menuMENU    UK Free TV logo Freeview

 

 

Click to see updates

Full Freeview on the Waltham (Leicestershire, England) transmitter

first published this on - UK Free TV
sa_streetviewGoogle Streetviewsa_gmapsGoogle mapsa_bingBing mapsa_gearthGoogle Earthsa_gps52.801,-0.801 or 52°48'4"N 0°48'5"Wsa_postcodeLE14 4AJ

 

The symbol shows the location of the Waltham (Leicestershire, England) transmitter which serves 770,000 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 Waltham (Leicestershire, England) mast?

Waltham transmitter - Waltham 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 Waltham 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
C32 (562.0MHz)442mDTG-50,000W
Channel icons
1 BBC One (SD) East Midlands, 2 BBC Two England, 9 BBC Four, 23 BBC Three, 201 CBBC, 202 CBeebies, 231 BBC News, 232 BBC Parliament, plus 17 others

PSB2
D3+4
 H max
C34 (578.0MHz)442mDTG-50,000W
Channel icons
3 ITV 1 (SD) (Central (East micro region)), 4 Channel 4 (SD) Midlands ads, 5 Channel 5, 6 ITV 2, 10 ITV3, 13 E4, 14 Film4, 15 Channel 4 +1 Midlands ads, 18 More4, 26 ITV4, 28 ITVBe, 30 E4 +1, 35 ITV1 +1 (Central west),

PSB3
BBCB
 H max
C35 (586.0MHz)442mDTG-50,000W
Channel icons
46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD East Midlands, 102 BBC Two HD England, 103 ITV 1 HD (ITV Central West), 104 Channel 4 HD Midlands 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
C29 (538.0MHz)442mDTG-825,000W
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
C37 (602.0MHz)449mDTG-825,000W
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
C31 (554.0MHz)449mDTG-825,000W
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

LNG
 H -10dB
C41 (634.0MHz)442mDTG-125,000W
Channel icons
from 27th May 2014: 7 Notts TV,

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 Waltham transmitter?

regional news image
BBC East Midlands Today 0.9m homes 3.4%
from Nottingham NG2 4UU, 28km northwest (306°)
to BBC East Midlands region - 17 masts.
regional news image
ITV Central News 0.9m homes 3.4%
from Birmingham B1 2JT, 83km west-southwest (244°)
to ITV Central (East) region - 17 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 80% evening news is shared with Central (West)

Are there any self-help relays?

BraunstoneTransposer5 km SW Leicester city centre170 homes

How will the Waltham (Leicestershire, England) transmission frequencies change over time?

1984-971997-981998-20112011-132013-182013-174 Mar 2020
C/D EEEWW TW TW T
C26LNGLNG
C29SDNSDNSDNSDN
C31com7com7
C32BBCA
C34D3+4
C35C5wavesC5wavesBBCB
C37com8com8
C41_local
C49tv_off BBCABBCA
C54tv_offC4wavesC4wavesC4wavesD3+4D3+4D3+4
C55tv_offcom7tv_off
C56tv_offArqAArqAArqACOM8tv_off
C57tv_offArqBArqBArqB
C58tv_offBBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBCBBBCBBBCB
C61ITVwavesITVwavesITVwavesBBCA
C64BBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBC2waves

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 17 Aug 11 and 31 Aug 11.

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

Analogue 1-5 250kW
BBCA, D3+4, BBCB(-7dB) 50kW
SDN, ARQA, ARQB(-10dB) 25kW
com8(-12.7dB) 13.4kW
com7(-13.9dB) 10.2kW
Mux 1*(-14dB) 10kW
Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*(-14.9dB) 8kW
Mux C*, Mux D*, LNG(-17dB) 5kW

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

Feb 1956-Jul 1968Associated TeleVision†
Feb 1956-Jul 1968Associated British Corporation◊
Jul 1968-Dec 1981Associated TeleVision
Jan 1982-Feb 2004Central Independent 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. Waltham 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
Thursday, 20 June 2013
J
John
5:35 PM

I have rescanned WMC with the network connections disconnected. No change.
We keep talking about May 29th, yet I recorded the new Poirot on ITV1 Central June 9th with no bother at all. Our problems really started a week after that when I tried to record the new Miss Marple (16 June). From a 2 hour slot (over adverts) WMC recorded about 50 Minutes!
After rescanning my other machine I'm getting 'Service is unavailable - There is currently no TV signal detected for this channel..... may be temporarily off the air. Try again later' where ITV1 should be...

link to this comment
John's 20 posts GB flag
D
Dominic Payer
7:31 PM

Windows Media Center

I tune to Waltham.

WMC setup data seems to be for everything you might be able to receive at your postcode: cable, satellite and terrestrial. Details are in C:ProgramDataMicrosofteHomelogsFirstRun.log. This opens in Notepad by default.

I can confirm that Hauppauge WinTV and VLC Player can play the PSB2 transmissions.

For me, WMC can play, intermittently, all PSB2 channels except Channel 5. Changing channel may result in inability to play when I switch back. I do not see "Tuner not found" messages: the channels appear to be detected but not displayed.

