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Full Freeview on the Craigkelly (Fife, Scotland) transmitter

first published this on - UK Free TV
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The symbol shows the location of the Craigkelly (Fife, Scotland) transmitter which serves 430,000 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 Craigkelly (Fife, Scotland) mast?

Craigkelly transmitter - Craigkelly 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
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Which Freeview channels does the Craigkelly 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
C27 (522.0MHz)311mDTG-20,000W
Channel icons
1 BBC One (SD) Scotland, 2 BBC Two Scotland, 7 BBC Alba HD, 23 BBC Three, 24 BBC Four (Scotland SD), 201 CBBC, 202 CBeebies, 231 BBC News, 232 BBC Parliament, plus 13 others

PSB2
D3+4
 H max
C24 (498.0MHz)311mDTG-20,000W
Channel icons
3 STV (SD) (STV Central (Edinburgh micro region)), 4 Channel 4 (SD) Scotland ads, 5 Channel 5, 6 ITV 2, 10 ITV3, 13 E4, 14 Film4, 15 Channel 4 +1 Scotland ads, 18 More4, 26 ITV4, 28 ITVBe, 30 E4 +1, 35 ITV1 +1 (STV Edinburgh), 35 STV+1 (STV Edinburgh),

PSB3
BBCB
 H max
C21+ (474.2MHz)311mDTG-20,000W
Channel icons
46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD Scotland, 102 BBC Two HD Scotland, 103 ITV 1 HD (STV West), 103 STV HD (STV West), 104 Channel 4 HD Scotland ads, 105 Channel 5 HD, 106 BBC Four HD, 108 BBC Scotland HD, 204 CBBC HD, 205 CBeebies HD, plus 1 others

COM4
SDN
 H -3dB
C29 (538.0MHz)311mDTG-810,000W
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 -3dB
C31 (554.0MHz)311mDTG-810,000W
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 -3dB
C37+ (602.2MHz)311mDTG-810,000W
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

LEH
 H -6dB
C32 (562.0MHz)311mDTG-125,000W
Channel icons
from 30th June 2014: 8 STV Edinburgh,

DTG-8 64QAM 8K 3/4 27.1Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2
DTG-12 QSPK 8K 3/4 8.0Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2
H/V: aerial position (horizontal or vertical)

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

regional news image
BBC Reporting Scotland 2.4m homes 9.2%
from Glasgow G51 1DA, 70km west-southwest (252°)
to BBC Scotland region - 230 masts.
regional news image
STV News 0.5m homes 1.7%
from Edinburgh EH3 9QG, 14km south (174°)
to STV Central (Edinburgh) region - 8 masts.

Are there any self-help relays?

DullaturTransposer20 km NE Glasgow40 homes
EdinburghTransposerSighthill area167 homes

How will the Craigkelly (Fife, Scotland) transmission frequencies change over time?

1984-971997-981998-20112011-133 Oct 2018
A K TK TK TK TW T
C21C4wavesC4wavesC4waves+BBCBBBCB
C24ITVwavesITVwavesITVwavesD3+4D3+4
C27BBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBCABBCA
C29SDN
C30LEH
C31BBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBC1wavesArqA
C32_local
C33com7
C34com8
C37ArqB
C39+ArqB
C42SDN
C45ArqA
C48C5wavesC5waves
C55tv_offcom7tv_off
C56tv_offCOM8tv_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 1 Jun 11 and 15 Jun 11.

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

Analogue 1-4 100kW
BBCA, D3+4, BBCB(-7dB) 20kW
com7, com8(-9.7dB) 10.8kW
SDN, ARQA, ARQB(-10dB) 10kW
LEH(-13dB) 5kW
Analogue 5, Mux 1*, Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*(-14dB) 4kW
Mux C*, Mux D*(-17dB) 2kW

Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Craigkelly transmitter area

Aug 1957-Jun 1997Scottish Television
Jun 1997-Dec 2014STV plc
Feb 1983-Dec 1992TV-am•
Jan 1993-Sep 2010GMTV•
Sep 2010-Dec 2014ITV Daybreak•
• Breakfast ◊ Weekends ♦ Friday night and weekends † Weekdays only. Craigkelly 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
Thursday, 16 June 2011
M
Mike Dimmick
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

3:21 PM

Speug: Brian went to a lot of effort to add those and is now being stubborn about removing them.

In short, they are wrong. They only ever appeared in an appendix to an Ofcom consultation about what to do with 'interleaved' spectrum, possible frequencies that could possibly made available, to cover a limited part of the transmitter's coverage area.

