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Full Freeview on the Dover (Kent, England) transmitter

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The symbol shows the location of the Dover (Kent, England) transmitter which serves 190,000 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 Dover (Kent, England) mast?

Dover transmitter - Dover 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 Dover 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
C33 (570.0MHz)370mDTG-80,000W
Channel icons
1 BBC One (SD) South 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
C35 (586.0MHz)370mDTG-80,000W
Channel icons
3 ITV 1 (SD) (Meridian (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 (Meridian south coast),

PSB3
BBCB
 H max
C36 (594.0MHz)370mDTG-80,000W
Channel icons
46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD South 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 -3dB
C39 (618.0MHz)370mDTG-840,000W
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
C42 (642.0MHz)370mDTG-840,000W
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
C48 (690.0MHz)370mDTG-840,000W
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 Dover (Kent, 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 Dover transmitter?

regional news image
BBC South East Today 0.8m homes 3.2%
from Tunbridge Wells TN1 1QQ, 69km west (270°)
to BBC South East region - 45 masts.
regional news image
ITV Meridian News 0.7m homes 2.7%
from Maidstone ME14 5NZ, 52km west-northwest (289°)
to ITV Meridian (East) region - 36 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 50% evening news is shared with all of Meridian plus Oxford

How will the Dover (Kent, England) transmission frequencies change over time?

1960-80s1984-971997-981998-20122012-1316 Oct 2019
VHFC/D EC/D EC/D EC/D E TW T
C10ITVwaves
C33BBCA
C35D3+4
C36BBCB
C39SDN
C42ArqA
C48ArqBArqB
C50tv_offBBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBCA
C51tv_offD3+4
C53tv_offC4wavesC4wavesC4wavesBBCB
C55tv_offSDN
C56tv_offBBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBC2waves
C57tv_off_local_local
C59tv_offArqA
C66ITVwavesITVwavesITVwaves

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 13 Jun 12 and 27 Jun 12.

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

Analogue 1-4 100kW
BBCA, D3+4, BBCB(-1dB) 80kW
SDN, ARQA, ARQB(-4dB) 40kW
Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*(-17dB) 2kW
Mux 1*, Mux C*(-20dB) 1000W
Mux D*(-23dB) 500W

Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Dover transmitter area

Aug 1958-Jan 1992Southern Television
Jan 1982-Dec 1992Television South (TVS)
Jan 1993-Feb 2004Meridian
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.

Comments
Monday, 18 February 2013
D
Dr. John Pritchard
8:34 PM
Ramsgate

Thank you, Dave Lindsay! The stub roads are still stubs, and you are right in noting that the Westwood Cross development is growing. However, the copse and park to the South of us are scheduled to remain as local amenities for the foreseeable future. My guess is that the stub roads will lead into a new Sainsbury (for deliveries) and out to Newington Road along an existing hedgeline, probably replacing an existing footpath between two schools. All a bit bizarre, but there we are.

From line of sight when sitting on the roof next to the ariels (real sight, not through a telescope) there does not appear to be any obstruction in the way. My cabling is all WF125 with F-plugs so on a presumption, now, that my signal strength is too strong, not too weak, I'm going to try an adjustable attenuator and taking my preamp/splitter out of the circuit with the best aeriel see if that may help in bringing the Dover Transmitter's 80 kw MUCS within tolerances that my HDMI television can accept. I'll also see if the attenuator will do the decent thing in downgrading a less powerful aeriel to our kitchen tv to make to restore domestic harmony there, too. And your suggestion regarding the b&w/colour shifts on our bedroom computer makes sense: I've checked the RF lead to the digibox (it, too, is WF125) and the plugs at each end are fine, but the digibox connects to the tv via a ribbon SCART lead that runs up the back of the tv case to the digibox on top of the set. So the SCART lead now seems to me the most likely culprit as that's the only analogue link in the chain. If that fails, I guess the next suspects are (1) the digibox itself notwithstanding the fact that it is the only one in the house that is now delivering all channels from Dover, or (2) the 20-year-old set which must be getting near its end of life anyway. Anyway, your advice that the b&w/colour shifts must be an analogue problem is hugely helpful. I'll report on the outcome of these changes in case that helps others!

