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Full Freeview on the Sudbury (Suffolk, England) transmitter

first published this on - UK Free TV
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The symbol shows the location of the Sudbury (Suffolk, England) transmitter which serves 440,000 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 Sudbury (Suffolk, England) mast?

Sudbury transmitter - Sudbury transmitter: Possible effect on TV reception week commencing 04/11/2024 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 Sudbury 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
C44 (658.0MHz)229mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
1 BBC One (SD) East, 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
C41 (634.0MHz)229mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
3 ITV 1 (SD) (Anglia (East 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), 71 That’s 60s,

PSB3
BBCB
 H max
C47 (682.0MHz)229mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD East, 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 max
C29 (538.0MHz)186mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
20 U&Drama, 21 5USA, 29 ITV2 +1, 32 5STAR, 33 5Action, 38 Channel 5 +1, 41 Legend, 42 GREAT! action, 57 U&Dave ja vu, 58 ITV3 +1, 59 ITV4 +1, 64 Blaze, 67 TRUE CRIME, 68 TRUE CRIME XTRA, 81 Blaze +1, 83 Together TV, 91 WildEarth, 93 ITVBe +1, 209 Ketchup TV, 210 Ketchup Too, 211 YAAAS!, 251 Al Jazeera English, 255 FRANCE 24 (in English), 265 Rok Sky +1, plus 29 others

COM5
ArqA
 H max
C31- (553.8MHz)228mDTG-8100,000W
Channel icons
11 Sky Mix, 17 Really, 19 U&Dave, 31 E4 Extra, 36 Sky Arts, 40 Quest Red, 43 Food Network, 47 Film4 +1, 48 Challenge, 49 4seven, 60 U&Drama +1, 65 That's TV 2, 70 Quest +1, 74 &UYesterday +1, 76 That's TV 2 MCR, 233 Sky News, plus 13 others

COM6
ArqB
 H max
C37 (602.0MHz)228mDTG-8100,000W
Channel icons
12 Quest, 25 U&W, 27 U&Yesterday, 34 GREAT! movies, 39 DMAX, 44 HGTV, 52 GREAT! christmas, 56 That's TV (UK), 63 GREAT! romance mix, 73 HobbyMaker, 75 That's 90s, 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)

The Sudbury (Suffolk, England) mast is a public service broadcasting (PSB) transmitter, it does not provide these commercial (COM) channels: .

If you want to watch these channels, your aerial must point to one of the 80 Full service Freeview transmitters. For more information see the will there ever be more services on the Freeview Light transmitters? page.

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

regional news image
BBC Look East (East) 0.8m homes 3.2%
from Norwich NR2 1BH, 77km north-northeast (24°)
to BBC East region - 27 masts.
70% of BBC East (East) and BBC East (West) is shared output
regional news image
ITV Anglia News 0.8m homes 3.2%
from NORWICH NR1 3JG, 78km north-northeast (24°)
to ITV Anglia (East) region - 26 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 80% evening news is shared with Anglia (West)

Are there any self-help relays?

Felixstowe WestTransposer1000 homes +1000 or more homes due to expansion of affected area?
WithamTransposer14 km NE Chelmsford.118 homes

How will the Sudbury (Suffolk, England) transmission frequencies change over time?

1984-971997-981998-20112011-131 Aug 2018
B E TB E TB E TE TK T
C29SDN
C31ArqA
C35C5wavesC5waves
C37ArqB
C41ITVwavesITVwavesITVwavesD3+4D3+4
C44BBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBCABBCA
C47C4wavesC4wavesC4wavesBBCBBBCB
C51tv_offBBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBC1waves
C56tv_offArqB
C58tv_offSDN
C60tv_off-ArqA

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 Jul 11 and 20 Jul 11.

How do the old analogue and currrent digital signal levels compare?

Analogue 1-4 250kW
SDN, ARQA, ARQB, BBCA, D3+4, BBCB(-4dB) 100kW
Analogue 5(-7dB) 50kW
Mux 2*(-14.9dB) 8.1kW
Mux B*(-15.2dB) 7.5kW
Mux 1*(-15.5dB) 7kW
Mux A*(-17dB) 5kW
Mux C*(-22.2dB) 1.5kW
Mux D*(-23.6dB) 1.1kW

Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Sudbury 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. Sudbury was not an original Channel 3 VHF 405-line mast: the historical information shown is the details of the company responsible for the transmitter when it began transmitting Channel 3.

Comments
Monday, 17 April 2023
S
StevensOnln1
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

9:43 AM

James Knights: I can't see any engineering work listed for Sudbury and although you are 38km away you are predicted to receive a strong signal on all multiplexes. Are both TVs connected to the same aerial? If so, is there either a powered amplifier or passive splitter to split the cable? As a starting point, it would be worth checking all the cables and connections as far as you can safely access and also check that the amplifier is powered on if there is one.

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StevensOnln1's 3,669 posts GB flag
Tuesday, 18 April 2023
N
nick
sentiment_satisfiedGold

6:17 AM

Chris SE,
I note your comment that certain areas may hage problems with SOME multiplexes. Why so? Surely if they have problems it will be with ALL multiplexes.

