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Full Freeview on the Sudbury (Suffolk, England) transmitter

first published this on - UK Free TV
sa_streetviewGoogle Streetviewsa_gmapsGoogle mapsa_bingBing mapsa_gearthGoogle Earthsa_gps52.005,0.786 or 52°0'17"N 0°47'8"Esa_postcodeCO10 5NG

 

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 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
_______

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
Thursday, 16 August 2018
C
Chris.SE
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

5:11 AM

Martin:
I replied to your post on the Bluebell Hill transmitter page where I said -
"According to the postcode you submitted on another post, you may get the most reliable reception from a
Sudbury repeater at Rouncefall (check your DigitalUK predicted reception). Your comments in your post here suggest that the engineer that did your "retune" is not familiar enough with local reception issues since the recent transmitter retunes that have taken place. Either that or he didn't advise you appropriately.
The "problem" with your reception issues from Bluebell Hill are most likely due to interference from other transmitters as more transmitters are now sharing these channels."

link to this comment
Chris.SE's 4,102 posts GB flag
Friday, 17 August 2018
N
nick horrex
sentiment_satisfiedGold

7:50 PM

Mike, it is my location, wiped out by interference from abroad. I am by the sea.
However, when they devised this system, they should have thought of that.

link to this comment
nick horrex's 425 posts GB flag
Saturday, 18 August 2018
MikeP
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

10:49 AM

nick horrex:

It was considered carefully when the usage of channels was planned. But the main problem you have is that the weather causes signals to travel much further than normal at times of high pressure or high temperatures. As that is a well known natural phenomenon there is nothing anyone can do to prevent irt happening. All you can do is to ensure that your aerial system as as directional as possible, even if that means using a higher gain aerial and fitting attenuators, and siting it so that it does not 'see' the signal from unwanted sources. The aerial has to be very carefully aimed so that any side lobe reception does not include the unwanted signals.

I once had a customer who had a simialr problem and we had a 48 element high gain aerial fitted (they have far better rejection of unwanted signals) and we had to adjust the aim so that it received the wanted signals but not the unwanted ones.



link to this comment
MikeP's 3,056 posts GB flag
Monday, 20 August 2018
H
Hardy
sentiment_satisfiedSilver

2:06 PM

Nick. Its unfortunate that the reduction in available channels forced on the tv industry means that an area like yours is bound to suffer since it is over 50 miles away from a main transmitter. Since you already have a high gain aerial for the high frequency end of the band I think this is the best you can use for getting com7 and 8 from Tacolneston short of using two of them! If you added a small vertically polarised aerial for Alderborough at least you should get good reception of multiplexes 1, 2 and 3.
My situation is similar on the coast so I have gone for the satellite solution .free to air satellite receivers can be had much cheaper than a freesat receiver . (but I don't recommend the really cheapest ones) These pick up freesat channels (plus other satellites if wanted) but just don't have the programme guide. by using a quad LNB head four receivers in four rooms can be used from one dish.

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Hardy's 137 posts GB flag
Wednesday, 22 August 2018
N
nick horrex
sentiment_satisfiedGold

9:39 AM

thanks Hardy and Mike.

For all my complaining, the situation is marginally improved since the move from channels 58 and 60.
I just hope that this really is the last move. As well as trying various high gain aerials, I make my own. My latest, made since Aug 1 is a cracker, marginally outperforms all others, and easier to design since I only have to cover channels 29 to 47. Nevertheless, when the atmospherics are wrong, ALL channels are lost briefly. For example, if on sd BBC, switching to hd does not work either.
As regards multielement aerials, I have found this not to solve the problem since I believe the foreign stations are coming in by bouncing off the ionoshere, ie, from above.

link to this comment
nick horrex's 425 posts GB flag
N
nick horrex
sentiment_satisfiedGold

9:48 AM

Mike P
A question for you re high gain amp with attenuators.
As well as shop bought amplifiers, I have dissected ones which sit behind the tv, [useless things] and put the amplifying part by the aerial and the supply behind the tv. Obviously I cannot link the two by coax, so run a separate wire to the amp.
If I supply the amp with, say, 3, 6 or 9 volts instead of 12, will this have the same effect as a 27db amp with attenuators of different capacities?
The object of this exercise is to avoid buying several different unsuitable attenuators.

link to this comment
nick horrex's 425 posts GB flag
MikeP
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

10:32 AM

Nick:

Reducing the voltage supplied to the amplifier is very likely to seriously affect the way it operates. The electronics is designed to operate with a specified supply voltage and if that reduces it may well not work as originally intended. Think of what happens to a radio when the batteries are going flat. Think of how a battery powered clock slows down when the battery needs replacing.



link to this comment
MikeP's 3,056 posts GB flag
H
Hardy
sentiment_satisfiedSilver

11:05 AM

re optimising gain and avoiding interference. adjustable gain amplifiers are not that expensive . Mounting the aerial in the clear to avoid picking up reflections helps as does multi element and stacked aerials .Where interfering transmitters are behind the aerial choose one with low reverse pick up.
"foreign" interference comes via refraction in the atmosphere (trophospere) rather like the effect of a mirage where a distant town can be seen further away than it should. UHF does not bounce from the ionosphere. Its best to have gain in the aerial as amplifier gain comes with noise and the possibility of strong interference knocking out several channels rather than one.

link to this comment
Hardy's 137 posts GB flag
N
nick horrex
sentiment_satisfiedGold

7:42 PM

Hardy, thank you, you are a very helpful fellow.
Please explain what you mean by a stacked array.
Does a variable gain amplifier have a knob in the room you can turn? I have seen amps with several sockets of different gain, but cannot keep taking down aerial to try each one! No good experimenting at 8ft height in the garden as gain is higher on the roof.
How about connecting the aerial amp to its supply, but between supply and tv using an old volume control?

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nick horrex's 425 posts GB flag
N
nick horrex
sentiment_satisfiedGold

7:46 PM

thanks, Mike

link to this comment
nick horrex's 425 posts GB flag
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