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Dr. John Pritchard's 8 posts GB flag
Dr.'s: mapD's Freeview map terrainD's terrain plot wavesD's frequency data D's Freeview Detailed Coverage
D
Dr. John Pritchard
8:48 PM
Ramsgate

Oh, one more thing: Manston Airport does lie less than a mile away and the incoming flights do cross my line of sight to Dover. Strangely enough, this has never affected my reception at all, even during Air Shows (and be it remembered that in the distant past, Manston was capable of launching whole squadrons of Hurricanes & Spitfires all abreast, and later the place was used by lumbering great B-52s. Nowadays, while the debate over Boris Island continues, Manston seems fated to remain underused until the powers that be build a parkland station there and upgrade our tracks to suit our existing local Javelin 140mph train services on the line to St. Pancras International via Ashford. At present, however we don't have as much as one single scheduled flight a day into or out of Manston's 8000 foot nunways and the odd freighters that use the airport really cause no perceptible nuisances at all save to a few homes that sit right under the flight paths (most of which end up out over the Channel or the North Sea except for periods that can be measured in seconds.


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Dr. John Pritchard's 8 posts GB flag
Dr.'s: mapD's Freeview map terrainD's terrain plot wavesD's frequency data D's Freeview Detailed Coverage
D
Dr. John Pritchard
11:51 PM
Ramsgate

The Hi-gain aerial for my HDMI tv is a Televes DAT 45; the aerial for the kitchen tv is a wideband high gain 52-element aerial from a leading supermarket (ahem). The oldest aerial is a straight-forward group C/D 18-element log without any balun but with a "solid" flat-sheet reflector (with slots): I think it might be an old Antiference: not sure. The Televes and log aerials share the same cranked pole, and I'll see if I can increase the distance between them to avoid possible resonances or other interactions between them. Dave, any advice on how far apart they should be?

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Dr.'s: mapD's Freeview map terrainD's terrain plot wavesD's frequency data D's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Tuesday, 19 February 2013
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

7:51 AM

Dr. John Pritchard: Purely on the subject of your older analogue television alternating between B & W and colour, I don't really feel that anything done will rectify this problem as its most likely being caused by either a bad PCB joint on the crystal used in the colour decoder (commonly known as the colourburst crystal) or its the actual crystal itself that has developed a fault, this usually where the wire from the lead in pin is fused onto the crystal, something not exactly unheard of hence their relatively low cost.

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jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
Dave Lindsay
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

11:30 AM

Anything, particularly within the first Fresnel zone (look it up), can affect reception, by refraction. I imagine that it's likely, particularly with the path being close to the ground, that there's quite a lot of clutter in the first Fresnel zone. Reflections can also affect reception because the reflected signal (the echo) is combined, or summed, with the main signal at the receiving aerial. The worst case extreme is that they are 180 degrees out of phase and therefore cancel each other out and you get nothing (I give the extreme merely to illustrate the point). Even the professionals say that RF is a black art.

Digital reception requires a good quality signal, where the digits are intact. A receiver requires the signal strength to be over a lower threshold, but not greater than an upper threshold, over which it becomes unstable. Basically, you need the strength to be within that window. As a matter of good practice, the objective is to have the signal strength sufficiently above the lower threshold such that natural variances in strength (owing to the weather etc.) aren't likely to mean it dipping under. By the same logic, there should be room for the signal strength to increase a bit without putting it OTT. The point is, therefore, that the picture is exactly the same irrespective of strength, and so the objective is *not* to get the strength as high as possible; it is to get the quality high and strength within the window.

The WF125 flylead isn't going to make much difference unless it happens to be sited within lots of interference. WF100 is more than sufficient for terrestrial frequencies, although WF125 does have a PE sheath, rather than PVC, which is better on the odd day that the sun does shine bright enough for the UV levels to be high.

