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Full Freeview on the Sudbury (Suffolk, England) transmitter

first published this on - UK Free TV
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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 18/11/2024 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 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), 71 That’s 60s,

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 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 max
C31- (553.8MHz)228mDTG-8100,000W
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 max
C37 (602.0MHz)228mDTG-8100,000W
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)

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, 2 April 2012
S
steve
9:22 PM

Mike
try Simon at alpha aerials 07766544616
Top bloke sorted my problems last month

link to this comment
steve's 3 posts GB flag
Dave Lindsay
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

9:35 PM

Mike: I must point out that the multiplex that carries Film 4, ITV4 and others is on low power until 27th June from Sudbury. Therefore, it is likely that the problem will rectify itself then (if not before) and therefore that any remedial work (and expense) will be to provide reception of those channels between now and 27th June.

What has probably happened is that the level of the signal has dropped slightly, putting it below the threshold that your receiver needs to resolve a picture. You will need to keep manually tuning to channel 63 until it comes back.

Had you not carried out a rescan, you could have simply switched over to one of the affected programme channels to see whether they are back. In circumstances such as yours, the outcome of rescanning usually only serves to loose the programme channels from the receiver's memory.

Where a signal is below the level at which the receiver will work, retuning won't make any positive difference. If the signal level increased a little to produce a picture, it would do it irrespective of the retuning and if it didn't, then you loose it from the listings.

For Sudbury, there is no need to retune until 27th June, it will not achieve anything.

link to this comment
Dave Lindsay's 5,724 posts GB flag
Tuesday, 3 April 2012
J
Jonathon
4:00 PM
Braintree

jb38: "numerous people located at about your distance from the station (9 mls) and up to about 15 mls are having problems trying to receive it, basically due to their tuners being slightly desensitized by the massive differential in power between the main BBC mux on 100kw compared to the 2.2Kw used by ArqB(film 4 etc). "

That's interesting - I'm in CM7 (Braintree) and spent much of Sunday sulking because in the absence of ITV4 I was reduced to hacking a connection from my laptop PC to the TV in order to watch a poor quality streamed version of the BTCC coverage from Brands Hatch, Is it worth my trying an attenuator to stop the other muxes swamping MuxB or is that likely to push the signal I *do* want down too far to pick up?

I've got a selection of "in-line" attenuators ranging from something like -3dB to -20dB around the place somewhere, I can't for the life of me remember why I got 'em but I'm sure they're still around somewhere...

link to this comment
Jonathon's 12 posts GB flag
Jonathon's: mapJ's Freeview map terrainJ's terrain plot wavesJ's frequency data J's Freeview Detailed Coverage
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

9:01 PM

Jonathon: If you already have a few in-line attenuators lying around then you have obviously nothing to lose, although I am very doubtful if you will achieve anything, this being because as you have already sussed out that by the time you have reduced the excessively high level of signal received from the main muxes you are likely to have killed of any signal that was there from the two very low powered commercials.

Still, its worth a try, and so the method I suggest you use for a test is to place the -20dB (variable?) in line with whatever you are receiving on and carry out a signal strength check on say BBC1, noting the indications seen, and if the level is under 95% and the -20db be of the variable type, then bring the signal up to 95%.

The next step is to go into the manual tuning section and enter Ch54 and see if anything is indicated, you should not require a scan to see this as if a signal is there its level should show as soon as you enter the channel number into the box, and if it does show then slowly "reduce" the level of attenuation until the signal level indicated starts to fall off again due to the tuner becoming re-saturated as the signal is increased, then back it off a fraction from that position and try a scan on that channel.

Of course you have to remember that even if a signal is seen indicated and you carry out a scan that this action might still result in a blank screen, as even although the actual level might be high enough to show on a scale its not necessarily the case that its high enough to break through the reception threshold of your receivers tuner, and this cannot be compensated for by amplifying this signal due to it being a vicious circle situation, amplify the low signal and the main muxes are increased as well.

Should by any remote chance this work then try scanning Ch50.

By the way, if when you insert the 20dB in-line attenuator the signal is still too high, then place another in line with it.

link to this comment
jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
Dale
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

9:10 PM

Jonathon / jb38 : there's nothing on CH50 from Sudbury these days - ArqB switched to CH63 in November (that's when the problems started for most people around here)

Brian : can we remove the 'adverts' from aerial contractors, masquerading as satisfied customers, please?

link to this comment
Dale's 78 posts GB flag
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

11:30 PM

Dale: Well you are correct, but only in a "partial" sense, insomuch that its not now Ch50 but Ch63 and with the power doubling to 2.2Kw, likewise Ch54 has also doubled to 3kw, but I very much doubt that this relatively mild increase in power will in real terms make that much difference to the majority of people who are suffering from the massive differential in power problem between the main muxes and the commercials, albeit that you might not be depending on your location.

In other words, I was only replying to Johnathon with reference to the original posting he referred to.

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jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
Thursday, 5 April 2012
C
Colin Allison
2:50 PM
Hockley

Can someone please explain why, following all the hype about digital swithover which took place last July for Sudbury, we have slowly lost channels that we could watch quite happily before swithover. It appears that we now have to wait until 27th June for the lost channels to be on full power. Why has this taken nearly a year to complete? and thrown everyone into confusion without any media information or warning. Thank you.

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Colin Allison's 1 post GB flag
Colin's: mapC's Freeview map terrainC's terrain plot wavesC's frequency data C's Freeview Detailed Coverage
C
C Sargeant
6:06 PM

I am in CM13 I want to receive Sudbury transmission I prefer Anglia news etc. How do I manually retune my Sony Bravia to this station please

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C Sargeant's 1 post GB flag
S
simon
9:10 PM

You can only retune to sudbury if your aerial is aligned to the sudbury transmitter

link to this comment
simon's 3 posts GB flag
Friday, 6 April 2012
Steve Williams
9:01 AM
Colchester

I see on the postcode for CO77GD BLUEBELL HILL is now tope of the list, so is that telling me I ought to swing around and leave Sudbury, which I have to say is hit a miss at this location and go for Blubell?
(2 year old High Gain, Wideband aerial)

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Steve Williams's 13 posts EU flag
Steve's: mapS's Freeview map terrainS's terrain plot wavesS's frequency data S's Freeview Detailed Coverage
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