menuMENU    UK Free TV logo Freeview

 

 

Click to see updates

Full Freeview on the Sudbury (Suffolk, England) transmitter

first published this on - UK Free TV
sa_streetviewGoogle Streetviewsa_gmapsGoogle mapsa_bingBing mapsa_gearthGoogle Earthsa_gps52.005,0.786 or 52°0'17"N 0°47'8"Esa_postcodeCO10 5NG

 

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 25/03/2024 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
_______

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),

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 Drama, 21 5USA, 29 ITV2 +1, 32 5STAR, 33 5Action, 38 Channel 5 +1, 41 Legend, 42 GREAT! action, 57 Dave ja vu, 58 ITVBe +1, 59 ITV3 +1, 64 Blaze, 67 TRUE CRIME, 68 TRUE CRIME XTRA, 78 TCC, 81 Blaze +1, 83 Together TV, 89 ITV4 +1, 91 WildEarth, 209 Ketchup TV, 210 Ketchup Too, 211 YAAAS!, 267 Al Jazeera English, plus 30 others

COM5
ArqA
 H max
C31- (553.8MHz)228mDTG-8100,000W
Channel icons
11 Sky Mix, 17 Really, 19 Dave, 31 E4 Extra, 36 Sky Arts, 40 Quest Red, 43 Food Network, 47 Film4 +1, 48 Challenge, 49 4seven, 60 Drama +1, 65 That's TV 2, 70 Quest +1, 74 Yesterday +1, 75 That's 90s, 233 Sky News, plus 11 others

COM6
ArqB
 H max
C37 (602.0MHz)228mDTG-8100,000W
Channel icons
12 Quest, 25 W, 27 Yesterday, 34 GREAT! movies, 39 DMAX, 44 HGTV, 52 GREAT! romance, 56 That's TV (UK), 61 GREAT! movies extra, 63 GREAT! romance mix, 71 That’s 60s, 73 HobbyMaker, 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, 18 April 2011
B
brian
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

11:51 AM

Hello Nick,

On an analogue picture another unwanted analogue signal on the same channel causes the herringbone' and buzzing effect you have been used to over the years.
On an analogue picture another unwanted digital signal on the same channel causes the picture to become snowy and in extreme cases disappear completely.

On a digital picture an analogue signal on the same channel causes pixilation , sound drop out and lock up. in extreme cases the picture disappears.

On a digital picture another unwanted digital signal on the same channel will cause the same as above but it will happen a lot quicker than analogue interference.

This is how I understand it anyway!

The best thing I can say with Sudbury is wait and see. The signal will be raised in July but you are in a vulnerable position. All the coastal Dutch channels were already using different channels to Sudbury to try and reduce interference (except CH5) but the sea path is so good for carrying unwanted signals that likely you could get hit from transmitters as far away as France and Germany.

In addition they are moving the Sudbury channels around again after July 2011 so what might not be great then could be ok later. Also bear in mind for most of the year and especially during the winter there will likely be no problems at all (cold comfort I know if you are trying to watch the world cup final in June) !

I would think if anyone is getting herringbone' problems on Aldeburgh now it is likely to be the huge mast at Crystal Palace that is causing the problem. There is no analogue left in the low countries and Northern France.

There is no way of telling just how good Sudbury digital will be after switchover where you are, you only have to move the aerial one metre and the signal would be different.

What I would say is that although the coastal area is obviously low lying there is probably not a huge hill between you and Sudbury so I would hope the main channels BBC1/BBC2/ITV1 etc would be able to penetrate after power up. Greater brains than mine will be able to answer this though.