You could try swapping the scart end-to-end. This scart system encompasses several different types signal and not all TVs support all types. RGB is best as all three colours go along separate wires, as opposed to being combined when sent and uncombined when received (which means quality isn't as good). If the set supports RGB, and I'm not sure how likely it might be to do so, then use RGB - it will need activating in the box's setup menu. You can, of course, take the digibox and scart to another TV and see how it works with that, and you may be able to try the old TV with a box in another room; this should give you an idea whether it's the box, the lead or the TV.

I'm not a professional, so can't say how much gap should be allowed between multiple aerials on a mast. However, I think that you should be looking to run all three TVs from a single aerial. It may be that you can do this using an unpowered splitter, or you may need some amplification, but you have some at your disposal anyway!

See A.T.V (Aerials And Television) TV Aerial, DAB Aerial, FM Aerial. for lots of information. For a start off, the old C/D aerial you have sounds like a crappy contract aerial; see A.T.V (Aerials And Television) TV Aerial, DAB Aerial, FM Aerial. aerials.html

The question you've got to ask is: is this a strength issue or a quality issue? I shall assume that you've looked at strength.

What could be the cause of poor quality, I ask myself. Remember I'm not a professional.

For a start off, the industrial buildings that are around you could be causing reflections. How were the analogue signals before they were switched off? Were there any clues such as ghosting which gradually got worse as more and more units were errected? Obviously before switchover the digital was weaker, so any reflections would also have been weaker and therefore have been less of an issue.

I can see your aerials on Streetview (June 2009) and they don't look very high, whilst your neighbours' are. Height isn't necessarily everything though. Could the single tree at the back be in close enough proximity to have an effect, I wonder?

There is a triangle-shaped clump of trees behind Cherry Tree Gardens and Highfield Road; might they be the cause of poor reception and could increasing the height of the aerial reduce their impact?


The thing with aerials is that the gain, in one direction, is at the expense of greater "loss" in other directions. So, generally, a higher gain focuses on a narrower "beam". This is an important point to bear in mind because you are interested in getting a good quality signal. Imagine you are the aerial looking out over a narrow angle and within that space there is a lot of clutter which is resulting in refracted (poor) light. Having a wider angle might allow you to see, on average, better quality light.

Now consider something like trees which are moving and so it follows that any effect of those trees must be changing. In some cases, these changes mean that the signal, at the receiving point, isn't usuable and so the picture breaks up.

If you have an amplifier, you can boost the strength if it isn't great enough, but you can't rebuild a poor quality signal; quality starts at the aerial. Even with a lower gain aerial, you may find that there is ample signal strength to feed one or more TVs.


See A.T.V (Aerials And Television) TV Aerial, DAB Aerial, FM Aerial. polardiagrams.html Log periodic aerials have a much neater polar response whereas yagis tend to have lobes. If the issue is poor quality caused by reflections, perhaps from the nearby industrial buildings, then these would appear to behind you and to the sides. A log may fare better at "rejecting" those reflections.

Read the bits on log aerials on the ATV site; the saying is "If you can use a log, use a log."

There are plenty of suppliers out there. I came across this one which sells a range of logs, each for less than £20 including delivery:

Aerials [Aerial Type: Uhf Log-periodic] > AerialSat.com

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Dave Lindsay's 5,724 posts GB flag
Thursday, 21 February 2013
D
Dr. John Pritchard
9:40 PM
Ramsgate

Thanks, Dave. This is exceedingly helpful.

Changing the SCART lead didn't help on the analogue colour shifts: you're right. It did appear to make the colours more intense, which was unexpected. I'll check the other things out, by swopping the ancient tv for another that I can put in that bedroom. Adding the attenuator to the kitchen tv immediately brought back two of the three missing MUCs, including the BBC and ITV stations. I'll fine-tune the adjustable attenuation and see if the fifth MUC can be recovered, too. The power bricks and AC cabling appears to be affecting hum levels on the tv audio in the kitchen: more careful positioning dropped that back to a fraction of what it was. The aerial fly lead to the decoder is very poorly shielded (I'd ignored that before): the rest of the cabling is WF125 but that last two metres is a joke, especially as it is in close proximity to poorly shielded rfi sources. I'll just make up a new MF 125 cable and see what happens. I expect that to sort out the hum problem, at least!

