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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
Monday, 2 July 2012
M
Mark Fletcher
sentiment_satisfiedGold

12:23 AM
Braintree

Mrs Gurney.Braintree,CM7 5HQ.You may have shot yerself in the foot with what you mentioned in your earlier text.You may have too much signal being located around 13 miles from your abode to Sudbury itself.If your aerial is polarised horizontally and facing Sudbury try fitting an attenuator to decrease the somewhat overpowering signal you may have.Or try a set-top aerial or even a piece of wire inserted into the aerial socket of yer appliance.
You may also need to reset your appliance,then with the aerial unplugged do an automatic scan,no channels will be picked up,then after this plug aerial back in then rescan only this time manual scan instead,it may just work.

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Mark Fletcher's 673 posts GB flag
Mark's: mapM's Freeview map terrainM's terrain plot wavesM's frequency data M's Freeview Detailed Coverage
N
Nick
sentiment_satisfiedGold

12:25 AM

Thanks to all who are trying to help, but before they messed about on June 27, ITV 3 was always good at 14kw, now not at all, and those weak ones on C63 even came in occasionally. Now, with high power, all has gone to pot. I can't see how those other distant transmitters can somehow now be blamed. Please confirm that all muxes are now on 100kw, contrary to what the table on this page shows.

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Nick's 425 posts GB flag
M
Mark Fletcher
sentiment_satisfiedGold

12:26 AM
Halifax

Graham Peters.Unless you leave a full postcod eor nearby location as such,we cannot be of useful assistance to you !

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M
Mark Fletcher
sentiment_satisfiedGold

12:27 AM
Halifax

Correction to above post.Should have stated postcode or,apologises all round.

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M
Mark Fletcher
sentiment_satisfiedGold

12:30 AM
Halifax

Nick.All multiplexes from Sudbury are now broadcasting on 100kw apiece.

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M
Mark Fletcher
sentiment_satisfiedGold

12:44 AM
Halifax

Nick:Then again if you prefer to receive the full package from the main Dover main transmitter instead of Sudbury go for it.
On the minus side though you will have to put up with BBC1 South East and ITV1 Meridian South East news bulletins if you commit to Dover.

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B
Ben
1:12 AM
Clacton-on-sea

Mark, thanks for your advice, appreciated. Two weeks ago and for the last few years I could get Dave, ITV4, Yesterday, Quest, etc. Sometimes these channels got a bit sketchy when we had high pressure but were always found on a scan, then they disappeared last week. No signal at all. They all came back after the Sudbury upgrade on Wednesday, then vanished again a few days later.
So that's why I suspect something has changed and it's not at my end; I have a decent aerial, checked all the hardware, rescanned, and I'm getting 90% or 100% signal quality on CH44, CH41 - all BBC stations, Anglia, ITV2, More4, E4, etc. Signal strength is only about 40% but it works fine.
What I can't get my head around is why Sudbury is giving me no issues with these channels and the rest have gone tits up! Back in the day, we just used to thump the telly when the picture went wonky...

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Ben's 6 posts GB flag
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N
Nick
sentiment_satisfiedGold

9:02 AM

Thanks Mark,
I was actually talking about two different locations, Aldeburgh can't get Dover, but can 10 miles south, so it is not my solution.
I am quite pleased to see Ben has similar problems.
I guess if Sudbury plays up, I had better try Tacolneston, but so difficult to align the aerial to Sud or Tac when the Aldeburgh 'light' tx wants to log itself on.

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Nick's 425 posts GB flag
Dave Lindsay
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

5:04 PM

Nick: I wonder if there is a notch in the Sudbury COMs antenna in your direction. Hence you aren't getting the full benefit of the 100kW. I think this because you said that you could get the 14kW signals occasionally.

Thus, maybe the strength of those signals is significantly weaker than the PSBs and this is contributing to desensitise your receiver which is in turn making it insensitive to the COMs.

With this in mind, I wonder if you need to boost the strength of the COMs only. A spectrum analyser would obviously show you instantly if they are there, but weaker than the PSBs.

Before trying what I've outlined below, you could perhaps try attenuating the signal to see whether the strength of the COMs increases, even if not enough to put it above the threshold to give you a picture.

This may or may not work as you will obviously be reducing all signals and not just the PSBs.


Or: If you were to use a Group C/D bandpass filter, this would remove all but C/D channels and hence remove the PSBs. You could then experiment by seeing what can be picked up. Then try amplifying it.

Obviously, as KMJ,Derby says, the siting of the aerial may be a factor. With little or no signal it is difficult to know whether the aerial is being aimed in the right direction. Remember that the PSBs are a Single Frequency Network with Rouncefall, so going by those signals may be a red herring.

If you successfully get the COMs from Sudbury, having amplified them (and them only), then you need to diplex the output of the amplifier with another feed containing the PSBs, either from Sudbury or Aldeburgh. Your former analogue Group B aerial may be of use here if you decide to receive PSBs from Sudbury.

Bear in mind that in the future, additional COMs may come on the air using channels between 31 and 37 and likely as not using the same or similar quasi-national network. So you may have to change again if you want to pick them up. How you do it now may affect how easy any future change might be.

A diplexer which splits at C51 will allow you to have the output of the amplifier (whose input is filtered to allow C/D only) *and* either Sudbury or Aldeburgh PSBs (which needn't be filtered) going to your receiver.

I assume that the C/D filter on the input of the amplifier might be needed to prevent any nasty effects by boosting the PSBs (even though they will be subsequently filtered by the diplexer.

As I might have said before, I'm not a professional and am just putting my thoughts forward based on what I understand. I would appreciate comments by the professionals on what I've proposed and how likely they think this might be an effective solution.

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

5:07 PM

The message at the top of this page does say that Sudbury is "liable to interruption" which does suggest that engineering work is ongoing. Maybe it will be worth waiting to see if reception of the COMs is possible on completion before adjusting your aerial arrangement.

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Dave Lindsay's 5,724 posts GB flag
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