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Full Freeview on the Waltham (Leicestershire, England) transmitter

first published this on - UK Free TV
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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
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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
Wednesday, 10 July 2013
Briantist
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

1:36 PM

Ian from notts: The COFDM signals used for the digital TV are much less prone to problems caused by Tropospheric Ducting (aka "The Inversion Effect").

However, the prediction for "excellent" Freeview reception is "99%" - which still allows for 90 hours a year of problems.

Looking at the forecast - Tropospheric Ducting Forecast for VHF & UHF Radio & TV it seems quite likely that the strong signals used in the Netherlands could quite easliy make it to East Anglia, for example.

DVB-T receivers can (by use of the "guard interval") reject a weak, distant signal most of the time, but Tropospheric Ducting can sometimes (the 1%) dump strong distant signals where they are not wanted.

link to this comment
Briantist's 38,915 posts GB flag
W
Wayne Cochrane
2:06 PM

The guard interval has no function in rejecting different transmissions on the same channel as your wanted one. It's only useful wrt multipath reception of the same programme, either from a single transmitter or in an SFN.

The protection from uncorrelated interference comes from the error-correction, interleaving etc.

link to this comment
Wayne Cochrane's 8 posts IE flag
J
John Pilkington
2:25 PM

Since other people were reporting loss of signal it seems likely that the distant transmissions were just being picked up instead where the aerial was suitably pointed.

link to this comment
John Pilkington's 15 posts GB flag
D
Darren Cotton
8:21 PM

Anyone got a further update on WMC? My partner is getting close to killing me if I can't find away of getting it fixed.

I have emailed and spoken to operator of the mast and they're reporting no issues; however if you can see pick up signal from another mast okay, how can we be having issues with this one?

Confused.com!

link to this comment
Darren Cotton's 4 posts GB flag
Thursday, 11 July 2013
S
Stuart
8:21 AM
Loughborough

The WMC issue is very real, as is the likelihood of a possible two deaths as a result of it (much like Darren I am living in fear of my other half because I can't fix this).

The seems to be lots of discussion about fixes and there not being a problem but it is as simple as this in my eyes:
a) before the retune all channels working perfectly
b) post the retune itv, channel 5 etc don't exist

The very unreasonable stance taken by the broadcaster is that WMC doesn't have a freeview logo is not helpful. Should I be questioning if I should pay for my TV licence in full because many channels are not available, i think not.

The fact that I can get these channels via mediaportal is what told me that this is a wmc issue but Microsoft don't acknowledge that there is a problem either, highlighting that if it worked before then it is the broadcasters fault.

Please can someone out there do something to resolve this before both Darren and I are snuffed out by respective other halves.

link to this comment
Stuart's 4 posts GB flag
Stuart's: mapS's Freeview map terrainS's terrain plot wavesS's frequency data S's Freeview Detailed Coverage
J
John Pilkington
11:51 AM

I have a response to my email of 10 July. It's similar to John's as reported on 8 July. Mast operator reports no issues, info passed to infrastructure team, will contact me again if they have anything to say. Ho hum.

There has been a change; I've quoted details.
It might be within their specs and I can live with it. Good luck.

link to this comment
John Pilkington's 15 posts GB flag
S
sjapge
6:48 PM

WMC is working now !

dont know why , have not updated anything but 5 and 3 work fine - strange !

link to this comment
sjapge's 3 posts GB flag
S
Steve Hatton
8:01 PM

Yeah mine has suddenly started working. Very strange.

link to this comment
Steve Hatton's 10 posts GB flag
J
john
9:57 PM

jb38,
Thank-you for your comments. There really is so much to learn about broadcasting.

I am not in a position to realign our aerial to Belmont, unfortunately. I had considered asking an extended family member to realign it to Sutton Coldfield, but after I mentioned it in passing they all disappeared.

I take what you say about negative offset frequencies. If that is the case, I believe it has always been the case (recent past anyway). PSB2 on Waltham was unaffected by the 4G retune issue as far as I am aware. It was PSB1 mux that was moved, necessitating the retune on 29 May last.

Here no unusual reception difficulties were noticed until 16 June when ITV failed. Subsequently I noted that Channel5, E4, More 4 and such (but not Channel4 or Channel4+1) showed only black screens.

It appears that ITV1, ITV+1 and Channel5 are back here this evening. How long for? Let's hope...

link to this comment
john's 20 posts GB flag
Friday, 12 July 2013
J
John Pilkington
8:44 AM

It's fixed. The mysterious extra video streams in the ITV/CH4/CH5 mux have gone away. Good for the 'infrastructure team'!

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