What you say about the height of the aerial is highly relevant. I kept it low deliberately in part because there's a large aerial array not far from us (behind a local fire station on the Margate Road) and I felt keeping the aerials low helps to shield us from any rear lobe on our aerials. But the copse about 100m between us and the route to the Dover transmitter has grown like crazy in the past few years. All you've said on that score and on reflections from other near-ground topographical features between us and our horizon makes sense. In the case of the copse in particular, that extra 15 - 20 feet of height added in the past six years since we moved here won't be doing us any favours. Likewise two tall trees on our property line with our neighbour nearest to my best aerial have grown rapidly, too, and their span as well as their height could be adding all kinds of reflections, not least because there's a catenary cable between the bottom of the aerial pole and outbuildings to the rear: that catenary line carries two CAT 6e signal cables but when the trees and cabling are wet and swinging, well, probably not good. In the spring I hope to be able to put that cabling into underground conduits. One of the trees is also likely to go. Raising the pole will also happen as soon as I get another wall-bracket to take part of the weight and dampen oscillations in windy conditions. But tomorrow I'll also be testing the effect of the adjustable attenuator on our HDMI decoder and main tv: with a little luck that will restore domestic bliss within our household until the other work can be done with the weather improves!

In case all of this helps others, and just to offer further feedback, I'll record here any further developments as I continue to try to sort this out in the days or weeks ahead. Meanwhile, thanks, Dave!

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Dr. John Pritchard's 8 posts GB flag
Dr.'s: mapD's Freeview map terrainD's terrain plot wavesD's frequency data D's Freeview Detailed Coverage
D
Dr. John Pritchard
9:52 PM
Ramsgate

PS, Dave: I've taken onboard your observations about Log periodics, Yagis and high-gain one-size-to-fit-all models like my Televes DAT 45 (which to the unitiated is like the model shown on the chimney in the photo to the left of this forum). Having looked at the stats and your remarks, it all does make sense to me. The Televis was probably over-kill, but in the pre-switchover years when freeview was just building up, the Televes was highly recommended by one of our best local electrical supply houses. Very glad I was sensible enough not to go for the DAT 75 model. Those are beautifully crafted products, however, and I did have in mind the possibility of multipath problems that the Televes are said to cope with well.

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Dr. John Pritchard's 8 posts GB flag
Dr.'s: mapD's Freeview map terrainD's terrain plot wavesD's frequency data D's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Dave Lindsay
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

11:05 PM

Dr. John Pritchard: I was looking at the tower you mention on Margate Road. Whilst we obviously can't say for certain, it may be a pretty safe bet though that it will carry 800MHz 4G, particularly as it's so high up and therefore well-place to serve a large area.

This got me wondering whether it is home to a Tetra base station, but according to Ofcom Sitefinder, there are Airwave's base stations elsewhere within a few miles of you.

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Dave Lindsay's 5,724 posts GB flag
Saturday, 23 February 2013
D
Dr. John Pritchard
12:00 PM
Ramsgate

Thanks, Dave. the answer is certainly yes, re. Tetra base stations. I suspect you will be right about 4G. There are certainly 3G aerials on all of the high buildings in the vicinity including the sites of the two vertically polarised television sites for Margate (80 watt) and Ramsgate (50 watt), but as you will know those sites offer a very limited number of channels.

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Dr. John Pritchard's 8 posts GB flag
Dr.'s: mapD's Freeview map terrainD's terrain plot wavesD's frequency data D's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Dave Lindsay
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

1:19 PM

Dr. John Pritchard: The 4G filters that are available will also filter out tetra as they only allow UHF channels 21 to 60 through. All of those I've seen online are the SAC AE5100.

An advantage of changing to a system with only one aerial is that you need only one filter, to be fitted before the amplifier. You have already removed the possibility of interference being picked up in the cables by using WF125. The lowest price I've seen so far is about £8 including delivery on eBay.

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