Full Freeview on the Sandy Heath (Central Bedfordshire, England) transmitter
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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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Friday, 20 January 2012
M
Mike1:27 PM
Biggleswade
I have an M&S digital TV (yes I know I should stick to their food only), which used to have occasioanal lip-sync problems. Since Sandy Heath went fully digital this had got really bad with all channels (not just Freeview) experincing this. Put this down to a loft aerial but now have an outside one and still a problem, we are 4 miles from transmitter. Called M&S and they wont do anything as Sandy heath has a low signal apparently, however this is on Freeveiw channels only. They said this TV has small less sensitive tuner, are they telling porkies?
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Mike's: mapM's Freeview map terrainM's terrain plot wavesM's frequency data M's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Saturday, 21 January 2012
F
Frances Lawless3:56 PM
Reception is very poor between 6.00pm and 8.00pm. Pictures freezes and breaks every few minutes. No problems at all at other times of the day. I have an aerial.I'm in Milton Keynes
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M
Mike4:41 PM
Biggleswade
I am using a small Yagi aerial (7 bars, dipole and simple screen) bought from Homebase and formerly used in loft but now on high pole attached to shed pointing directly at mast (visible). Pefect picture all time from PC-TV tuner (USB widget) but M&S 1906F001 digi TV experiences breakup, bad sync all time, all channels, attentuator makes it worse. As I said, pre full digital not so bad. I suspect 3yold TV is actually rubbish.
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Mike's: mapM's Freeview map terrainM's terrain plot wavesM's frequency data M's Freeview Detailed Coverage
J
jb386:09 PM
Mike: Being located at only 4 miles away from Sandy you could possibly be suffering from severe signal overloading problems, your PC tuner not being because its liable to be insensitive compared to that in the TV.
My reason though for saying "possibly", is that in locations not too far away from a tall mast the signal received tends to be lower than that obtained from a position slightly further away, this due to the umbrella shielding effect, so a way to check the signal level received is to try a test set using a top aerial into your M&S TV, or if this not to hand try a short piece of wire (about 2/3 feet or so) pushed into the inner part of the TV aerials socket and see what results you get.
If you get OK reception by doing that then an attenuator of at least 20dB is required, and there shouldn't really be any need for your aerial to be mounted on a high pole either, unless that is you really are shielded!
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M
Mike7:08 PM
Biggleswade
jb38: Thanks, I also thought high signal strength might be the problem so I tried the tiny aerial that came with the PC-TV tuner in the M&S set. Result was no reception on freeview and very poor on the main channels (BBC1 etc). The PC tuner actually worked better with this little aerial. Also used an attentuator, variable up to 20dB but this just made it worse. Hence my suspicions that the TV is faulty but cannot understand why it got much worse after digital switchover - we always used it on digital before with limited problems.
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Mike's: mapM's Freeview map terrainM's terrain plot wavesM's frequency data M's Freeview Detailed Coverage
K
KMJ,Derby8:15 PM
Mike: As a matter of interest how does the M&S set perform when ITV3 or QVC are selected? I make this suggestion as the SDN mux is still in its pre-switchover state, ie 2k mode at 20kW.
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J
jb388:39 PM
KMJ,Derby / Mike: A very valid point KMJ, as the power / 2K operation could be the main factor that's causing the problem.
Mike: I tried but failed, to find out some technical details about the specification of your set, as all I seemed to see were somewhat derogatory comments being made of not only your model but also another 26" version, so your assessment of the device could well be spot on.
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jb38, Mike: I wondered if the "M&S 1906F001" might be found by dropping the 001 suffix. There is a model made by Murphy: TP-1906F
A manual for this model is here:
http://www.contrast-uk.ne….pdf
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J
jb389:27 PM
Dave Lindsay: Yes, it looks as though that might be the device in question, although as you will obviously see on looking at the manual the absolute minimum spec is listed, and the idea of a service manual is quite out of the question, not of course that any of these type of devices are really repaired as such because in most cases anything under guarantee is just really replaced as a complete unit as parts aren't imported, with any that are seen advertised in places such as e-bay or wherever being boards that have been removed from complete TV's that have been damaged in one way or another.
This applies to most obscure brands of audio / video devices, and in some cases not so obscure!
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Sunday, 22 January 2012
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