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Five million London homes must 'full retune' when switchover ends on 18th April

If you are one of the millions of people who live inside the M25 - or up to 15 miles outside the capital's orbital motorway - you will need to perform a 'first time' retune on your Freeview TV or set-top box when you get up for breakfast on Wednesday morning.

If you are one of the millions of people who live inside the M2
published on UK Free TV
Starting at moments after Big Ben strikes midnight on Wednesday 18th April, the next switchover of 2012 will see the number of homes with digital-only terrestrial reception in the UK go up by 4,853,500 from 71.0% to 89.4%.

Viewers in Greater London and around the M25 who use the Crystal Palace, Hemel Hempstead, Guildford and Reigate "full Freeview" transmitters (and about 50 smaller relay transmitters) will have no analogue television from Wednesday 18th April 2012. Unless you use cable or satellite to watch television, if you don't use a Freeview box or set, your screen will be blank.

Do not expect ANY FREEVIEW television service from midnight until 6am - or a late as mid-afternoon on some relay transmitters (see below for timetable). This means you will not be able to record Freeview programmes overnight. --- but you can watch online here - Watch live UK TV channels and listen to live radio now.

Most people need only perform a "full retune" (or "factory reset" or "shipping condition") on their Freeview box or TV, but it would be impossible with five million homes covered by the transmitters, for no-one to have a problem.



From Wednesday 18th April 2012 you MUST have a digital television device to watch TV. If you do not have a digital receiver, from Wednesday will have a blank screen.

You will be served by the Freeview HD service from Wednesday, but please see this six-point checklist to ensure you really are watching in high definition: Are you really watching free TV in high definition?

Switchover help scheme

If you are over 75, get (or could get) Disability Living Allowance, Attendance Allowance, Constant Attendance Allowance or mobility supplement; or have lived in a care home for six months or more; or are registered blind or partially sighted and need assistance, please see The Switchover Help Scheme.



Cable and satellite

Cable (Virgin Media) and satellite (Sky, Freesat, fSfS) viewers are not affected by the changes. Remember, however, that you may be using analogue TV to watch on a second or third set and it might need a Freeview box.

Existing "full" Freeview users

If you already use Freeview, and can receive all the channels now, check your TV or box is not listed here - TVs and boxes that do not support the 8k-mode. If it is, you will need a new Freeview box.

If you are not on the list, you should scan your box from around 6am.

When you now rescan, you MUST do a "first time installation" or "factory reset" scan (sometimes called "shipping state"), not a simple "add channels". Do the procedure you did on "national retune day", September 30th 2009, see Freeview Retune - list of manuals.

If you can't recall the procedure or find the manual, please see generic clear and rescan procedure.

If you scanned during the first phase of switchover on Wednesday 4th April 2012 - you will have to do it again on Wednesday 18th April 2012.

Using Freeview with Windows Vista

Please see Switch over and PC-based systems because you need some updates for your system to work.

Boosters and amplifiers

If you live close to the transmitter, you may have to disconnect any "boosters" from your aerial system. The new, more powerful digital signals may overload any amplifiers and result in no reception! When looking for them include a check for distribution amplifiers, loft boxes, set back amplifiers, bypass Amplifiers, hidden masthead amps in a loft space and any dodgy active splitters.

For full details, see: Freeview signals: too much of a good thing is bad for you.

Homes without Freeview now have Freeview Light

If you had no Freeview service before, you will have the BBC channels digitally from Wednesday 4th April2012. This is a single multiplex of the BBC channels (radio, television and text) for most people.

However, if you were on the fringes of reception from one of the main Freeview transmitters, you will now get all the Freeview channels.

If you didn't get this limited Freeview service on Wednesday 4th April 2012 then you may need a new aerial.

If you are served by a public service (relay) transmitter, which are:

Alexandra Palace, Assendon (noon), Biggin Hill (noon), Bishops Stortford, Cane Hill (11am), Caterham (noon), Chepping Wycombe, Chesham, Chingford (11am), Croydon (Old Town) (noon), Dorking (noon), East Grinstead (noon), Edmonton (3pm), Farningham (noon), Finchley (1pm), Forest Row, Gravesend, Great Missenden (noon), Greenwich (4pm), Hammersmith (1pm), Hampstead Heath (3pm), Hemel Hempstead Town, Henley-on-Thames, Hertford, High Wycombe, Hughenden (3pm), Kenley, Kensal Town, Lea Bridge (3pm), Marlow Bottom (3pm), Micklefield (noon), Mickleham (3pm), New Addington (4pm), New Barnet (11am), Old Coulsdon (2pm), Orpington (3pm), Otford (3pm), Poplar (1pm), Skirmett (3pm), St Albans (noon), Sutton, Walthamstow North (11am), Welwyn, West Wycombe (3pm), Wonersh, Wooburn (noon), Woolwich, Worlds End (4pm)

...you now need, from around from 9am (unless shown otherwise) on 18th April 2012 to rescan, and you will get a second Multiplex with ITV 1, ITV 2, ITV 1 +1, Channel 4, Channel 5, Channel 4+1, E4 and More4.

