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Switchover "completes" for Southampton, Portsmouth and Brighton

If you live in the Rowridge (Southampton, Portsmouth, Poole, Worthing), Salisbury and Whitehawk Hill (Brighton and Hove) transmitter areas you will need to take action on Wednesday morning as high power digital television services bring digital and high definition television to everyone.

If you live in the Rowridge (Southampton, Portsmouth, Poole, Wo
published on UK Free TV
Tonight, 21st March 2012, the next switchover of 2012 will see the number of homes with digital-only terrestrial reception in the UK goes up by 1,872,594 from 67.8% to 71.0%.

Viewers in the Hampshire, the West Sussex coast and Salisbury who use the Rowridge ortransmitter (and 24 relay transmitters) plus those in the city of Brighton and Hove (using theWhitehawk Hill and 8 relays) will have no analogue television from Wednesday 21st March 2012. Unless you use cable or satellite to watch television, if you don't use aFreeview box or set, your screen will be blank.

Do not expect ANY FREEVIEW television service from midnight until 6am - or a late as 3pm on some relay transmitters (see below for timetable).

Most people need only perform a "full retune" on their Freeview box or TV, but it would be impossible with 1,872,594 homes covered by the transmitters, for no-one to have a problem.





From Wednesday 21st March 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.

From switchover, viewers in Brighton and Hove will no longer be part of the BBC "South Today" region, as the transmitters will now move to the BBC "South East Today" region (as they are already on Sky andFreesat) - see Are you really watching free TV in high definition?

Brighton and Hove move to BBC South East region

From switchover, viewers in Brighton and Hove will no longer be part of the BBC "South Today" region, as the transmitters will now move to the BBC "South East Today" region (as they are already on Sky andFreesat) - see Brighton transmitters will be in BBC South East from March 2012.



Because of the location of the transmitters, some viewers will find that they can pick up the signal from Rowridge from the "back" of their aerial and Whitehawk Hill from the front.

Those viewers will "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".



Viewers with older equipment may have to resort to doing a manual scan on C48, C51, C53, C56, C57,C60- to get the correct signal for Whitehawk Hill.

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. With older boxes, a good technique is to do a "automatic scan" with the aerial disconnected from the television set or set-top box until it reaches the 50% mark.

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

Special arrangements at Rowridge (with some service on low power on the commercial multiplexes until 18th April 2012)

The commercial multiplexes at Rowridge do not, in effect, switchover for another month.

SDN remains on C30- until 18th April 2012, when it moves to C25.
ArqB remains on C33+ until 18th April 2012, when it moves to C28.
ArqA remains on C37 until 18th April 2012, when it moves to C22+.

Rowridge will transmit both horizontally and vertically polarised signals for all six multiplexes after switchover


Rowridge's Vertical polarity commercial multiplexes (SDN, ArqA and ArqB) will come on-air on 18 April 2012 when the commercial multiplexes at Rowridge's Horizontal polarity emissions also adopt their final channel allocations. This does not affect Rowridge Vertical polarity other multiplexes, which will come on-air at switchover.

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.

Brighton Pavilion picture by Brian Butterworth

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 7th March 2012 - you will have to do it again on Wednesday 21st March 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 7th March 2012. 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 7th March 2012 then you may need a new aerial.

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

Bevendean (noon), Bovington (noon), Brading (noon), Brighstone (noon), Brighton (Central) (noon),Canford Heath (1pm), Cheselbourne (noon), Coldean (3pm), Corfe Castle (12:30pm), Donhead (3pm),Findon (9am), Hangleton (noon), Horndean (9am), Luccombe (9am), Lulworth (3pm), Luscombe Valley(9am), Millbrook (noon), Ovingdean (3pm), Patcham (9am), Piddletrenthide (3pm), Poole (6am),Portslade (9am), Poulner (3pm), Saltdean (9am), Shrewton (9am), Singleton (3pm), Sutton Row (9am),Till Valley (noon), Ventnor, Westbourne (3pm), Winterbourne Steepleton (9am), Winterbourne Stickland(9am), Ventnor (9am)

...you now need, from around from 6am (unless shown otherwise) on 21st March 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, ses Compare Freeview Light and Freesat TV.

