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Full Freeview on the Sandy Heath (Central Bedfordshire, England) transmitter

first published this on - UK Free TV
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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.

This transmitter has no current reported problems

The BBC and Digital UK report there are no faults or engineering work on the Sandy Heath (Central Bedfordshire, England) transmitter.

Choose from three options: ■ List by multiplex ■ List by channel number ■ List by channel name
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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.

MuxH/VFrequencyHeightModeWatts
PSB1
BBCA
 H max
C27 (522.0MHz)291mDTG-180,000W
Channel icons
1 BBC One (SD) Cambridge, 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
C24 (498.0MHz)291mDTG-180,000W
Channel icons
3 ITV 1 (SD) (Anglia (West 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), 71 That’s 60s,

PSB3
BBCB
 H max
C21+ (474.2MHz)291mDTG-180,000W
Channel icons
46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD Cambridge, 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 -0.2dB
C33 (570.0MHz)291mDTG-8170,000W
Channel icons
20 U&Drama, 21 5USA, 29 ITV2 +1, 32 5STAR, 33 5Action, 38 Channel 5 +1, 41 Legend, 42 GREAT! action, 57 U&Dave ja vu, 58 ITV3 +1, 59 ITV4 +1, 64 Blaze, 67 TRUE CRIME, 68 TRUE CRIME XTRA, 81 Blaze +1, 83 Together TV, 91 WildEarth, 93 ITVBe +1, 209 Ketchup TV, 210 Ketchup Too, 211 YAAAS!, 251 Al Jazeera English, 255 FRANCE 24 (in English), 265 Rok Sky +1, plus 29 others

COM5
ArqA
 H -0.2dB
C36 (594.0MHz)289mDTG-8170,000W
Channel icons
11 Sky Mix, 17 Really, 19 U&Dave, 31 E4 Extra, 36 Sky Arts, 40 Quest Red, 43 Food Network, 47 Film4 +1, 48 Challenge, 49 4seven, 60 U&Drama +1, 65 That's TV 2, 70 Quest +1, 74 &UYesterday +1, 76 That's TV 2 MCR, 233 Sky News, plus 13 others

COM6
ArqB
 H -0.2dB
C48 (690.0MHz)289mDTG-8170,000W
Channel icons
12 Quest, 25 U&W, 27 U&Yesterday, 34 GREAT! movies, 39 DMAX, 44 HGTV, 52 GREAT! christmas, 56 That's TV (UK), 63 GREAT! romance mix, 73 HobbyMaker, 75 That's 90s, 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)

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

regional news image
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
regional news image
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?

1965-80s1984-971997-981998-20112011-1312 Feb 2020
VHFA K TK TK TW TW T
C6ITVwaves
C21C4wavesC4wavesC4waves+BBCBBBCB
C24ITVwavesITVwavesITVwavesD3+4D3+4
C27BBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBCABBCA
C31BBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBC1waves
C32com7
C33SDN
C34com8
C35_local
C36ArqA
C39C5wavesC5waves
C43_local
C48ArqBArqB
C51tv_offSDN
C52tv_offArqA
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 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

Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Sandy Heath 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.

Comments
Wednesday, 14 March 2012
Shaun Southall
11:06 PM

Anyone else just lost all the HD channels in Corby? (sandy Heath).

link to this comment
Shaun Southall's 3 posts GB flag
Monday, 19 March 2012
Dino
5:28 PM

Lost VHF Channel 31 and re-tuned to see if we could get CITV and Quest Freeview channels back, however they have completely disappeared. So much for a reliable Freeview service. Sandy needs to start providing reliable service IMHO.

link to this comment
Dino's 2 posts GB flag
Dave Lindsay
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

5:51 PM

Dino: In circumstances such as yours, you would be best advised not to retune because the only possible outcome is that (most likely) you loose the programme channels from your receiver or you get them back. Crucially, the act of retuning cannot have any affect on getting them back, therefore they would have come back anyway if they are back after retuning.

The act of retuning is therefore like shooting oneself in the foot. Only where there is reason to retune, such as a change of channel should retune be carried out.

The only way you are going to get it back is to repeatedly manual tune to channel 31 until it comes back, whereas had it been left, you could simply have select CITV to see if it was back.

link to this comment
Dave Lindsay's 5,724 posts GB flag
A
Adam B
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

5:53 PM
Dunstable

Dino:

On the 9th May Mux COM4 will move to UHF CH51, and increase in power from 20KW to 170KW. The current temporary situation is a result of the digital switchover process and will be full resolved on the above date.

Hope this helps,
Adam.

link to this comment
Adam B's 91 posts GB flag
Adam's: mapA's Freeview map terrainA's terrain plot wavesA's frequency data A's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Wednesday, 21 March 2012
J
Jim chaney
11:30 PM
Cambridge

So, who do I really complain to when a transmitter drops power so much that I lose signal?

It *appears* (I am no expert) that the reason I have had no 5*, 5 USA, ITV2+1 etc for months now is that the managers of the Sandy Heath transmitter decided on an order of magnitude decrease in power would not be a problem. Well, for cb2 1re (the little white patch west of cambridge) that drop is enough to lose all channels on that Mux.

Switchover (maybe the shutdown of the Madingly transmitter?) has resulted in a significant loss of access to TV services, often for weeks at a time. There is clearly no hardware faults, as the signal appearance/loss are months apart!

I am at a loss, I am just miles away from a major technicality (Cambridge) and have huge holes in my tv schedule!

Tips?

link to this comment
Jim chaney's 1 post GB flag
Jim's: ...
Thursday, 22 March 2012
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

7:46 AM

Jim chaney: The reason for Sandy's SDN mux being on low power is because it shares Ch31 with Crystal Palaces low powered HD service, however Crystal Palace stops using Ch31 from April 18th but its not until May 9th when a re-tuning event takes place at Sandy that SDN's power increases as well as the channel changing from 31 to 51.

link to this comment
jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
Monday, 26 March 2012
S
Scott austin
1:55 PM

Hi people does anyone know why we are havering probs in Northampton . It's every night at about 10 pm onwards.i am recovering 75db please help

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Scott austin's 1 post GB flag
M
mieke
7:00 PM

My tv has just stopped working altogether and it says ' connect aerial' - which is fully connected.

I live in Sandy. Anyone else got problems? (7pm).

link to this comment
mieke's 1 post GB flag
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

8:02 PM

mieke: I assume that it must have been a very temporary break? as I checked the signal from Sandy a few minutes ago and it was as normal.

It has been published to expect interruptions to the service to occur at any time during this week, so if the screen is found to be blank at any time do not alter anything.

link to this comment
jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
Thursday, 5 April 2012
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