There has been no auction to licence these frequencies, and there is no date set for any auction. They might form part of the Culture Secretary's pet Local TV project, but that seems to be mired in disagreements over the scope. Even if local TV does get off the ground, it might not use the frequencies shown, as it may be better to use other frequencies for the job (for example, the Channel M multiplex in Manchester was actually allocated C56 where 'NEW7' was shown as C57).

To sum up, you're not missing anything now and you're not that likely to get anything in future.

link to this comment
Mike Dimmick's 2,486 posts GB flag
G
Graeme
3:57 PM

KMJ,Derby: Yes I've done a full factory reset on both my TVs. Done manual tune on the relevant channels. _Zero_ power is reported.

This is odd. Even the reported 10kW power on the upper 3 mux's is far greater than it was pre DSO (when I received 39,42 OK).

I sense there is more to this that we are being told.
I see a few more similar reports on here now.

link to this comment
Graeme's 3 posts US flag
W
Will
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

6:04 PM

Graeme: It sounds like you have a group A ariel (Craigkelly was a group A area prior to DSO). A group A ariel will not pick up channels 39, 42 and 45. You need a K group or wideband ariel to pick up these channels (see the illustration above showing the different coloured bars for the different ariel groups). Unfortunately, anyone viewing Craigkelly using a group A ariel will actually have less channels than before DSO.

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Will's 39 posts GB flag
W
Will
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

6:06 PM

Graeme: Sorry, I didn't read your post about receiving channels outside group A previously.

link to this comment
Will's 39 posts GB flag
K
KMJ,Derby
sentiment_satisfiedGold

6:37 PM

Graeme: It is certainly odd, I could have understood signal quality going down with increased transmitter power if the signal was subject to reflections. It is possible that the radiation pattern is different with the high power signals if any protection has been incorporated for Chatton and/or the Perth relay. The solution might be to reposition the aerial if it is now sitting in a null for the signal on the COM muxes. As you say, there are several posts mentioning problems with the reception of the COM muxes.

link to this comment
KMJ,Derby's 1,811 posts GB flag
J
John
7:15 PM

Good Freeview reception from Craigkelly before switchover, badly broken picture/no signal during transition. Now get an excellent picture for a few seconds, then black screen and message "Due to technical difficulties, the service you require is not available. Please try again later". I've used reset procedure, reset to factory defaults, etc. Don't know if the problem is my TV/aerial or the transmitter...

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John's 2 posts GB flag
G
Graham Ellery
7:52 PM
Anstruther

Forgot to mention no HD channel either. Am I glad I bought HD ready kit and built in freeview????. DigitalUK now think I may have been getting signal from Blackhill previously.

link to this comment
Graham Ellery's 9 posts GB flag
Graham's: mapG's Freeview map terrainG's terrain plot wavesG's frequency data G's Freeview Detailed Coverage
B
Bruce
7:58 PM
Dalkeith

I'm not very knowledgeable but just to confirm that Dalkeith (EH22) is experiencing the same issues raised by Graham above; namely I've lost any signal for channels on the Ch39 frequency (e.g. Film4, ITV4, Yesterday).

These were just about hanging in there post switchover on the evening of the 15th, albeit with a poor signal. Now they've gone entirely although are still listed as stored channels in my DVD recorder (with freeview). Bizzarely, if I move the DVD recorder from directly under the TV, to infront of the TV, the reception improves from non-existent, to just not very good (but watchable).

Should I cross my fingers and hope they reappear (maybe some further maintenance work is ongoing?) or should I resign myself to my future involving strategically positioning my DVD recorder around the living room depending on what channel I want to watch!


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Bruce's 3 posts GB flag
Bruce's: mapB's Freeview map terrainB's terrain plot wavesB's frequency data B's Freeview Detailed Coverage
J
John
8:01 PM

Sorry - should have said: EH10, roof aerial

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John's 2 posts GB flag
A
Aaron
8:16 PM

Can someone help / advise:

I have re-tuned so many times since 1st June and again today and I keep loosing channels. After a full reset and scan it finds 19 TV channels, 13 radio channels & 2 other channels.

This was fine before the switch-over.

The channels I am currently receiving are:

BBC1, BBC2, STV, C4, C5, ITV2, BBC3, BBC Alba, BBC4, C4+1, More4, E4, STV+1, CBBC, Cbeebies, BBC News, BBC Parliment, Rabbit, Gay Rabbit, BBC Red Button, Springwarch and radio channels.

I live in Leith (EH6) with clear view of Craigkelly.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

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Aaron's 4 posts GB flag
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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.

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