve Williams
6:46 AM
Colchester

My aerial was bashed about in the recent storms, and fell apart, so bought a new one, another WB High Gain, butr whilst up the ladder, and seeing the coverage charts showed both Bluebell Hill and Dover as alternate options, thought I'd give it a go, but no matter what direction I pointed the aerial it always picked up Sudbury, with not a sniiff of the others :-( (Post Code CO7 )

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Steve Williams's 13 posts EU flag
Steve's: mapS's Freeview map terrainS's terrain plot wavesS's frequency data S's Freeview Detailed Coverage
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