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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 22/04/2024 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, 18 September 2023
A
aytch
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

1:09 PM

Note to Chris and referring back to Jan 2022:
Update - I now have a new telly so my situation has changed.
Just to thank you for your past advice.

link to this comment
aytch's 23 posts GB flag
C
Chris.SE
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

9:14 PM

aytch:

Hi there. Noted, thanks for the update.

link to this comment
Chris.SE's 4,153 posts GB flag
Friday, 22 September 2023
N
nick
sentiment_satisfiedGold

12:13 AM

Chris SE.
I have made what I think is an interesting discovery today testing several aerials at only 6ft from the ground. They all have good reception but they ALL are very poor with regard to signal quality, 33%, on channel 37, right in the middle of the range of channels used by Sudbury. This is presumably why 37 is the first to go on my rooftop aerial. if 47 were poor, or 29 were poor, I could understand it was an aerial problem, but this is a mystery. Any ideas please?

link to this comment
nick's 431 posts GB flag
C
Chris.SE
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

3:02 AM

nick :

Hi there. I assume you are obviously pointing them at Sudbury.
1) Try a different spot and see if the Quality figure gets better or worse. If it gets worse, you may possibly be getting near some source of interference
2) Try rotating the aerial to different compass bearings and see if you can identify/receive and other signal on C37. You may have to move tyo another spot if buildings get in the way.
3) Try all the above with the aerial polarisation vertical
4) Try with different "in between" polarisations.

Obviously with a number of those, I'd expect the Sudbury signal to reduce in both Strength and Quality, but there may be cases where there's little drop in Signal but significant drop in Quality.
There will be points where the Quality is sufficiently low, the Signal will become zero (it's become just noise or possibly interference).

link to this comment
Chris.SE's 4,153 posts GB flag
Saturday, 23 September 2023
N
nick
sentiment_satisfiedGold

11:34 PM

Chris SE, thanks. I follow your reasoning here. This must be some form of interference, and I suspect from your notes, that it must be that Holland has a troublesome transmitter on this channel.
It is almost impossible to locate my test aerials elsewhere, but I have made further discoveries. Signal quality on 37 improves after dark.
Some of my aerials, during the day, show the quality jumps up from 30 to 90, but then within a second jumps back down..
I have tested several aerials, and the log is second best. The only one that defeats this problem during the day is home made and produces a steady 70 plus quality. Basically it is the old fashioned 18 element group B, but with two parallel groups of 16 directors and a circular dipole about 8 ins diameter. which markedly improves the bandwidth. The directivity may be keeping out the intruder.

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nick's 431 posts GB flag
Sunday, 24 September 2023
C
Chris.SE
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

2:51 PM

nick :

Interesting, but I'm not sure I'd jump to the conclusion that it's Holland at present.
Two things of particular interest about the Quality figures.
1) the brief jump to 90% - does this occur at regular/particular times of day or is it totally random?
2) You mention it improves after dark, by how much, what figures? (This may be related to a bit of temperature inversion of course).

link to this comment
Chris.SE's 4,153 posts GB flag
Monday, 25 September 2023
Transmitter engineering
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

5:10 AM

Sudbury transmitter - Sudbury transmitter: Possible effect on TV reception week commencing 25/09/2023 Pixelation or flickering on some or all channels [DUK]

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Transmitter engineering's 150,866 posts GB flag
Wednesday, 27 September 2023
N
nick
sentiment_satisfiedGold

12:00 AM

Chris SE.
It jumps up suddenly and back suddenly during the times it is only 30% and I get not signal, usually afternoons.
When it is working, I get 70-80%, a bit down, but not much, on the other channels.



I swung my super aerial round today, just six ft off the ground, and got the BBC mux from Dover.

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nick's 431 posts GB flag
C
Chris.SE
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

3:58 AM

nick :

There has been a bit of "tropo" around again, so no real surprise about Dover.
I still think it's more likely the problem with 37 is more local to you.

link to this comment
Chris.SE's 4,153 posts GB flag
N
nick
sentiment_satisfiedGold

10:55 AM

Chris SE,
thanks, but I have no idea apart from the Dutch, what it can be.
It is undoubtedly this tropo you mention that is causing my problem on 37 don't you think?
Tropo or not I am still coming to the conclusion that the different multiplexes on their different channels and the same power are not all as good at reaching the other end!
Perhaps an example of this is Dover. I can get the BBC mux, but the ITV one not quite, because like my C37 from Sudbury, the 'quality' figure is shooting all over the place, and as for the other muxes from Dover, the is no sign of them.

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nick's 431 posts GB flag
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