Full Freeview on the Ridge Hill (County of Herefordshire, England) transmitter
 | Google Streetview |  | Google map |  | Bing map |  | Google Earth |  | 51.997,-2.540 or 51°59'49"N 2°32'25"W |  | HR8 2PG |
The symbol shows the location of the Ridge Hill (County of Herefordshire, England) transmitter which serves 270,000 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 Ridge Hill (County of Herefordshire, England) mast?
Ridge Hill transmitter - Ridge Hill transmitter: Possible effect on TV reception week commencing 04/11/2024 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 Ridge Hill 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 Ridge Hill transmitter?
BBC Midlands Today 2.9m homes 10.9%
from Birmingham B1 1RF, 69km northeast (39°)
to BBC West Midlands region - 66 masts.
ITV Central News 2.9m homes 10.9%
from Birmingham B1 2JT, 69km northeast (39°)
to ITV Central (West) region - 65 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 80% evening news is shared with Central (East)
Are there any self-help relays?
| Whitton | Transposer | 35 km NW Hereford | 40 homes |
How will the Ridge Hill (County of Herefordshire, England) transmission frequencies change over time?
| 1968-80s | 1984-97 | 1997-98 | 1998-2011 | 2011-13 | 1 Mar 2018 | ||||
| VHF | A K T | A K T | A K T | W T | W T | ||||
| C6 | ITVwaves | ||||||||
| C21 | +SDN | SDN | |||||||
| C22 | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | +BBCB | BBCB | ||||
| C24 | ArqA | ArqA | |||||||
| C25 | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | D3+4 | D3+4 | ||||
| C27 | ArqB | ArqB | |||||||
| C28 | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBCA | BBCA | ||||
| C29 | D3+4 | ||||||||
| C30 | _local | ||||||||
| C32 | C4waves | C4waves | C4waves | com7 | |||||
| C34 | com8 | ||||||||
| C35 | C5waves | C5waves | |||||||
| C51tv_off | _local | _local | |||||||
| 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 6 Apr 11 and 20 Apr 11.
How do the old analogue and currrent digital signal levels compare?
| Analogue 1-5 | 100kW | |
| BBCA, D3+4, PSB2 iw, BBCB | (-7dB) 20kW | |
| com7 | (-9.8dB) 10.5kW | |
| SDN, ARQA, ARQB | (-10dB) 10kW | |
| com8 | (-10.1dB) 9.8kW | |
| Mux 1*, Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*, Mux C*, Mux D* | (-17dB) 2kW |
Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Ridge Hill transmitter area
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Is the transmitter output the same in all directions?
Radiation patterns withheldSaturday, 1 April 2023
C
Chris.SE5:02 PM
Richard Sutton:
To add to my last comment, devices with an RF Output might include an old Sky Box.
Your most likely Transmitter for your postcode is indeed correctly Ridge Hill. It's possible that during the 700MHz Clearance programme changes elsewhere may have temporarily affected that prediction but it's more likely to have been some sort of temporary gremlin in the system - on occasion they still exist elsewhere for other transmitters, the predicted reception figure make it obvious that the "most likely" transmitter is incorrect.
Now I note from some of your previous posts, that you've got (not explicitly stated) an amp/splitter in the loft. What make & model is it? Does it have a variable gain control?
I assume such a device is connected to a mains power connection in the loft?
Does it have coax plug connections or does it have F-connector connections?
If Coax, do you have a straight coupler similar to
Close
If F-connector, do you have a straight coupler similar to
Close
With the information we can then proceed with some checks to eliminate some of the potential problems.
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Friday, 7 April 2023
C
Chris.SE2:37 PM
Richard Sutton:
It seems that Richard's reception oddities will continue to be a mystery, maybe for another 3 1/2 years!
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Wednesday, 19 April 2023
R
Richard Sutton9:20 PM
Sorry Chris
I need to check why I am getting no notifications that anyone has responded to my post.
I'm going to do another retune as C25 has now gone bad and is unwatchable whereas it was fine when I made the above post. It is now Strength 94%, Quality 30% so a programme that I recorded last night on ITV4 which I just tried to watch is just a pixellated mess.
I'll update on the retune tomorrow.
We don't have any old analogue devices or games consoles or anything of that sort.
The booster in the loft does have a gain control which is on maximum gain and is connected to the mains supply. It has four coax sockets in the front of it but we only use two of the sockets for the two separate cables which run down to the lounge and the breakfast room which are the only rooms with TV/recorders in them.
Many thanks for your assistance.
Richard
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Thursday, 20 April 2023
C
Chris.SE2:47 AM
Richard Sutton:
The email system on this has been somewhat iffy on and off. The default setting is one week I think and is usually a list of the posts on the various pages. There was a possibility of setting it for a more frequent response but I've not tried myself. The last time I tried to change it, it fouled up my mailing completely! I'm not sure if you can set it just to notify of a reply to a specific post.
