Digital Region Overlap

If you can get a Freeview signal to your box or TV from more than one transmitter, you will get extra channels.

^{Brian Butterworth published on UK Free TV 31st March 2010 at 09:00}

The old analogue TV signals provided lots of nations and regions for the public service channels, and these have large areas of overlap. Places like Yeovil, Basingstoke, Colwyn Bay, King's Lynn, York and Berwick could choose the BBC and ITV services they watched.

The old low power digital TV signals were at very low levels and reception of signals from more than one transmitter was a rare event.

All Freeview boxes automatically scan the available broadcast frequencies looking for channels, and they do this from C21 to C69. Whilst scanning, if a duplicate version of a channel is found, such as another BBC One region, they are placed in the 800-899 channel range.

The 800-899 is easy to access by pressing CH- from 1, and in most programme guides is just a single scroll up.

The transmitters in Wales also put Channel 4 on "logical channel number" 8, because the fourth position is reserved for S4/C.

Quite a few people that use the Winter Hill or Mendip transmitters (or one of the relay transmitter) will probably find that they will now have:

1 BBC One Wales 2 BBC Two Wales 3 ITV1 Wales 4 S4/C 8 Channel 4 16 QVC 72 CITV 86 S4/2 801 BBC One West/North West 802 BBC Two England 803 ITV1 West/Northwest

- or -

1 BBC One West/North West 2 BBC Two England 3 ITV1 West/Northwest 4 Channel 4 16 QVC 72 CITV 86 S4/2 801 BBC One Wales 802 BBC Two Wales 803 ITV1 Wales 804 S4/C

What can I do about this?

There are basically three options.

OPTION 1: Live with it. If the signals are strong enough you get a few extra channels (S4/C has English subtitles). There are techniques for sorting out the channel numbers below, but any future automatic scan will restore the channels to the order you now find them in.

OPTION 2: You can clear the all of the channels from the box and manually scan for the multiplex from only one transmitter. For the details, see the transmitter pages

OPTION 3: If the Freeview box has no "manual add" option, the only technique left is to pull out the aerial, start the automatic scan and insert the aerial just before the lowest channel number appears. For example, Winter Hill this is C54.

Some Freeview boxes will show a "percentage complete" as they scan, under this scheme C21 is "0%", C22 is "2%", C42 is "42%", C54 is about "66%".

Even if you manual scan, many boxes will scan during the night for new channels and may still add channels in the 800-899 range.