Full Freeview on the Sandy Heath (Central Bedfordshire, England) transmitter
 | Google Streetview |  | Google map |  | Bing map |  | Google Earth |  | 52.130,-0.242 or 52°7'47"N 0°14'33"W |  | SG19 2NH |
The symbol shows the location of the Sandy Heath (Central Bedfordshire, England) transmitter which serves 920,000 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 Sandy Heath (Central Bedfordshire, England) mast?
Sandy Heath transmitter - Sandy Heath transmitter: Possible effect on TV reception week commencing 20/01/2025 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 Sandy Heath 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 Sandy Heath transmitter?
BBC Look East (West) 1.0m homes 3.7%
from Cambridge CB4 0WZ, 29km east-northeast (65°)
to BBC Cambridge region - 4 masts.
70% of BBC East (East) and BBC East (West) is shared output
ITV Anglia News 1.0m homes 3.7%
from Norwich NR1 3JG, 119km east-northeast (60°)
to ITV Anglia (West) region - 5 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 80% evening news is shared with Anglia (East)
How will the Sandy Heath (Central Bedfordshire, England) transmission frequencies change over time?
| 1965-80s | 1984-97 | 1997-98 | 1998-2011 | 2011-13 | 12 Feb 2020 | ||||
| VHF | A K T | K T | K T | W T | W T | ||||
| C6 | ITVwaves | ||||||||
| C21 | C4waves | C4waves | C4waves | +BBCB | BBCB | ||||
| C24 | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | D3+4 | D3+4 | ||||
| C27 | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBCA | BBCA | ||||
| C31 | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | ||||||
| C32 | com7 | ||||||||
| C33 | SDN | ||||||||
| C34 | com8 | ||||||||
| C35 | _local | ||||||||
| C36 | ArqA | ||||||||
| C39 | C5waves | C5waves | |||||||
| C43 | _local | ||||||||
| C48 | ArqB | ArqB | |||||||
| C51tv_off | SDN | ||||||||
| C52tv_off | ArqA | ||||||||
| 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 30 Mar 11 and 13 Apr 11.
How do the old analogue and currrent digital signal levels compare?
| Analogue 1-4 | 1000kW | |
| BBCA, D3+4, BBCB | (-7.4dB) 180kW | |
| SDN, ARQA, ARQB | (-7.7dB) 170kW | |
| com7 | (-13dB) 49.6kW | |
| com8 | (-13.1dB) 49.1kW | |
| Mux 1*, Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*, Mux C*, Mux D* | (-17dB) 20kW | |
| Analogue 5 | (-20dB) 10kW |
Local transmitter maps
Sandy Heath Freeview Sandy Heath DAB Sandy Heath TV region BBC Cambridge Anglia (West micro region)Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Sandy Heath transmitter area
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Friday, 23 February 2024
I
Iain Martin 10:35 PM
Dylan green: This is obviously not related to Sandy Heath but I used to have a 1 metre dish and lost the signal a few times when huge black clouds were overhead.
Water droplets, especially in clouds hundred, probably thousands of feet thick can completely block satellite signals. If you are confident working at the height of your dish you can check whether the cable connection is well protected from moisture. Also slacken the bolts and make tiny adjustments to the dish position to see if you can improve the signal. Hopefully your receiver has some kind of strength and quality meter display. Failing all that a new LNB may be required as they do get damaged by the Sun especially around the time of the equinoxes. The spring equinox is in a few weeks time!
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Monday, 26 February 2024
D
Dylan green2:36 PM
Unfortunately due to medical issues I can't access my dish, not really in the financial position to pay anyone either, the signal quality is 75% on the worst channels breaking up but on most of them it's 100% yet still get break up.
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Monday, 8 April 2024
D
Damien1:35 AM
Is having a Freesat signal on some channels of 62% signal strength with 100% quality an issue ?, some channels especially BBC and itv are showing 72% signal strength with q005% quality and the others like CNN HD, show the 62signal-100quality.
In rain especially moderate to heavy rain the signal strength and quality lower, in severe rain it will loose signal on some channels completely. Any professional opinion would be appreciated. I have a Freesat receiver which also gets non Freesat channels and a sky mini dish, zone 1 I believe, in Northampton.
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D
Damien3:22 PM
It's a Manhattan S2 box, brought In 2017 but when I use built in TV Freesat which is an LG TV the picture pixilates on many channels even in good weather however I find that the Manhattan box set at 1080i works fine majority of the time. Today with the heavy cloud signal is jumping from 62% to 48% but quality is remaining at 100% no pixilated picture on the Manhattan box unless it's raining heavy.
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Friday, 26 April 2024
N
Natalie Pierce7:30 PM
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Monday, 29 April 2024
K
K. Smith5:21 PM
My mother has not had anything on the main channels since the beginning of last week. I see that Sandy Heath is having engineering work at the moment. Would you have any idea when it is likely to be finished please?
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Saturday, 1 June 2024
M
Mark11:33 AM
I live in NN12 slightly NW of Towcester, the reception since Com 2 went has been utterly appalling and shows NO signs of any improvement whatsoever, I'm sure the advice would be to stream instead, HOW??? Due to my location my internet speed is 1.5 mps this will NEVER be improved either, why oh why is there no booster for areas on the extreme edge of range. We all pay a license fee to why are some treated as second class citizens, DO SOMETHING!
Another thing I've noticed is that EVERY weekend starting Friday evening reception is almost lost until the Monday. What on earth is going on
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Sunday, 2 June 2024
P
paulJ2:46 PM
Ely
Maybe Mark will give more precision on his channels/muxes impacted,
but COM 5 (eg food network) , for the duration of yesterday/ 1st was unwatchable, in Ely compared to all the other muxes, even though they all showed similar strength and quality though (on both panasonic tv & humax box)
Today COM5 is fine, as remain others
It is as though, for maintenance, they had cut back the bitrate to introduce both pixellation and audio distortion.
COM5 has been bad for most evening this past week >10pm , but this is the first time I see this throughout the day.
[
aerial (in loft) currently has a look angle of about 200 degrees, and calculation yesterday suggested 220 would be more accurate, but I don't see that such an error could be responsible for just com5 ., yagi type aerial maybe 15 elements
]
Regards, Paul (posted mutltiple times before)
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paulJ's: mapP's Freeview map terrainP's terrain plot wavesP's frequency data P's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Monday, 3 June 2024
P
paulJ10:24 AM
Ely
Chris.
I now rang restoretv and they are sending some 4G/5g filters - I'll report back
They gave me number for freeview information service too 03456 505050
which I may try to see if they can provide details on what maintenance sandy heath does regularly which might impact COM5/c36 more than others.
Yagi aerial, 10yr old, for which I can't see any specific manufacturer identity , may have been optimal for previous channel range up to c69,
perhaps a ubiquitous log36 aerial would give massive improvement ?
Thanks, Paul
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paulJ's: mapP's Freeview map terrainP's terrain plot wavesP's frequency data P's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Sunday, 11 August 2024
J
John4:01 PM
I have a 4 ch DVB-T modulator to insert channels into my rf distribution at home.
What is the highest channel number available, that isn't affected by the 5G transmissions, please?
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