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Full Freeview on the Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham, England) transmitter

first published this on - UK Free TV
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The symbol shows the location of the Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham, England) transmitter which serves 1,870,000 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 Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham, England) mast?

Sutton Coldfield transmitter - Sutton Coldfield 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 Sutton Coldfield 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
C43 (650.0MHz)433mDTG-200,000W
Channel icons
1 BBC One (SD) West Midlands, 2 BBC Two England, 9 BBC Four, 23 BBC Three, 201 CBBC, 202 CBeebies, 231 BBC News, 232 BBC Parliament, plus 19 others

PSB2
D3+4
 H max
C46 (674.0MHz)433mDTG-200,000W
Channel icons
3 ITV 1 (SD) (Central (West 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
C40+ (626.2MHz)433mDTG-200,000W
Channel icons
46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD West 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 max
C42 (642.0MHz)433mDTG-8200,000W
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
C45 (666.0MHz)433mDTG-8200,000W
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
C39+ (618.2MHz)433mDTG-8200,000W
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

LB
 H -13dB
C48 (690.0MHz)433mDTG-1210,000W
Channel icons
from 31st October 2014: 7 Big Centre 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 Sutton Coldfield transmitter?

regional news image
BBC Midlands Today 2.9m homes 10.9%
from Birmingham B1 1RF, 15km south-southwest (200°)
to BBC West Midlands region - 66 masts.
regional news image
ITV Central News 2.9m homes 10.9%
from Birmingham B1 2JT, 15km south-southwest (201°)
to ITV Central (West) region - 65 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 80% evening news is shared with Central (East)

Are there any self-help relays?

Burton (shobnall)Transposer1 km W Burton-on-Trent60 homes
CoalvilleTransposer18 km NW Leicester600 homes
SolihullTransposerLand Rover building400 homes

How will the Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham, England) transmission frequencies change over time?

1950s-80s1984-971997-981998-20112011-137 Mar 2018
VHFB E TB E TB E TB E K TW T
C4BBCtvwaves
C33com7
C35com8
C36LOCAL2
C39+ArqBArqB
C40BBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBC2waves+BBCBBBCB
C42SDNSDN
C43ITVwavesITVwavesITVwavesBBCABBCA
C45ArqAArqA
C46BBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBC1wavesD3+4D3+4
C48_local
C50tv_offC4wavesC4wavesC4waves
C51tv_offLB
C55tv_offcom7tv_off
C56tv_offCOM8tv_off

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 7 Sep 11 and 21 Sep 11.

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

Analogue 1-4 1000kW
SDN, ARQA, ARQB, BBCA, D3+4, BBCB(-7dB) 200kW
com7(-10.5dB) 89.2kW
com8(-10.7dB) 86kW
LB(-20dB) 10kW
Mux 1*, Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*, Mux C*, Mux D*(-21dB) 8kW

Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Sutton Coldfield 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. Sutton Coldfield 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, 7 March 2018
D
Darren
9:58 AM
Wolverhampton

Hi, Some channels have moved to UHF 55 and 56 today as per
Freeview Frequency Changes - 7th March 2018 - Overview - a516digital


Does anyone know what frequencies are being used? I have to enter them manually into my PC TV card software.

link to this comment
Darren's 3 posts GB flag
Darren's: mapD's Freeview map terrainD's terrain plot wavesD's frequency data D's Freeview Detailed Coverage
S
Stuart
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

11:25 AM

Channel 55 is on 746mhz and channel 56 is on 754mhz

link to this comment
Stuart's 34 posts GB flag
J
jim
12:27 PM

Why on earth do they bother broadcasting channel 100 ?

Why is there pre-arranged and fault information on those pages ?
What a waste of electricity.

We've lost 30 channels today and there's no information or notice.
And it looks like it's country wide - all at the same time. Why for gods sake?

Freeview is going in the bin I think - we've had just about enough
of rubbish signals rubbish programs logos and text all over the screens
and picture quality massively below VHS tape !!!
We spent good money on HD equipment and they are STILL broadcasting HD as interlaced.

Its about time ALL channels were HD as well.

Its not as if they are even trying to provide a service to viewers.
There's so much advertising they're having to put it in the programs
now masquerading as "fashion advice"
6 advert breaks in a single movie is just flat out insulting.

Even the menu system is being manipulated to drive you to rubbish programs.

Calling it pathetic is an insult to the pathetic.

I'm sorry webmaster - but this is just gone on for far too long with no action
or public outlet.