As far as I can tell, the problem is specific to WMC and PSB2 at Waltham. There do not appear to be reports of any other transmitters with a similar problem or any general problem with WMC.

I have raised a query with Digital UK. Their initial response was effectively "Microsoft's problem". That may be part of it, but clearly there has been some unannounced detail change in the PSB2 signal from Waltham. I wait to see what their response to my follow-up will be.

link to this comment
Dominic Payer's 20 posts GB flag
J
John
7:57 PM

I think we're all moving to the conclusion that it is a WMC (Microsoft) problem, Dominic.
I've tried everything I can think of..

link to this comment
John's 20 posts GB flag
S
stef
8:48 PM

problem is specific to WMC and PSB2 - i would agree

I have searched the net and found people reporting the simmiler issues since 2011 in canada, america and the rest of the UK when frequancies have been changed - no one talked about a fix !only thing to do was change to mediaportal

Not able to tune into RF51 (OMNI2 Toronto) in Windows Media Center - Canadian TV, Computing and Home Theatre Forums

to me it seems an issue between ch3 and ch5 somtimes they work somtimes they dont - sadly i cant see us finding a fix (DE59TN)

link to this comment
stef's 5 posts GB flag
J
John Pilkington
10:35 PM

Here is a link to a post I made shortly after the Waltham retune of 29 May. Several channels in PSB2 now appear to ffmpeg to have multiple video streams. Before the retune these extra streams were classed as data, as they still are in PSB1. Relabelling of the streams has not affected replay of my recordings but did break a script I used to edit them.

I have had no reports of similar changes from other transmitters.

UK DVB-T Channels 4, 5; multiple video streams | MythTV | Users



link to this comment
John Pilkington's 15 posts GB flag
J
John
11:27 PM

Hi John,
I use ffmpeg to squish my recorded tv down for my iPad (using my own front end rather than scripts) and have not experienced the 'streams' problem there.
I use VideoReDo for editing and mux the wtv's out as dvr-ms. When WMC first changed from dvr-ms files to wtv I got 'elementary streams' errors frequently from VideoReDo and still do, very occasionally, when there is an error in the recording.

link to this comment
John's 20 posts GB flag
Saturday, 22 June 2013
D
DarrenG
12:03 AM
Loughborough

John P:

That makes sense and what I originally was following up on as MCE appeared to be giving me the option to select one of the streams.

What version of Windows are you on? Did you replaced the default codecs MCE uses when you installed ffpmeg (Win7 doesn't want you to)?

Am I understanding correctly - that your recording are working OK (inside MCE)?


link to this comment
DarrenG's 17 posts GB flag
DarrenG's: mapD's Freeview map terrainD's terrain plot wavesD's frequency data D's Freeview Detailed Coverage
J
John Pilkington
10:49 AM

This is MythTV 0.26-fixes under Fedora 17 (Linux), so I can't relate directly to experience under Windows. I posted because people were concluding that something had changed but didn't know what. This is a real change, I don't see any causal link to the PSB1 retune, and no-one else on the MythTV lists has reported seeing it. My recordings are fine, but I had to modify the part of my editing script that selects the streams I want to keep: select "mpeg2video (Main)" instead of "Video". I don't think many people regularly do this sort of edit.

Does MCE have an "mpeg2video (Main)" codec?

link to this comment
John Pilkington's 15 posts GB flag
D
DarrenG
5:39 PM
Loughborough

John P:

Ah, OK.

If I am understanding you correctly then it sounds like a change to the multiplex that you can, manually, cope with in MythTV but we can't (yet) in MCE? Also, our TVs (well at least mine) doesn't have a problem.

Not sure I understand your Q 100%, sorry. Win7 ships with codecs for all the major compression 'formats' and I know of no way to tell MCE which stream to use. It appears to give me this as a manual option within MCE but it doesn't work for me.


link to this comment
DarrenG's 17 posts GB flag
DarrenG's: mapD's Freeview map terrainD's terrain plot wavesD's frequency data D's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Sunday, 23 June 2013
J
John Pilkington
5:36 PM

My Panasonic TV, and MythTV, have no problem with PSB2. My editing script looked for streams recognised as "Video" by ffmpeg, and suddenly found 4 in individual channels of PSB2. Now it looks for "mpeg2video (Main)", finds just one, and works again.

I asked on the MythTV list if any other transmitters had this. Only one response so far. Winter Hill Chs 4 and 5 DO NOT show multiple Video streams with ffmpeg. I suspect a misconfiguration of the PSB2 feed for Waltham.

link to this comment
John Pilkington's 15 posts GB flag
Select more comments

Your comment please
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.

If you have no satellite signal, see Sky Digibox says 'No Signal' or 'Technical fault'

If you have other problems, please provide a full (not partial) postcode (or preferably enter it in box at the top right) and indicate where if aerial is on the roof, in the loft or elsewhere.

UK Free TV is here to help people. If you are rude or disrespectful all of your posts will be deleted and you will be banned.








Privacy policy: UK Free Privacy policy.