Full Freeview on the Sandy Heath (Central Bedfordshire, England) transmitter
 | Google Streetview |  | Google map |  | Bing map |  | Google Earth |  | 52.130,-0.242 or 52°7'47"N 0°14'33"W |  | SG19 2NH |
The symbol shows the location of the Sandy Heath (Central Bedfordshire, England) transmitter which serves 920,000 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 Sandy Heath (Central Bedfordshire, England) mast?
Sandy Heath transmitter - Sandy Heath transmitter: Possible effect on TV reception week commencing 22/04/2024 Pixelation or flickering on some or all channels 
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Digital television services are broadcast on a multiplexes (or Mux) where many stations occupy a single broadcast frequency, as shown below.
64QAM 8K 3/4 27.1Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2
H/V: aerial position (horizontal or vertical)
Which Freeview channels does the Sandy Heath 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.
64QAM 8K 3/4 27.1Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2
H/V: aerial position (horizontal or vertical)
Which BBC and ITV regional news can I watch from the Sandy Heath transmitter?
BBC Look East (West) 1.0m homes 3.7%
from Cambridge CB4 0WZ, 29km east-northeast (65°)
to BBC Cambridge region - 4 masts.
70% of BBC East (East) and BBC East (West) is shared output
ITV Anglia News 1.0m homes 3.7%
from Norwich NR1 3JG, 119km east-northeast (60°)
to ITV Anglia (West) region - 5 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 80% evening news is shared with Anglia (East)
How will the Sandy Heath (Central Bedfordshire, England) transmission frequencies change over time?
| 1965-80s | 1984-97 | 1997-98 | 1998-2011 | 2011-13 | 12 Feb 2020 | ||||
| VHF | A K T | K T | K T | W T | W T | ||||
| C6 | ITVwaves | ||||||||
| C21 | C4waves | C4waves | C4waves | +BBCB | BBCB | ||||
| C24 | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | D3+4 | D3+4 | ||||
| C27 | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBCA | BBCA | ||||
| C31 | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | ||||||
| C32 | com7 | ||||||||
| C33 | SDN | ||||||||
| C34 | com8 | ||||||||
| C35 | _local | ||||||||
| C36 | ArqA | ||||||||
| C39 | C5waves | C5waves | |||||||
| C43 | _local | ||||||||
| C48 | ArqB | ArqB | |||||||
| C51tv_off | SDN | ||||||||
| C52tv_off | ArqA | ||||||||
| C55tv_off | com7tv_off | ||||||||
| C56tv_off | COM8tv_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 30 Mar 11 and 13 Apr 11.
How do the old analogue and currrent digital signal levels compare?
| Analogue 1-4 | 1000kW | |
| BBCA, D3+4, BBCB | (-7.4dB) 180kW | |
| SDN, ARQA, ARQB | (-7.7dB) 170kW | |
| com7 | (-13dB) 49.6kW | |
| com8 | (-13.1dB) 49.1kW | |
| Mux 1*, Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*, Mux C*, Mux D* | (-17dB) 20kW | |
| Analogue 5 | (-20dB) 10kW |
Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Sandy Heath transmitter area
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Wednesday, 30 March 2011
B
Bain7:43 PM
Bedford
I have a problem I'm hoping someone can help with.
My house has 5 TVs; kitchen, living room, bedrooms 1-3. The living room and bedrooms 1+3 receive all muxes fine, no problems at all. Signal strength is a little poor on 2 and A-D but I guess that is expected before the 13th. The other two rooms however, only receive 1 and B. Nothing at all in the 40s range.
I have tried various combinations of TVs and set top boxes in all the rooms, and the result is the same regardless of the equipment. The only difference in the rooms as far as I can make out is the length of RF cable between the aerial/booster-splitter and the wall sockets. The rooms are experiencing the problem have roughly double the length of RF.
Would the cable length be responsible for the problem? Do the cables wear over time? They were all put in approx 25 years ago when the house was built.
Any help would be appreciated, thanks.
| link to this comment |
Bain's: mapB's Freeview map terrainB's terrain plot wavesB's frequency data B's Freeview Detailed Coverage
S
Stewart9:12 PM
Are any of the channels from Sandy Heath transmitting HD programs ?
All I am currently seeing on both my Sony HD ready TV and HD ready PVR is 576i.
Cheers
Stewart
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Thursday, 31 March 2011
M
Martini12:41 AM
Sterart,
No. The first 4 Freeview HD channels start on the 15th April at DSO stage 2. You will receive BBC1 HD, BBC HD, ITV1 HD & CH4 HD. I get Freeview SD and Freesat HD & SD so i'm looking forward to CH4 HD coming to Freesat in April. I would guess that the Freesat HD pictures will be slightly better than Freeview HD ones.
| link to this comment |
S
Stewart8:07 AM
Milton Keynes
Thanks Martini,
I have been looking all over the place for information about HD availability, but was unable to find any.
Oh well, just a bit longer to wait...
Stewart
| link to this comment |
Stewart's: mapS's Freeview map terrainS's terrain plot wavesS's frequency data S's Freeview Detailed Coverage
R
Rob Nelson8:32 AM
Newmarket
Loft antenna in Newmarket (29m ASL) is working fine. Bought a 52 element wideband plus a £20 gigibox for the main TV a couple of weeks ago and it is adequate on all channels. Bedroom TV on old loft mounted Group A gives a slightly noisy signal on Analogue but the BBCA mux is good.
| link to this comment |
Rob's: mapR's Freeview map terrainR's terrain plot wavesR's frequency data R's Freeview Detailed Coverage
S
Steve10:46 AM
Spalding
Am I right in thinking that someone who only uses Freeview from Sandy Heath won't have lost anything if they didn't retune yesterday? The new PSB1 has started, but the old MUX1 is still broadcasting, is this right?
| link to this comment |
Steve's: mapS's Freeview map terrainS's terrain plot wavesS's frequency data S's Freeview Detailed Coverage
S
Steve11:06 AM
Spalding
Ignore that previous post, suffering brain-fade.
| link to this comment |
Steve's: mapS's Freeview map terrainS's terrain plot wavesS's frequency data S's Freeview Detailed Coverage
M
Mrs L Hardy11:27 AM
Cannot get BBC1 or 2 after having retuned on main LoungeTV with outside aerial. Other TVs in house just on portable aerials work all except one in study on portable aerial. Main concern though is the Lounge modern upto date TV. what shall i do?
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M
Mike Dimmick1:53 PM
Reading
Bain: Insulation does perish as the plasticizer chemical evaporates over time. If walls are damp that can allow water to get in, which changes the cable's behaviour. Generally you see some loss at low frequencies and higher losses as the frequency increases.
External cables are subject to wind, rain and UV light, which will usually make them wear out sooner.
For digital TV it's recommended that you use 'satellite grade' cable, which has a screen of dense braid over metal foil tape. The cable usually used for analogue TV tended to have a bare minimum of screening braid, which to be honest wasn't really sufficient to keep out electrical noise. Electrical noise on an analogue picture caused occasional bright lines. On a digital signal it causes errors, which - if there are enough of them - cause picture breakup and, rapidly, complete drop-out.
The longer the cable is, the more signal will be lost. Again, 'satellite grade' cable is intended to deal with very low signal levels and loses a lot less signal than so-called 'low-loss' coax.
| link to this comment |
Mike's: mapM's Freeview map terrainM's terrain plot wavesM's frequency data M's Freeview Detailed Coverage
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