And you should stop being a nuisance with the idiotic EU cookie notice - you dont need to put it there or as big.
Doesnt anyone know the meaning of "service" anymore?

link to this comment
jim's 2 posts GB flag
M
MikeB
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

2:25 PM

jim:

Where to start....

'Freeview is going in the bin I think - we've had just about enough
of rubbish signals rubbish programs logos and text all over the screens
and picture quality massively below VHS tape !!!
We spent good money on HD equipment and they are STILL broadcasting HD as interlaced.

Its about time ALL channels were HD as well.

The signal strength is pretty much the same as analogue - and the picture quality certainly isn't below VHS tape - if you think it is, you need your eyes tested.

HD interlaced? So its below VHS quality, but 'only' 1080i? Which is the problem here - quality awful or not quite full HD? You cannot complain about both.

I'd like it if everything was in HD - blame the people who still insist on having a DVB tuner, rather than just getting a T2 tuner - if there was enough takeup then SD would vanish.

And the menu system is....the menu system. Nobody is driving you to watch rubbish programmes unless you want to.

A lot of noise....

link to this comment
MikeB's 2,579 posts GB flag
Thursday, 8 March 2018
MikeP
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

11:58 AM

Jim:

Analogue VHS has/had a bandwidth of 3.75 MHz for the pictures. Analogue S-VHS has/had a bandwirdth of 4.25 MHz for the pictures.

Freeview SD has the equivalent bandwidth of 5 MHz so is better definition than even S-VHS. HD has an equivalent bandwidth of at least 6.5 MHz so is higher definition than any VHS system or Betamax, etc. It is also better definition than Freeview SD. (With Freeview being digital, the term 'bandwidth' is purely relative.) Analogue UHF TV broadcasts had a vision bandwidth on 5.5 MHz maximum, but cheaper equipment gave poorer results, as does cheaper digital equipment. So Freeview HD is higher definition, as broadcast, than SD and any previous analogue TV transmission.

However, the equipment you use makes a huge difference to what you see. Poorer quality TVs tend to show lower definition images, you only get what you pay for.

The amount of advertising shown by various channels is often the only way they earn an income to pay for the programmes and transmission, no adverts means no programmes unless it is a publicly funded service such as the BBC.

The EPG is probably the nearest listing to what will actually be broadcast. Many TV listings magazines have significant errors (example, one programme we wanted to watch Monday was shown in a listing mag as being on at 10PM, when it was actually broadcast at 9 PM!)



link to this comment
MikeP's 3,056 posts GB flag
L
Lesley
12:17 PM

My retune went surprisingly pain free. I like freeview because it's free once you buy the equipment, all other options cost way more. If you don't like adverts, watch everything recorded or slightly behind live, and fast forward through them, I rarely watch an advert.

link to this comment
Lesley's 6 posts GB flag
L
Lesley
12:18 PM

Actually I do have one gripe, partically on HD recordings, just lately it seems to cut the end of programmes off, never used to be quite so bad, what happened to the little message that supposed to be sent that detects when programmes actually finished?

link to this comment
Lesley's 6 posts GB flag
R
Richard
1:13 PM

I suddenly lost channel 33 yesterday - neither reset autotuning nor manual tuning works yet no problems are reported. I don't see any adverse weather and nothing else has changed - same TV, aerial and all other channels are normal from Sutton Coldfield.

link to this comment
Richard's 8 posts GB flag
R
Richard
1:32 PM

Just discovered that the Sutton Coldfield transmitter apparently moved com7 and com8 yesterday from channels 33 and 35 to 55 and 56 respectively. I can't get any reception for the new frequencies: why not?

link to this comment
Richard's 8 posts GB flag
M
Mel
8:42 PM
Wolverhampton

Richard:

You Wrote: "Just discovered that the Sutton Coldfield transmitter apparently moved com7 and com8 yesterday from channels 33 and 35 to 55 and 56 respectively. I can't get any reception for the new frequencies: why not?"

I can receive 55 and 56 from Sutton on my (newish) Samsung UHD TV.

I can't receive 55 and 56 on my older and smaller Samsung SD TV, despite them being listed by the manual tuning function. Both TV's are connected to the same aerial.

It looks as though some older and cheaper TV's simply can't receive channels 55 and 56.


link to this comment
Mel's 1 post GB flag
Mel's: mapM's Freeview map terrainM's terrain plot wavesM's frequency data M's Freeview Detailed Coverage
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