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nick's 431 posts US flag
N
nick
sentiment_satisfiedGold

6:18 AM

IfI get problems, they are worst with the multiplex using channel 37. Why?

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nick's 431 posts US flag
C
Chris.SE
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

3:05 PM

nick:

It all depends on weather conditions, lay of the land, line-of-sight to various transmitters, whether the signals pass over largish areas of water etc. and which transmitters are co-channel.
RF propagation is very frequency dependent and also on the nature of the atmosphere at the particular time as well as the extent of any area with particular conditions, so one specific UHF channel may get propagated differently from another.

As you've never given a full postcode or one for a very nearby pub/shop/prominent building your predicted reception for C37 may be poorer than some of the others.
Your aerial may have a peaky response which is not as good for C37 as it might be for others (whether it's home brew or bought!). So all in all, difficult to know why, or indeed where particular interference may come from most of the time.
Whenever I glance at Dx reception reports from people on the east coast I don't recall C37 being mentioned, C39 is quite common. Trying to find out which Netherlands or other countries transmitters that side of the North Sea use particular channels is almost impossible as I can't readily find reliable sources.

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Chris.SE's 4,355 posts GB flag
Wednesday, 3 May 2023
N
nick
sentiment_satisfiedGold

10:55 PM
Aldeburgh

Chris SE,
Thanks. IP15 5HG
Signal on all multiplexes is good, but 37 is the one that goes first. This is using any aerial,and odd because it is not at the exteme ends but nicely in the middle.
We don't use 39!
You seem to be suggesting the Dutch, my thought too.
Can you tell me where to look for the DATE we send our messages? Just seeing the time they are sent is no use!

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nick's 431 posts US flag
nick's: mapN's Freeview map terrainN's terrain plot wavesN's frequency data N's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Thursday, 4 May 2023
C
Chris.SE
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

6:40 AM

nick:

Well the predictors give C37 COM6/ArqB predicted reception to be better than SDN or ArqA right across your postcode even though reception of all can change across the postcode, lower numbers doing slightly better. Very odd.
So why C37 usually goes first is a slight mystery. Not easy to find all transmitters that use C37.
(BTW C39 used by Tacolneston).
The date is above the post or block of posts if several on the same day!

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Chris.SE's 4,355 posts GB flag
Tuesday, 9 May 2023
N
nick
sentiment_satisfiedGold

6:14 PM

Chris SE

Thank you for that info.
You say certain channels are KNOWN to be better than others. I wonder why they are not all the same. I can understand that on the higher frequencies there my be trouble, but we no longer have channel 60 which was always difficult.
We now, nationally, use a very few channels and in a tight group. How did they manage this and why did they not do it in the first place? We had to buy new aerials. We could have kept our old group B

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nick's 431 posts US flag
Friday, 12 May 2023
C
Chris.SE
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

2:35 AM

nick:

Hi. I( suspect you are misreading/reading the wrong thing in what I said. According to the Freeview checker, your predicted reception of COM6 is better than COMs 4 & 5 which is why it's a bit surprising that you experience COM6 on C37 getting disrupted first.
Reception will vary across the postcode because of the changes in local(ish) terrain and it seems lower street numbers in your postcode fair slightly better according to the predictions!

No doubt the frequency planners will have had a bit of a nightmare in trying to decide on the best channels to use for specific multiplexes on various transmitters when considering co-channel interference, taking account of the obvious line-of-sight issues but also less common propagation due to temperature inversion and tropospheric ducting.
Whilst most of it is done by well established computer predictions, no doubt there'll have to have been some manual fine tweaking ....... and there are some instances were it is far from ideal which is of course why it wasn't done at the outset if that's what you meant by tight groups.
If you meant use of adjacent channels at a given transmitter, that's not a problem with digital, but analogue had to be spaced apart often 3 or 4 channels.

You would have struggled a bit with the Sudbury COM muxes at DSO as these were technically above Group B, a Group E aerial really being needed. And with the 700MHz Clearance those COMs moved right down the band where then a Group K was required.
It was because it was known that these types of changes were likely to be needed in the future that back in the day a Wideband aerial was recommended, or a Group T when the 800MHz band was cleared, and now after 700MHz Clearance, as there's nothing above C48, a Group K is in effect the new wideband and in fact desirable to minimise the likelihood of mobile interference if you could be near a mobile mast using 700MHz.

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Chris.SE's 4,355 posts GB flag
Thursday, 18 May 2023
N
nick
sentiment_satisfiedGold

6:15 PM

Chris SE

Thank you for your explanation.
Did you see my query about why we did not have the current reasonably close group of channels in the first place?
If it can be done now, why could it not be done then?

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nick's 431 posts US flag
C
Chris.SE
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

10:50 PM

nick:

I can only assume because of the additional complex frequency planning that would have been needed.
At DSO (already an expensive business) the new high power multiplexes in most cases just replaced the analogue transmissions on their allocated channels and no additional (or adjusted) frequency planning was needed.
I'd also guess that since DSO the additional data and experience with digital propagation would have helped tweak the computer models used for such planning.

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Chris.SE's 4,355 posts GB flag
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