Full Freeview on the Ridge Hill (County of Herefordshire, England) transmitter
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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, 22 April 2023
C
Chris.SE1:51 AM
Richard Sutton:
Sorry also meant to ask, when the transmitter information for C29 comes up on the Signal Test can you post the TSID and the Network ID.
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Richard Sutton8:23 AM
No problem Chris. I would normally take a photo and post it on here but I can't see any way to do that. Anyway, here is the full info:
UHF Ch29 (538000 kHz)
Transmitter ONID TSID Network ID
Gloucestershire 0x233a 0x201d 0x3038
Code Rate Guard Interval Constellation FFT Mode
2/3 1/32 MODULATION_QPSK 8K
Frequency (kHZ) System Bandwidth
538000 DVBT 8 MHz
555 Accessible TV Guide: Service Type : 0xc (Data/Others), Service ID : 0x2199
800 ITV1 : Service Type : 0x1 (DTV), Service ID : 0x204c
802 ITVBe : Service Type : 0x1 (DTV), Service ID : 0x2094
803 E4+1 : Service Type : 0x1 (DTV), Service ID : 0x210a
I hope this is helpful.
Richard
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Richard Sutton8:27 AM
Oh dear. All my careful column spacing using the space bar (the tab key doesn't work) have come to nought. I've no idea why the forum software deletes all the space but hope you can still read it.
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C
Chris.SE12:23 PM
Richard Sutton:
That's fine Richard. Thanks. Yes this forum software has some very annoying deficiencies. I can read everything, so I'll have a look at that shortly.
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C
Chris.SE4:44 PM
Richard Sutton:
Well the Id shows it's ITV1 West from Ridge Hill. As for the others, whether that is data that's being transmitted by Ridge Hill depends on whether you'd cleared previous tuning in the manner I described earlier. The Ids certainly come from an English transmitter, as opposed to any Welsh one as the Id for E4+1 is different as it's carried on SDN on Welsh transmitters. The others may have appeared on a previous retune when weather conditions may have allow reception from another transmitter carrying D3&4 on C29 but I suspect not.
If you did clear all previous tuning and they've reappeared then I assume they might be as a result of "ghost" PIDs. I guess if you have enough Quality on C29 and can see ITV1 on 800 you'll have nothing (but data) on 802 & 803 if you select them?
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Richard Sutton8:06 PM
I'd not tried that but your are right, Chris, 800 is showing ITV1 perfectly at the moment but 802 and 803 both say "Invalid Service" with no picture.
I'll do the blank rescan and the other tests tomorrow.
Richard
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Sunday, 23 April 2023
R
Richard Sutton5:13 PM
Scan results between 17.00 and 18.00 Sunday 23rd April 2023.
First I performed a full scan with the aerial unplugged which resulted in no channels being received or stored.
This is then the first manual scan with no boosters in place:
C21: Strength 70%, Quality 100%
C22: Strength 66%, Quality 100%
C24: Strength 9%, Quality 0%
C25: Strength 38%, Quality 90%
C27: Strength 58%, Quality 100%
C28: Strength 90%, Quality 100%
C29: Strength 82%, Quality 70% (Appears to carry 800 ITV1, 801 ITVBe but Invalid Service, 802 E4+1 but Invalid Service, 803 Accessible TV Guide also Invalid Service)
The second scan with only the loft booster in place:
C21: Strength 96%, Quality 100%
C22: Strength 95%, Quality 100%
C24: Strength 58%, Quality 5%
C25: Strength 90%, Quality 100%
C27: Strength 94%, Quality 100%
C28: Strength 98%, Quality 100%
C29: Strength 97%, Quality 65%
The third scan with both the loft booster and the lounge booster in place:
C21: Strength 100%, Quality 100%
C22: Strength 100%, Quality 100%
C24: Strength 95%, Quality 0%
C25: Strength 100%, Quality 100%
C27: Strength 100%, Quality 100%
C28: Strength 100%, Quality 100%
C29: Strength 100%, Quality 60%
The conclusion I would draw from this is that the four strong signals, C21, C22, C27 and C28, have 100% quality without any booster at all. However, signal strength increases from around 70% with no booster to around 95% with just the loft booster and to 100% with both boosters. For these four channels I could omit the lounge booster as it is of limited impact.
C24 is, as of this evening, not receivable at all with or without any boosters. The signal is so poor that no programmes can be saved to the TV's memory on C24. Oddly, whilst the signal strength for C24 increases from 9% to 58% to 95% as each of the boosters is used, the signal quality goes from 0% to 5% with one booster but drops down to 0% again with two boosters but this might be within the limits of measurement. Either way, C24 is completely useless.
C25 is, as of the evening, working really well. Signal strength goes up with each booster, 38%, 90% and 100% and quality goes from 90% without any boosters to 100% with one or two boosters. C25 is the channel which carries ITV4 and which started this series of posts because of its very poor signal, and yet, as of tonight, I could omit the lounge booster and C25 will still be fine.
C29 can be disregarded as, for this evening at least, C25 is better whatever boosters are used.
My feeling is that whatever it is that is stopping me receiving C24 at all is also affecting C25 but in a much less severe way. I have no idea why I can't receive C24 from Ridge Hill at all but, if I knew the answer to that, I think I would understand why C25 is so variable from day to day but I would welcome your opinion Chris.
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C
Chris.SE5:41 PM
Richard Sutton:
Hi. Interesting results. As you say, It seems whatever is causing problems on C24 is having a marginal effect on C25.
But, you never mentioned you had a "lounge" booster as well!
Were both boosters powered OFF when you did the first scan?
Was the Lounge booster powered OFF when you did the 2nd with only the Loft booster in place?
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Richard Sutton6:32 PM
When I first bought the house I installed just the loft booster but still could not receive all the channels I was supposed to receive, although this was in the analogue days, so I installed a second booster in the lounge rather than use a passive splitter as we had three devices than needed an RF input in those days.
Installing the second boosters remedied the reception problem but the lounge booster does not seem to be needed for digital broadcasting.
The first scan was without any boosters at all, the second one was with just the loft booster and the third on was with both boosters. I didn't bother with a scan with just the lounge booster as, if you're going to have a booster, it is clearly better if it is as close to the aerial as possible.
When I say "without boosters" I mean that the cables are unplugged from the booster and then plugged directly into the wall socket/TV so omitting the booster entirely from the circuit.
Richard
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C
Chris.SE8:18 PM
Richard Sutton:
So they were not disconnected from the mains then which was another important factor.
You are correct in that it's always best to have any booster nearest the aerial.
There is no need to retune now as you are correctly tuned.
Could you please repeat the test with no boosters and BOTH disconnected from the mains.
Then, as it might help with diagnosis, could you do a test with just the lounge booster in circuit but remember the loft one remaining out of circuit and disconnected from the mains.
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