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Full Freeview on the Mendip (Somerset, England) transmitter

first published this on - UK Free TV
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The symbol shows the location of the Mendip (Somerset, England) transmitter which serves 720,000 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 Mendip (Somerset, England) mast?

Mendip transmitter - Mendip 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 Mendip 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)591mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
1 BBC One (SD) West, 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)591mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
3 ITV 1 (SD) (West), 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 (West),

PSB3
BBCB
 H max
C35 (586.0MHz)591mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD West, 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
C48 (690.0MHz)591mDTG-8100,000W
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
C33 (570.0MHz)591mDTG-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
C36 (594.0MHz)591mDTG-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

LBS
 H -10dB
C30 (546.0MHz)591mDTG-1210,000W
Channel icons
from 22nd September 2014: 7 Made in Bristol,

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 Mendip transmitter?

regional news image
BBC Points West 0.9m homes 3.4%
from Bristol BS8 2LR, 25km north (3°)
to BBC West region - 60 masts.
regional news image
ITV West Country News (East) 0.9m homes 3.4%
from Bristol BS4 3HG, 23km north (11°)
to ITV West region - 61 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 50% evening news is shared with West Country (West)

Are there any self-help relays?

CheddarTransposer15 km E Weston-super-Mare1674 homes
LuccombeActive deflector6 km w Minehead38 homes

How will the Mendip (Somerset, England) transmission frequencies change over time?

1984-971997-981998-20102010-132013-182013-1727 Feb 2018
C/D EEEC/D EC/D E TW TW T
C30_local
C32BBCA
C33com7com7
C34D3+4
C35com8com8
C36ArqB
C37C5wavesC5waves
C48SDNSDNSDNSDN
C49tv_off BBCABBCA
C51tv_offLBSLBS
C52tv_offArqBArqBArqB
C54tv_offC4wavesC4wavesC4wavesD3+4D3+4D3+4
C55tv_offcom7tv_off
C56tv_offArqAArqAArqACOM8tv_off
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 24 Mar 10 and 7 Apr 10.

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

Analogue 1-4 500kW
Analogue 5(-6dB) 126kW
SDN, ARQA, ARQB, BBCA, D3+4, BBCB(-7dB) 100kW
com7(-8.4dB) 72.4kW
com8(-8.6dB) 69.1kW
Mux 1*, Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*, Mux C*, Mux D*, LBS(-17dB) 10kW

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

Jan 1958-Jul 1968Television Wales and the West
Jul 1968-Feb 2004Harlech 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. Mendip 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, 17 January 2018
S
StevensOnln1
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

7:15 PM

Graham: As you've posted on the Mendip page, presumably you are talking about receiving ITV Central HD on Freeview. This is because ITV currently only transmit four of their regions in HD on Freeview in England (London, Meridian, Central and Granada). More ITV HD regions are available on satellite, but as ITV HD is broadcast on Freeview capacity belonging to the BBC, we probably won't see any further ITV HD regions being made available via Freeview until the BBC are in a position to start broadcasting regional versions of BBC One HD (both are broadcast on the PSB3 multiplex which is owned/operated by the BBC).

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StevensOnln1's 3,606 posts GB flag
Thursday, 18 January 2018
T
TimH
2:58 AM

No COM7 or COM8 (UHF chs 33 and 35) at the moment (~3am), are they off at night time for engineering work? COM7 was fine earlier today. I see that they will disappear at the end of March this year, perhaps that is related. Other muxes e.g. the man HD mux (ch58) are fine.

link to this comment
TimH's 8 posts US flag
S
StevensOnln1
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

10:39 AM

TimH: It would be very unusual for any engineering work to take place overnight (unless there was a fault). COM7 & COM8 are not closing in March, they are moving to form a national single frequency network (SFN) on UHF channels 55 & 56 (where they will remain until some time between 2020 and 2022), although according to Digital UK those changes aren't happening at Mendip until Spring 2019. Several multiplexes will change frequencies around the same time (although it looks like this will happen in three steps on different dates). The only changes taking place at Mendip this year are that COM5 will move to UHF 33 and COM7 will temporarily move to UHF 36 on 27th February.

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StevensOnln1's 3,606 posts GB flag
J
John Sykes
9:28 PM

we have a Philips HD pvr HDT 8520 working off Mendip: all channels OK and decodable, including CH33. It lost the mux which includes BBC4 HD, so I ended up doing a factory reset and retuning. It pauses to ask which network to choose: "West" (116 tv's) or "Com78 National" (28). You can't choose both. If I select "West", it then puts the BBC4 HD mux channels up in the 815 channel area with no metadata to enable program recording. If I choose "Com78 National" we have the correct channel numbering for BBC4 HD (106) and the other HD channels in Ch33 mux, but not for the normal BBC1/ITV/Ch4 hd's etc, which end up with no metadata, numbered in the 200's I think. Can something be done to make the networks converge? There must hae been a change incompatible with with the box's firmware?

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John Sykes's 3 posts GB flag
Friday, 19 January 2018
T
TimH
4:10 AM

StevensOnln1: both muxes were back again this morning (of 18/1/18) and are still ok now at 4am with nothing done to my setup to bring that about - the STB signal level meter showed zero when they were out and now it back to the good level they have always had in the past. Thanks for the information about the COM7/8 changes, this information seems to be in conflict with the chart above regarding what happens after 31/3/18 where COM7/8 currently disappear.

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TimH's 8 posts GB flag
S
StevensOnln1
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

10:16 AM

TimH: The chart seems to be based on the frequencies which will be cleared for used at Mendip following completion of the 700MHz clearance in mid 2020. It doesn't show the interim shuffling of muxes to reach that final outcome as these details were only recently announced, nor does it show COM7/COM8 at their new homes in the 700MHz band as these frequencies will be auctioned off to the mobile networks at some stage and will cease being available for broadcast use (although no firm date has been announced for when COM7 & COM8 will close).

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StevensOnln1's 3,606 posts GB flag
S
StevensOnln1
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

10:17 AM

John Sykes: Does your PVR have a manual tuning function? If so, select the West region then try manually tuning COM7 on UHF channel 33 and COM8 on 35.

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StevensOnln1's 3,606 posts GB flag
J
John Sykes
12:30 PM

StevensOnln1:
No, you can only select either West or Com78 National during tuning. In either case all 140 TV channels are "tuned", but those with the "wrong" region do not have any information attached so you can't record them from the epg. Perhaps this will be resolved when the next frequency shift takes place?

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John Sykes's 3 posts GB flag
S
StevensOnln1
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

12:50 PM

John Sykes: The new Com78 National has been created because the COM7 & COM8 muxes are becoming a single frequency network (SFN) and therefore need to have identical broadcasts, therefore each transmitter has to broadcast the same region information for COM7 & COM8. I would suggest contacting Philips technical support as this will presumably affect anyone else using that model who can receive COM7/COM8 and may lead to Philips issuing a firmware update if there are a large number of affected users.

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StevensOnln1's 3,606 posts GB flag
J
John Sykes
3:00 PM

StevensOnln1:

Re "Philips technical support as this will presumably affect anyone else using that model who can receive COM7/COM8 and may lead to Philips issuing a firmware update if there are a large number of affected users."

Yes, with some difficulty I've done that: the chances are remote! The email address to report this to Philips is

reception@xgem.com

John


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John Sykes's 3 posts GB flag
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