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Comments
Friday, 30 March 2012
M
Mark Fletcher
sentiment_satisfiedGold

10:27 PM
Halifax

Sally.If you decide to opt for the full package from the main all group A frequencied Rowridge transmitter,then your current group W wideband aerial is useless in a poor/marginal signal area within this mast due to the poor/inferior performance of group W wideband aerials on group A frequencies on all group A masts such as Rowridge as an example.Poor performances such as low signal gain and in some cases pixellations and even failing to pick up the lowest frequencies common with cheap contract aerials are examples as such.
Your best bet is to buy a superior group A Yagi18A or preferably at your location a slightly more stronger group A X-Beam XB16A aerial,buying of course at the same time superior black or brown coloured copper-copper co-ax cable and importantly superior brass co-ax plugs,not alloy or worse plastic plugs they're useless.Look up the ATV (Aerials and Television of Sheffield) website,you will find that in my honest opinion they are the No1 aerial and accessories retailer in the UK today,and i do highly recommend ATV believe me they are the best,forget the rest !

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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
Sunday, 1 April 2012
S
Sally
4:18 PM
Arundel

Thanks again, KMJ and Mark. So, I'll wait for the 18th April, rotate the aerial, and see how things look for a while. If it sucks, I can think about investing in a good Group A aerial (and cable+bits).

Does rotating itself require a re-tune? Or will the current tuning work for either horizontal or vertical?

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Sally's 7 posts GB flag
Sally's: mapS's Freeview map terrainS's terrain plot wavesS's frequency data S's Freeview Detailed Coverage
K
KMJ,Derby
sentiment_satisfiedGold

6:57 PM

Sally: The frequencies for the COM muxes at Rowridge will change on 18th April 2012, so you will need to re-tune, but after doing so, as the same frequency will be used for both horizontal and vertical polarisation, you won't need to re-tune when changing the polarisation of the aerial.

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KMJ,Derby's 1,811 posts GB flag
Monday, 2 April 2012
S
Sally
4:05 AM
Bognor Regis

Thanks KMJ, that makes things easier to test.

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Sally's 8 posts GB flag
Sally's: mapS's Freeview map terrainS's terrain plot wavesS's frequency data S's Freeview Detailed Coverage
D
david
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

5:24 PM
Salisbury

please can sombody tell me why my epg on my panasonic only shows bbc hd icon and not itv channel four digital one say becaus part of rowridge group and wait until 18 april because salisbury is off air fed from rowridge. aquiva say salisbury is land line fed. who is correct?

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david's 66 posts GB flag
david's: mapD's Freeview map terrainD's terrain plot wavesD's frequency data D's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Monday, 9 April 2012
Briantist
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

3:08 PM

Tom Allen: That is perfectly normal. The encoder software detects on a frame-by-frame basis if interlaced or progressive encoding results in the best output, so the decoder will show this as switching between 1080i and 1080p dynamically.

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Briantist's 38,915 posts GB flag
Wednesday, 11 April 2012
Saturday, 14 April 2012
Thursday, 19 April 2012
T
Tom Allen
8:08 PM
Dorchester

Brian:
thanks again. Interesting but certainly no such troubles on my Sony KDL 32EX703 now at firmware version PKG4-110-EUL-0108 with a modest plate reflector aerial in the loft and still mounted horizontally .
Tom

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Tom Allen's 9 posts GB flag
Tom's: mapT's Freeview map terrainT's terrain plot wavesT's frequency data T's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Friday, 18 May 2012
Briantist
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

3:02 PM

Tom Allen: No problem. As it's a decoder issue, the actual aerial won't effect this issue.

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Briantist's 38,915 posts GB flag
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