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 withheldTuesday, 2 January 2024
C
Chris.SE6:21 AM
Charlie S:
As indicated, the lack of certain channels when they are streaming, or to be more precise, one or two just going off-air, has no bearing on which transmitter you receive from. So they're probably little point in posting about your mother's reception from Lark Hill unless there's a different issue.
Freeview's channel listing are never likely to be more detailed, the amount of "air-time" a particular channel may have/use is based on a commercial agreement between the channel owner/provider and the multiplex operator. What's happening in practise is that some TV channels are actually sharing the available space on the multiplex at different times of day(night) as long as they meet the minimum requirements for having an LCN.
There aren't any manuals for your Panasonic here, I found it on another website. It, and any information about software updates might be available on Panasonics website, I didn't have time to do a thorough search. In any event Panasonic Support should be able to tell you what the latest is and whether it's available to download. Some sets can be updated via a USB stick, again Panasonic should be able to advise if that's so.
Do post more if you have any further issues.
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Friday, 12 January 2024
B
Brian Baker4:46 PM
Hi There
I live on the Southern edge of Gloucester and sometime in the week after Christmas all my BBC channels, SD and |HD, disappeared overnight. A few days later the SD channels reappeared on channels 611, 612 etc. but the HD is nowhere to be seen. Anyone else experienced this?
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C
Chris.SE5:41 PM
Brian Baker:
Is your TV a very recent Freeview Play TV?
If so, you may well find the BBC HD channels on 1,2, 9 etc. (as well as they should be on 101, 102 etc).
The SD channels being moved to 611 etc
This is due to a new feature called Channel List Management (CLM). It relies on the set being connected to the Internet as well.
However, (not all set have CLM) some sets with CLM have some bugs with things ending up in a bit of a mess.
Have a look in your TV's Settings or Help sections, some have an option to turn off CLM.
Also look for any "feature" that allows automatic retuning and IF you have one, turn it OFF. Not only does that cause issues if you have no/poor signal due to engineering/faults/weather as you can end up incorrectly tuned, couple with CLM bugs it's an even bugger mess!
This is where the channels should be if it works ok
BBC One HD 1 and 101 SD on 611
BBC Two HD 2 and 102 SD on 612
BBC Three HD 23 and 107 SD on 613
BBC Four HD 9 and 106 or 24 and 108 (Scotland) SD on 614
CBeebies HD 201 SD on 205
CBBC HD 202 SD on 204
but there are some sets that don't leave HD channels at 101,102 etc.
If your lists are a bit of a real mess, check in Settings that the set has the latest Firmware/Software.
Then unplug the aerial and do a full retune which should clear all the current tuning as no channels are found.
Plug the aerial back in and retune again. CLM doesn't always make the changes immediately. If in a couple of days it ends up with a real mess again and things aren't move correctly AND you can't turn off CLM, hassle the set manufacturer for a firmware update to give the option to turn it off as well as resolve the bugs should you choose to use it.
There was a BBC article about CLM, the page I expected it to be on is not available at present.
If this wasn't your issue, post back with some more detail such as exact set model number, what retuning you've done etc.
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Thursday, 8 February 2024
C
Charlie S12:21 AM
Hi ; can anyone here confirm that the Ridge Hill eng. works are causing intermittent audio + video loss for the PSB2 channel set ? Loss is for a few seconds ; period between the losses varies a lot.
Drops were present Tuesday pm + (late) Wed pm.
thanks &
regards,
Charlie
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C
Chris.SE12:40 AM
Charlie S:
As Arqiva never give details about the engineering work that would be difficult to be certain, so unless someone else receiving Ridge Hill spots your post and has also spotted the same problem, we can't be sure.
As you haven't given a full postcode, we can't check whether you may be in a location that is not predicted to get the best reception of PSB2 and so engineering might make you more susceptible to reception problems.
Also check if you should have had a postcard from Restore TV https://restoretv.uk/post…ure/
You might be suffering interference from a new/upgraded mobile phone mast. If the check says yes and you haven't got a 700MHz Filter, get in touch with them to get a Free Filter.
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C
Charlie S8:17 AM
Pershore
thanks Chris. SE : I am at WR10 3EW; same reception kit for a long time (except for a new PVR last August), that includes outdoor antennae that is quite high up, with signal booster to run the signal into different rooms. The drop-out behaviour seems "new this week".
I checked the signal strength reported by the PVR (that is the main receiver, since the TV is old..) ; ITV1 + 4 were reporting 90/100 (strength/quality) ; vs eg Dmax that did not exhibit the drop outs and reports 62/93.
Understood re Arqiva not giving details ; & thanks for the link to restoretv; I will take a look.
thanks &
regards,
Charlie
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Charlie's: mapC's Freeview map terrainC's terrain plot wavesC's frequency data C's Freeview Detailed Coverage
C
Chris.SE11:04 PM
Charlie S:
Hi. Well believe it or not you can supposedly get signals from 5 main transmitters, not that all would give you decent reception, so if you haven't already, I would first check that you are correctly tuned to Ridge Hill's UHF channels as shown in the very top section of this page.
Ridge Hill is predicted to be your most likely transmitter, with Sutton Coldfield next best but some considerable further distance away.
