Full Freeview on the Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham, England) transmitter
 | Google Streetview |  | Google map |  | Bing map |  | Google Earth |  | 52.600,-1.835 or 52°36'1"N 1°50'5"W |  | B75 5JJ |
The symbol shows the location of the Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham, England) transmitter which serves 1,870,000 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 Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham, England) mast?
Sutton Coldfield transmitter - Sutton Coldfield 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
DTG-12 QSPK 8K 3/4 8.0Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2
H/V: aerial position (horizontal or vertical)
Which Freeview channels does the Sutton Coldfield 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
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 Sutton Coldfield transmitter?
BBC Midlands Today 2.9m homes 10.9%
from Birmingham B1 1RF, 15km south-southwest (200°)
to BBC West Midlands region - 66 masts.
ITV Central News 2.9m homes 10.9%
from Birmingham B1 2JT, 15km south-southwest (201°)
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?
| Burton (shobnall) | Transposer | 1 km W Burton-on-Trent | 60 homes |
| Coalville | Transposer | 18 km NW Leicester | 600 homes |
| Solihull | Transposer | Land Rover building | 400 homes |
How will the Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham, England) transmission frequencies change over time?
| 1950s-80s | 1984-97 | 1997-98 | 1998-2011 | 2011-13 | 7 Mar 2018 | ||||
| VHF | B E T | B E T | B E T | B E K T | W T | ||||
| C4 | BBCtvwaves | ||||||||
| C33 | com7 | ||||||||
| C35 | com8 | ||||||||
| C36 | LOCAL2 | ||||||||
| C39 | +ArqB | ArqB | |||||||
| C40 | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | +BBCB | BBCB | ||||
| C42 | SDN | SDN | |||||||
| C43 | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | BBCA | BBCA | ||||
| C45 | ArqA | ArqA | |||||||
| C46 | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | D3+4 | D3+4 | ||||
| C48 | _local | ||||||||
| C50tv_off | C4waves | C4waves | C4waves | ||||||
| C51tv_off | LB | ||||||||
| 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 7 Sep 11 and 21 Sep 11.
How do the old analogue and currrent digital signal levels compare?
| Analogue 1-4 | 1000kW | |
| SDN, ARQA, ARQB, BBCA, D3+4, BBCB | (-7dB) 200kW | |
| com7 | (-10.5dB) 89.2kW | |
| com8 | (-10.7dB) 86kW | |
| LB | (-20dB) 10kW | |
| Mux 1*, Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*, Mux C*, Mux D* | (-21dB) 8kW |
Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Sutton Coldfield transmitter area
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Friday, 9 September 2011
E
ezrapound12:59 AM
Briantist:
I think this line is missing from above :-
MUX-A Digital on Channel 47 Moves to Channel 41
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ezrapound: It does say
"After switchover frequency notes ():
Between the first and second stages of switchover at Sutton Coldfield, SDN will use channel 41 (8kW)."
at the top of the page.
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E
ezrapound10:07 AM
Briantist :- Sorry, I expected it to be between 7th Sept and the 21st Sept in your listings
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M
mark bennett10:45 AM
i can't pick up any channels in group 2! do i need a new aerial?
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K
KMJ,Derby11:56 AM
mark bennett: If you have good reception of the BBC channels on MuxBBCA just wait until 21st September 2011 when MuxD3+4 (ITV1/2, C4, C5 etc) will start high power transmission. If you had these channels before 7th September try a manual tune on C44+ in order to restore reception of the present low power Mux2.
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Graham1:12 PM
Coventry
Since switchover (part 1), the new BBC signal is showing as 100% strength and 97% quality which isn't bad considering the aerial is in the loft pointing directly at the partition wall between our house and the rest in the row of terrace houses. (3 walls total).
What I do not understand is why the Thompson Top-up TV box shows a signal strength of 6/10 and a quality of 8/10. The signal goes through this box before it gets to the TV. Are the tuners measuring different things?
Sitting in the garden with a 15cm pole aerial gets me perfect picture on the Laptop so the signal is fastastic.
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Graham's: mapG's Freeview map terrainG's terrain plot wavesG's frequency data G's Freeview Detailed Coverage
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Paul1:14 PM
After being told to wait for the switch over on the 7th Sept, why is it I Still can not receive any Freeview HD channels.
I live in Sutton Coldfield and use the Sutton Coldfield transmitter.
Any news on when they will be turned on..
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Mike Dimmick2:49 PM
Graham: There are no standards in the UK specification for what these meters actually mean.
*Usually*, the strength meter is a percentage or proportion of the actual range that the box can accept, but the upper limit is typically the *combined* level of all received transmissions; with six high-power multiplexes, plus overlaps from other transmitters, it may be necessary to ensure that each received signal is quite a bit below 100%.
Different boxes will have different upper and lower limits on what they can accept.
The 'signal quality' meter on a lot of equipment shows you the proportion of data that was received without error, *after* all error correction was applied. Therefore it stays at 100% until signal quality actually drops enough for the error correction to fail, which you will be able to see or hear, making it useless for diagnostics.
Other equipment shows the Bit Error Rate, the number of bits that were corrected by either the first or second stage of error-correction. Really the best information for diagnosis is the pre-Viterbi BER, but many chipsets don't make this available. Professional meter equipment re-encodes the decoded data stream and compares it to what was received, to produce the Modulation Error Ratio (MER), but that does require extra hardware specifically for measuring, so I wouldn't expect consumer equipment to include it.
The Scandinavian standard, NorDig, now does standardize what these displays mean. Ireland's Saorview standard is based on NorDig 2.0 although with the UK's MHEG 5 profile for interactive content rather than NorDig's.
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S
Steve3:24 PM
Solihull
Ariel is on roof. Can get all channels but all ITV Channel 4 and 5 keep breaking up. Will this resolve itself on 21 September?
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Steve's: mapS's Freeview map terrainS's terrain plot wavesS's frequency data S's Freeview Detailed Coverage
D
Dave3:55 PM
Im in Stafford and have a freeview HD TV and although i have re-tuned i cant get HD channels. I have never had these previously but was hoping that i would get them following the DSO. The DSO website says i should be able to get them? Any ideas as would really like to get the full benefits?
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