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Full Freeview on the Sandy Heath (Central Bedfordshire, England) transmitter

first published this on - UK Free TV
sa_streetviewGoogle Streetviewsa_gmapsGoogle mapsa_bingBing mapsa_gearthGoogle Earthsa_gps52.130,-0.242 or 52°7'47"N 0°14'33"Wsa_postcodeSG19 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 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 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.

MuxH/VFrequencyHeightModeWatts
PSB1
BBCA
 H max
C27 (522.0MHz)291mDTG-180,000W
Channel icons
1 BBC One (SD) Cambridge, 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
C24 (498.0MHz)291mDTG-180,000W
Channel icons
3 ITV 1 (SD) (Anglia (West 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
C21+ (474.2MHz)291mDTG-180,000W
Channel icons
46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD Cambridge, 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 -0.2dB
C33 (570.0MHz)291mDTG-8170,000W
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 -0.2dB
C36 (594.0MHz)289mDTG-8170,000W
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 -0.2dB
C48 (690.0MHz)289mDTG-8170,000W
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)

Which BBC and ITV regional news can I watch from the Sandy Heath transmitter?

regional news image
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
regional news image
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?

1965-80s1984-971997-981998-20112011-1312 Feb 2020
VHFA K TK TK TW TW T
C6ITVwaves
C21C4wavesC4wavesC4waves+BBCBBBCB
C24ITVwavesITVwavesITVwavesD3+4D3+4
C27BBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBCABBCA
C31BBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBC1waves
C32com7
C33SDN
C34com8
C35_local
C36ArqA
C39C5wavesC5waves
C43_local
C48ArqBArqB
C51tv_offSDN
C52tv_offArqA
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 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

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.

Comments
Saturday, 8 October 2011
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

7:27 PM

RobWhitwell: Only the gullible believes without question what might be published, as the only people that really do know the situation being the backroom engineers that might happen to be working at the station.

It would have been of interest to have an idea of your own location though, considering you are reporting a similar situation to that of reception in Milton Keynes.

link to this comment
jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
R
RobWhitwell
7:32 PM

Hi jb38,
Location is just north west of the village of Whitwell, near Hitchin.

Approx 500m from the village, which because of a hill between us and them, recieves their signals from Crystal Palace. Hope this helps.

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RobWhitwell's 9 posts GB flag
Friday, 14 October 2011
M
Mark
8:28 AM
Northampton

Location: just outside Northampton
Aerial in loft (antiference amplified log periodic 28db)

We are almost 30 miles from Sandy Heath and have had no problems receiving all muxes since ondigital days. So it is possible.

As an example, right now on on C67 signal strength 76% and quality 100%.

Biggest issue is aerial occasionally picking up signals from crystal palace, Waltham, Oxford and Sutton Coldfield and adding numerous duplicate BBC and itv channels in the 800+ range.

link to this comment
Mark's 1 post GB flag
Mark's: mapM's Freeview map terrainM's terrain plot wavesM's frequency data M's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
C
chrism42
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

12:50 PM
Cambridge

Hi, any good ideas on the following?

Since switchover started in April, my reception of BBCA C27 has got progressively worse and worse. On day 1 (30th March) it was rock solid 80% strength, 100% quality. On 13th April, when the ITV channels (Mux D3+4, Channel 24) changed over, it dropped to 70% strength / 100% quality but with the occasional freeze. I wondered if it was suffering from too much signal, so removed the masthead booster. These days the strength and quality fluctuate wildly and the BBC channels freeze and pixellate and are too irritating to watch.

But... C24/MuxD3+4 has been rock solid 80% strength / 100% quality all the way since 13th April and still is. (So I don't think I'm suffering from having a loft aerial).

C31 is also 80% strength / 100% quality, despite still being on low power? C67 is not usable, as usual, and C48 is the worst of the lot.

What do we think could be the problem with BBCA/C27? Interference? - but are there any other transmitters using C27?

(I'm in Cambridge E, loft aerial, no booster).

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chrism42's 29 posts EU flag
chrism42's: mapC's Freeview map terrainC's terrain plot wavesC's frequency data C's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Wednesday, 19 October 2011
S
Steve
11:10 AM

Freeview channels are 8 or 9 for reception except channel 31 which is 1.
Some of the freeview boxes work whereas the freeview tv on its own does not get, say channel 82 Sky.
Probably using sandy heath. Postal Area cb10

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Steve's 2 posts GB flag
K
KMJ,Derby
sentiment_satisfiedGold

2:27 PM

Steve: The CB10 postcode area covers quite a large area with regard to predicting reception, however it does lie in an overlap area between Sandy Heath and Crystal Palace which causes problems for reception of C31 in some locations. You did say that you were missing Sky News. This is carried on MuxC which is currently transmitted on C67. If there is no signal on C67 it is usually either a single frequency interference problem from an RF modulator set to C67/C68, or simply that being the highest frequency the losses in the cable and/or lower aerial gain at that frequency result in "no signal" at the receiver. Note that on 23rd November 2011 a retune will be required as from that date MuxC/ArqA will be transmitted on C52 at higher power and use 8k mode, so reception should improve on this mux.

link to this comment
KMJ,Derby's 1,811 posts GB flag
S
Steve J
3:36 PM
Cambridge

Hi, can someone tell me when MUX a,c and com6 power will be increased? I'm CB21 6AU and I've had loss of signal. I've just chaged aerial to a Log Peridic and replaced the cables and this has increased the strength but I still get occational loss of sound and pixelation on those chanels. I'm assuming power increase will fix the problems as I'm getting 95% strength on the others and no issues. Thanks

link to this comment
Steve J's 1 post US flag
Steve's: mapS's Freeview map terrainS's terrain plot wavesS's frequency data S's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Thursday, 20 October 2011
Briantist
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

7:24 AM

Steve J: From above "The commercial multiplexes at Sandy Heath will remain on their pre-switchover channels and powers for a period after digital switchover. SDN will then temporarily move to channel 31 (at 20kW ERP) on 31 Aug 2011, before adopting its final allocation of channel 51 on 18th April 2012. Arqiva A will adopt its final allocation of channel 52 on 23 Nov 2011. Arqiva B will temporarily move to channel 67 (at 20kW ERP) at switchover and then it will adopt its final allocation of channel 48 on 14 Sept 2011."

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Briantist's 38,915 posts GB flag
Saturday, 29 October 2011
S
Simon
9:23 AM

Something changed in Northampton around middle of last week. Suddenly no DAB signal, where has been quite useable last few years. A full scan brings back no stations. Just bought a new radio thinking it might have died, same result. Anyone know whats changed?

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Simon's 6 posts GB flag
S
Simon
9:27 AM

Forgot to mention (re DAB reception loss in nothampton) I am NN3 postcode area, eastern side of the town. Many thanks anyone who can shed light on this, would be interested to know when reception might return also? :).

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Simon's 6 posts GB flag
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