Full Freeview on the Rowridge (Isle Of Wight, England) transmitter

Brian Butterworth first published this on 1st May 2004 at 08:20 - UK Free TV

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50.676,-1.369 or 50°40'35"N 1°22'7"W

PO30 4HT

The symbol shows the location of the Rowridge (Isle Of Wight, England) transmitter which serves 620,000 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 Rowridge (Isle Of Wight, England) mast?

Rowridge transmitter - Rowridge transmitter: Possible effect on TV reception week commencing 22/04/2024 Screen may go black on some or all channels

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

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Which Freeview channels does the Rowridge 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.

Mux	H/V	Frequency	Height	Mode	Watts
PSB1 BBCA	V max H max	C24 (498.0MHz)	320m	DTG-	200,000W 200,000W
	1 BBC One (SD) South, 2 BBC Two England, 9 BBC Four, 23 BBC Three, 201 CBBC, 202 CBeebies, 231 BBC News, 232 BBC Parliament, plus 17 others
PSB2 D3+4	V max H max	C27 (522.0MHz)	320m	DTG-	200,000W 200,000W
	3 ITV 1 (SD) (Meridian (South Coast 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 (Meridian south coast),
PSB3 BBCB	V max H max	C21+ (474.2MHz)	320m	DTG-	200,000W 200,000W
	46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD South, 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 66 TBN UK,
COM4 SDN	H -6dB V -6dB	C25 (506.0MHz)	299m	DTG-8	50,000W 50,000W
	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 -6dB V -6dB	C22+ (482.2MHz)	302m	DTG-8	50,000W 50,000W
	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 -6dB V -6dB	C28 (530.0MHz)	302m	DTG-8	50,000W 50,000W
	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
LSO	H -13dB	C37 (602.0MHz)	299m	DTG-12	10,000W
	from 22nd December 2014: 7 That's Solent,

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 Rowridge transmitter?

BBC South Today 1.3m homes 4.9%
from Southampton SO14 7PU, 26km north (354°)
to BBC South region - 39 masts.

ITV Meridian News 0.9m homes 3.6%
from Whiteley PO15 7AD, 24km north-northeast (20°)
to ITV Meridian (South Coast) region - 39 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 50% evening news is shared with all of Meridian plus Oxford

Are there any self-help relays?

Portsmouth Docks

Transposer

2 km N city centre

50 homes Estimate. Group of houses'

How will the Rowridge (Isle Of Wight, England) transmission frequencies change over time?

	1950s-80s	1984-97	1997-98	1998-2012	2012-13	2 May 2018
	VHF	A K T	A K T	A K T	A K T	W T
C3	BBCtv_waves
C21		C4_waves	C4_waves	C4_waves	+BBCB	BBCB
C22					+ArqA	ArqA
C24		BBC2_waves	BBC2_waves	BBC2_waves	BBCA	BBCA
C25					SDN	SDN
C27		ITV_waves	ITV_waves	ITV_waves	D3+4	D3+4
C28					ArqB	ArqB
C29						LSO
C31		BBC1_waves	BBC1_waves	BBC1_waves		com7
C37						com8
C55_{tv_off}						com7_{tv_off}
C56_{tv_off}						COM8_{tv_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 Mar 12 and 21 Mar 12.

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

Analogue 1-4	500kW
PSB1\|\|, PSB1≡, PSB2\|\|, PSB2≡, PSB3\|\|, PSB3≡	(-4dB) 200kW
COM4≡, COM4\|\|, COM5≡, COM5\|\|, COM6≡, COM6\|\|	(-10dB) 50kW
com7≡	(-13.1dB) 24.4kW
Mux 1, Mux 2, Mux A, Mux B, Mux C, Mux D	(-14dB) 20kW
com8≡	(-14.3dB) 18.4kW
LSO≡	(-17dB) 10kW

Local transmitter maps

Rowridge Freeview Rowridge DAB Rowridge TV region BBC South Meridian (South Coast micro region)

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

Aug 1958-Jan 1992	Southern Television
Jan 1982-Dec 1992	Television South (TVS)
Jan 1993-Feb 2004	Meridian
Feb 2004-Dec 2014	ITV plc

Feb 1983-Dec 1992	TV-am•
Jan 1993-Sep 2010	GMTV•
Sep 2010-Dec 2014	ITV Daybreak•

• Breakfast ◊ Weekends ♦ Friday night and weekends † Weekdays only. Rowridge 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.

Is the transmitter output the same in all directions?

Dave Lindsay

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

3:19 PM

Rob Hayward: The penultimate sentence of the last paragraph should say "In many cases there are *no* further changes."

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Dave Lindsay's 5,724 posts GB flag

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david

_{sentiment_satisfied}Bronze

5:16 PM
Salisbury

one tell me that the reason hd icons on itv and four dont appear on my panasonic epg althought bbc hd icons do appear is because is fed off air from and will not correct its self until rowridge goes full on the 18 april Aquiva tell me salisbury is landline fed who is correct?

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david's 66 posts GB flag

david's: D's Freeview map D's terrain plot D's frequency data D's Freeview Detailed Coverage

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Gary moir
10:34 PM

Similar problem to Ray Gustar, my girlfriend has a Samsung series 3 ta300 22 which turns itself off every few minutes. If she auto retunes it stays on longer. She says it was fine b4 the switch over.

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Gary moir's 1 post GB flag

M

Mike Dimmick

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

12:09 PM

david: If the icons on channel numbers 3 and 4 indicating HD programmes don't appear, that's a data feed problem or a problem with your box. is line-fed from , and has been since 1998, so is broadcasting exactly the same data that Rowridge is - except for COM4 and COM5 as those are yet to reach their final modes at Rowridge. ITV1 and in SD, and their +1s, are all carried on PSB2, and the HD are both on PSB3. Both multiplexes are at their final configurations at Rowridge already.

The feed is definitely shown as line-fed in Digital UK's final installer newsletter for the Rowridge group: http://www.digitaluk.co.u….pdf

Salisbury was fed off-air for , and perhaps this could still be used as a back-up if the line feeds fail - though I've read that each line-fed has two independent feeds from the two nearest telephone exchanges, and the BBC multiplexes (PSB1 and PSB3) can also be recreated from a transmission if both lines fail. It would be interesting to see if vertically-polarized receiving antennas have been fitted, as has happened at most of Rowridge's other relays.

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Mike Dimmick's 2,486 posts GB flag

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Mike Dimmick

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

12:25 PM

Sean: translating those frequencies into numbers (subtract 474, divide by 8, add 21):

22+ => 37
25 => 30-
46 => 24

Rowridge doesn't yet use C22 or C25, it's probable that whatever data you used to update the HTPC has the final configuration, not the current interim one. C30- and C37 are the correct current frequencies for those services. These will change to C22+ and C25 (plus ArqB moving from C33+ to C28) on 18 April.

C46 could possibly be Brading on the Isle of Wight, though that would be PSB2/D3&4 (broadcast from Rowridge on C24) not PSB1/BBC A which broadcasts from Rowridge on C27. The nearest transmitters using C46 for BBC A are Till Valley and Winterbourne Stickland - the latter is more likely. It's probably just a freak occurrence due to the weather. You are practically guaranteed to get some overlaps at different times of the year.

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Mike Dimmick's 2,486 posts GB flag

Transmitter engineering