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R
Richard Sutton8:09 AM
That's odd. I thanked Chris and posted a long reply last night but there is no sign of it on here. Let's see if this short acknowledgement appears.
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R
Richard Sutton8:46 AM
My post from last night has now appeared so I'll continue with the results from this morning. I'm using a manual tune on the LG TV as it has a very good signal strength/quality display.
These are my current figures from Ridge Hill:
C21: Strength 100%, Quality 100%
C22: Strength 100%, Quality 100%
C24: Strength 90%, Quality 20%
C25: Strength 94%, Quality 35%
C27: Strength 100%, Quality 100%
C28: Strength 100%, Quality 100%
As before. the quality for C24 and C25 is terrible although my figures are averages as it jumps + or - 10% around the figures shown.
If I try C29, which is not my region as I'm sure that I'm West Midlands rather than Gloucestershire because the strong BBC channel, C28, shows up as BBC1 West Midlands, I get:
C29: Strength 100%, Quality 50% which also jumps around +/- 10% but is actually better that the alternative C25 but still poor.
I don't actually need C24, the channel which was originally bad, so that's not a big loss although I can't understand why four channels can be 100% / 100% whilst that one is always unwatchable.
However, the big problem for me now is C25 and C29 are both bad. I'll try using C29 to see what that is like as, even though it has always been a worse signal than C25 in the past, it seems that it now might be the better of the two. This assumes that C29 on Ridge Hill is actually broadcasting ITV4. It is according to the channel allocation table shown above but I'm not sure that is correct.
Richard
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R
Richard Sutton9:02 AM
OK, after more investigation using my TV settings, I can see that C29 on Ridge Hill is only broadcasting four programmes:
555 Accessible TV guide
800 ITV1
802 ITVBe
803 E4+1
The table above is obviously incorrect which means that, as things stand, I no longer have access to ITV4.
ITV1 on 800 is fine although keeps breaking up on 003 but, as I only ever watch it in HD on 103, that is of no use to me.
Richard
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R
Richard Sutton11:57 AM
Having spent a couple of hours changing cables and sockets and unplugging all devices which are not currently in use, none of which made any difference at all to reception on C24 and C25, I now suspect that the problem is caused by the high winds over the last few days and the trees between our house and the Ridge Hill antenna.
Is it possible that trees/leaves swaying in the wind could affect C24 and C25 so badly but not affect any of the other channels?
Richard
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C
Chris.SE2:16 PM
Richard Sutton:
Right, there's a number of things to mention. I don't like to give too much technical information in one go as it often just confuses people without any technical background and one doesn't always get the answers needed to try and get to the root of problems.
Firstly, retuning. Pointless. If you are correctly tuned, just because your signal has either disappeared or is pixellated or the Quality has dropped for whatever reason, Weather, Transmitter maintenance, trees, etc. then retuning is more likely just to clear the correct tuning, and then you end up having to repeat it when signals are back to normal (and you won't know exactly when that might be).
2nd. The PSB2/D3&4 mux on C29 (Ridge Hill West) only transmits ITV1 (West Country). The table above is wrong I'm afarid. The appearance of those other channels in the 800s may have come from a retune after recent TV channel swaps on the COM muxes or from another transmitter. If you go to Signal Test on your LG and select C29 & then scroll down once the transmitter information has appeared, you should only find ITV1 listed.
I suggest you do the following to start. Unplug the aerial and start an automatic retune BUT (to save time) as soon as it starts, select Skip and confirm. No channels will be found and memory should be cleared. Then do a Manual tune of all the UHF channels for Central (ie. not C29). When that's complete you can select C29 and it should put ITV1 West in the 800s.
As an aside, if you were to do an Automatic retune having cleared the channels, the set should prompt you for region, & on selecting England then Central, it should put any other channels it's found in the 800s. When you've finished retuning, you could use the Programme Manager to move ITV1 West from the 800s to say LCN 8 in the EPG for convenience if you ever wanted to watch ITV West Region News.
3rd. I did ask in one of my earlier initial responses "do you have a straight coupler similar to
Close "
The reason for this is I need you do do some tests without the amp/splitter in circuit (and powered off) so that we can check for interference and overload conditions before doing anything else.
Unplug the aerial input and your LG TV feed output and connect them with a coupler. Power OFF the amp splitter.
Check and post the Signals Strength and Quality figures of each Ridge Hill UHF channel multiplex including C29. You can then connect things back up and power On the amp/splitter again.
When you've done that, I'll suggest what to do next.
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R
Richard Sutton5:38 PM
Thanks Chris.
I do have an inline connector so will try the tests you have mentioned and report back
tomorrow.
Richard
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