I will leave your CRT v Flatscreen question to someone else. It is something I have heard several people comment on but again someone with greater technical knowledge than me will be able to comment..


link to this comment
brian's 32 posts GB flag
N
Nick
sentiment_satisfiedGold

5:05 PM
Woodbridge

Thank you for such a long and detailed answer. It is snow and near loss of picture. Seems like the dutch digital IS doing the damage to our analogue. I thought the path of digital meant it didn't bounce down.I suppose we will have to wait and see if their dig hits our dig.
please don't forget to comment about flat tvs, if that is in your remit.
Thanks again.

link to this comment
Nick's 425 posts GB flag
Nick's: mapN's Freeview map terrainN's terrain plot wavesN's frequency data N's Freeview Detailed Coverage
D
Dean
6:01 PM

I live in IP4 in Ipswich. I have a standard rooftop aerial. I can receive all of the analogue channels and most of the digital but seem to be missing those digital channels on Mux2. Do I need to switch to a wideband aerial?

link to this comment
Dean's 1 post GB flag
Briantist
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

7:03 PM

Dean: Yes, you do.

link to this comment
Briantist's 38,915 posts GB flag
Briantist
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

7:08 PM

Nick: Flat panel sets are much, much better than CRTs, and this is often the problem, they show up faults in the picture that are blurred by a CRT.

If you have an LCD or plasma display and find the picture is not as you expect, turn off the "sharpening" feature - and other visual enhancements.

HD pictures are clearly much better than SD on analogue or digital, if you can't see so, then you are probably not looking at an HD broadcast.

Everything on BBC HD is 1080-line HD, but not everything on BBC One HD, Channel 4 HD or ITV1 HD is sourced in HD.

link to this comment
Briantist's 38,915 posts GB flag
Tuesday, 19 April 2011
N
Nick
sentiment_satisfiedGold

10:20 AM
Woodbridge

Thank you once again, Brian.
As you can see, I am giving a lot of thought to going digital. A friend who works in the tv repair business tells me two freeview boxes in his house packed up within an hour of each other and he has experience of numerous others not lasting long. Is there any underlying reason for their unreliability, can it be power surges, can they be protected, are some more prone to pack up than others? I do not want to spend several hundred pounds on a freeview tv only for its tuner to pack up.

link to this comment
Nick's 425 posts GB flag
Nick's: mapN's Freeview map terrainN's terrain plot wavesN's frequency data N's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Briantist
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

5:42 PM

Nick: I can't recall hearing of the digital tuner going in a set.

link to this comment
Briantist's 38,915 posts GB flag
N
Nick
sentiment_satisfiedGold

7:00 PM
Woodbridge

Thank you for that, Brian. Are freeview boxes less reliable then, and why? Would it be any benefit to plug tvs and boxes into 4 gang surge protected extensions?

link to this comment
Nick's 425 posts GB flag
Nick's: mapN's Freeview map terrainN's terrain plot wavesN's frequency data N's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Briantist
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

7:54 PM

Nick: You can get Freeview boxes for as little as £20, sometimes less. They will usually work for two or three years, but they often fail after this time because they are on 100% of the time and the quality of the components is lower.

You can surge protect your equipment - all my computer equipment is on a surge protector that was pulled off a PSBX about 20 years ago - if you want.

UK mains electricity rarely has brownouts, if you had poor wiring and equipment with dirty switches (such as cheap thermostic equipment) a surge protector might be a good idea, if you don't then it would be a waste of money.

link to this comment
Briantist's 38,915 posts GB flag
Wednesday, 20 April 2011
N
Nick
sentiment_satisfiedGold

10:02 AM
Woodbridge

Dear Brian,
Thank you once again. £20 is the most I have seen locally for a box, Labgear. Don't suppose you can recommend one?
Can we not switch them off when not watching? Pull the plug? Or would that cause other problems? Presumably the tuners in sets get a rest because we switch off the tv, so they last longer.
Best wishes,
Nick.

link to this comment
Nick's 425 posts GB flag
Nick's: mapN's Freeview map terrainN's terrain plot wavesN's frequency data N's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Select more comments

Your comment please
Please post a question, answer or commentIf you have Freeview reception problems before posting a question your must first do this Freeview reset procedure then see: Freeview reception has changed, Single frequency interference, and Freeview intermittent interference.

If you have no satellite signal, see Sky Digibox says 'No Signal' or 'Technical fault'

If you have other problems, please provide a full (not partial) postcode (or preferably enter it in box at the top right) and indicate where if aerial is on the roof, in the loft or elsewhere.

UK Free TV is here to help people. If you are rude or disrespectful all of your posts will be deleted and you will be banned.








Privacy policy: UK Free Privacy policy.