And that's your lot if you have a standard Freeview receiver, see Freeview retune - poor public service transmitters.

You may wish to install Freesat for more channels, see Compare Freeview Light and Freesat TV.

Overlap with other regions

Because of the location of the transmitters, some viewers away from Central London will find that they can pick up the signal from other BBC and ITV 1 regional studios.

Those viewers with "Freeview HD" (or other so called D-Book 7) receivers will find they are presented with a menu to allow them to pick which BBC One region is shown on "button 1", and which ITV 1 regions appears as channel 3.



Viewers with older equipment may have to resort to doing a manual scan C22, C23, C25, C26, C28 and C30- to get the correct signal for the Crystal Palace transmitter.

All Freeview boxes automatically scan the available broadcast frequencies looking for channels, and they do this from C21 to C69. Older Freeview boxes will, if a duplicate version of a channel is found whilst scanning, such as another BBC One region, placed it in the 800-899 channel range. br>
Some Freeview boxes will pick the strongest signals for the "primary" number positions, and some will detect the different regions providing a choice when you perform a "scan for channels".

For more details, see: Digital Region Overlap

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Comments
Thursday, 12 April 2012
M
Mark Heselden
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

9:53 AM
East Grinstead

Why is Reigate in the list above, although not in blue and underlined? And will it be fully switched by 6am on 18 April?

link to this comment
Mark Heselden's 21 posts GB flag
Mark's: mapM's Freeview map terrainM's terrain plot wavesM's frequency data M's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Dave Lindsay
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

11:04 AM

Mark Heselden: The reason that the instance of the word Reigate is not a hyperlink is because of the way the site applies hyperlinks to certain words. Transmitter names become hyperlinks and where subsequent instances of the same word appear, they don't become hyperlinks. Reigate appears further up the page and is a hyperlink there.

If you look at this posting of mine, you will see that only the first time I mention Reigate does it become a hyperlink.


In answer to your question, yes, Reigate is scheduled to have been completed by 6am. The reason for greater delay on some transmitters is due to the fact that the engineers have to commute to them in order to make necessary adjustments. As Reigate is one of the full Freeview transmitters, it will be likely to be up there as a priority to get it done by 6am.

link to this comment
Dave Lindsay's 5,724 posts GB flag
Dave Lindsay
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

11:07 AM

Briantist: Reigate appears in the Public Service only list of transmitters, as well as further up the page as a full Freeview transmitter.

link to this comment
Dave Lindsay's 5,724 posts GB flag
M
M D Tomlin
9:51 PM

Since 4/04/2012 I have lost BBC1 BBC2 BBC24 News plus others. I tried retuning Auto and Manually without sucess. Taking the Aerial out
auto retune before replacing the aerial in and retuning again.
My tv is a digital Make Sony Model KV28DX20U
I contacted the helpline 3 times unable to resolve. My only hope is retuning after 18/04/2012

link to this comment
M D Tomlin's 1 post GB flag
R
reka
9:51 PM

I lost channel 4:(((( can someone help me what to do?

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

10:10 PM

M D Tomlin: That model will not operate in 8k mode which is used after switchover. On 18th April all services will be in 8k mode and so the TV's in-built tuner will be of no use.

Your model appears on Digital UK's list of 2k equipment http://www.digitaluk.co.u…ment

link to this comment
Dave Lindsay's 5,724 posts GB flag
Friday, 13 April 2012
Briantist
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

7:26 AM

Dave Lindsay: I have removed the "Reigate" from the PSB list. I note I managed to put it correctly at the top of the page in the text and the transmitter is shown with the correct "Freeview" symbol and in capital latters on the new map I made yesterday...

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Briantist's 38,915 posts GB flag
Saturday, 14 April 2012
C
Chris Rimmer
11:05 AM

M D Tomlin:
I had many of these Sonys with the same problem here in the North West when we carried out our DSO 2.5 years ago.
I always made a positive out of a negative situation by sugesting that the user invests in a twin tuner Freeview+ Recorder (Humax etc.) this is used to "convert" the TV to 8k Freeview and also gives the facility to record another channel.

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Chris Rimmer's 5 posts GB flag
P
Peter Smith
1:04 PM
Brighton

Briantist: small typo on this pages that slightly confuses the meaning: "Those viewers will "Freeview HD" (or other so called D-Book 7) receivers" should read "Those viewers with "Freeview HD" (or other so called D-Book 7) receivers"

link to this comment
Peter Smith's 18 posts GB flag
Peter's: mapP's Freeview map terrainP's terrain plot wavesP's frequency data P's Freeview Detailed Coverage
T
trevorjharris
sentiment_satisfiedGold

4:20 PM

Boy am I glad I have got all Sky boxes which I never had to "retune". To me this is a big failure of freeview especially for non technical people.

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trevorjharris's 367 posts GB flag
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