I'm getting conflicting information about ground obstructions to both on the line-of-sight depending on which tool I use, but there are some considerable distance from you and this usually means reception predictions could be variable, as the behaviour of signal travelling close to the ground can be somewhat unpredictable.
ITV4+1 is on the SDN multiplex, Dmax is on ArqB.
Quality 100% is what you'd hope to achieve on all multiplexes in normal conditions, so your 62/93 figures are a little disappointing. I wouldn't worry too much about the 62, it would be nice if it were higher but it's ok and the other multiplex on 90 is fine. You don't want to amplify just to achieve more signal because much more than 90 could lead to a different set of problems.
What sort of figures are you getting for PSB2 channels (main ITV, 4, 5 etc.)? If they are similar to 90/100 one can perhaps assume it's brief interruptions due to the engineering.
For what's usually an up-to-date list of which TV channels are on which multiplex, see
Channel listings for Industry Professionals | Freeview
The 93% quality suggests the possibility of some sort of interference or other signal disruption. It won't automatically mean you'll see some sort of visible/audible effect as long as the decoder is able to correct the errors. It might just mean you could be more vulnerable to an issue.
Such things don't necessarily affect all multiplexes in the same way, and can be frequency dependant. Eg. Do you have any trees on the line-of-sight?
What we don't know with Planned Engineering is if any of the multiplexes are on the Reserve Antenna (lower down the mast) or reduced power (or both!) which could lead to more susceptibility to interference. The only way you can guess at that is by knowing your precise figures when everything is operating normally. Do you perchance know what they are?
Are you still getting interruptions on PSB2?
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Friday, 23 February 2024
P
Paul Evans5:08 PM
Bromsgrove
I am at B60 3DE. I use Ridge Hill. The Aerial guy did try Bromsgrove as it is more or less line of sight, but the Lickey Incline is at the bottom of my garden, fairly high up, and when trains go past it chopped up the signal so he set it up on Ridge Hill. I've had good experience of Ridge Hill, but lately some channels have been unwatchable. Not sure if it is atmospheric (high pressure) or engineering work, or something else. Whatever, it has made watching 6 Nations Rugby very difficult, on both regular and HD channels. If it's engineering, why don't they wait until Wimbledon, I've no interest in tennis. Perhaps when they fix it Wales will start winning again!
p.s. the problems are real, but the comments are a bit tongue in cheek!
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Paul's: mapP's Freeview map terrainP's terrain plot wavesP's frequency data P's Freeview Detailed Coverage
C
Chris.SE8:09 PM
Paul Evans:
Hi there. (I like the tennis :D ). Unfortunately it is probably the Engineering. It's been listed for Planned Engineering for several weeks now, so there's not a lot you can do.
There has been a bit of weather related "Tropo" but that's been quite transitory and shouldn't be an issue at present.
This page usually gets updated with the Engineering notices on a Monday, so whether there'll be any next week we don't know. Sometimes it over-runs even when not listed!
Keep an eye open for those posts, and post back if you are still having problems in a week or two.
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Sunday, 25 February 2024
C
Charlie S2:13 PM
Hello Chris SE;
apologies for the delay here; I do not get a notification mail of thread updates, and the intermittent drop outs have stopped for now (or the reaction of the PVR to those interruptions has changed, there are other signs of "bizarre" behaviour due to something not right in the PVR, potentially triggered by degraded RF signals).
I did not realize your site adds the links to my post with the coverage map and terrain plot information; that is really impressive.
I am tuned to Ridge Hill; no near-by trees on the line of site, but the roof ridge of the neighbouring property (thatch, with wire gauze along the ridge) looks awful close to the LOS. The Sutton Coldfield terrain plot shows the LOS just missing the ground about 1 mile from here; that is the edge of a hill/ridge that does have a lot of tree cover. Some of the neighbouring properties look like they are lined up on The Wrekin or Malvern.
My work domain means I have some understanding of RF and propagation/interference issues, as well as digital transmission/coding aspects; & your comment re possible interference has got me wondering... is there any chance that Wifi access pointer/router signals (@ 2.4GHz & 5GHz) can interfere with the TV signals in the 500-600MHz range due to some sort of intermodulation in the TV signal booster box ? Or radiated noise from an ethernet cable ?
Because the TV booster + 2 Wifi Access Points are located within about 1 metre of each other in the loft space..most of the time, the Wifi will be just sending the beacon signal (100 msec interval between brief "squawks"). But there are effectively 4 different transmitters sending these beacons, not synchronized to each other..
I used to have a Vodafone 3G signal booster in the loft, but never detected signs of it interfering with the TV..
Re "normal signal levels"; I just checked, and see the following (no rain, no wind, visibility good but not perfect):
PVR TV (via PVR RF loop).
BBC1 90/100 10/10
ITV 90/100 10/10
QVC 70/100 10/10
Dave 66/100 10/10
Quest 66/85 10/10
BBC1 HD 82/100 N/A
If I watch the signal level screen on the PVR long enough, most of the numbers will vary a few points.
The PVR states explicitly that recordings/settings can be "disrupted" whilst checking the signal strength page; the TV (about 10 years older than the PVR) over-lays the signal strength info on the picture...
I will look for an opportunity to borrow a newer TV, to compare figures, and also maybe set up the TV so signal strength can be observed directly at the same time as the PVR signal..
regards,
Charlie
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