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Full Freeview on the Crystal Palace (Greater London, England) transmitter

first published this on - UK Free TV
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The symbol shows the location of the Crystal Palace (Greater London, England) transmitter which serves 4,490,000 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 Crystal Palace (Greater London, England) mast?

Crystal Palace transmitter - Crystal Palace transmitter: Possible effect on TV reception week commencing 18/11/2024 Screen may go black 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 Crystal Palace 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
C23 (490.0MHz)324mDTG-200,000W
Channel icons
1 BBC One (SD) London, 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
C26 (514.0MHz)324mDTG-200,000W
Channel icons
3 ITV 1 (SD) (London), 4 Channel 4 (SD) London ads, 5 Channel 5, 6 ITV 2, 10 ITV3, 13 E4, 14 Film4, 15 Channel 4 +1 London ads, 18 More4, 26 ITV4, 28 ITVBe, 30 E4 +1, 35 ITV1 +1 (London), 71 That’s 60s,

PSB3
BBCB
 H max
C30- (545.8MHz)324mDTG-200,000W
Channel icons
46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD London, 102 BBC Two HD England, 103 ITV 1 HD (ITV London), 104 Channel 4 HD London 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
C25 (506.0MHz)314mDTG-8200,000W
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
C22 (482.0MHz)321mDTG-8200,000W
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
C28- (529.8MHz)321mDTG-8200,000W
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

LW
 H -10dB
C35 (586.0MHz)324mDTG-1220,000W
Channel icons
from 31st March 2014: 8 LONDON LIVE,

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 Crystal Palace transmitter?

regional news image
BBC London 4.9m homes 18.4%
from London W1A 1AA, 12km north-northwest (335°)
to BBC London region - 55 masts.
regional news image
ITV London News 4.9m homes 18.4%
from London WC1X 8XZ, 11km north-northwest (345°)
to ITV London region - 55 masts.

Are there any self-help relays?

Charlton AthleticTransposerRedeveloped north stand Charlton Athletic Football Club130 homes
DeptfordTransposersouth-east London100 homes
GreenfordTransposer12 km N Heathrow Airport203 homes
HendonTransposerGraham Park estate50 homes
White CityTransposer9 km W central London80 homes

How will the Crystal Palace (Greater London, England) transmission frequencies change over time?

1950s-80s1984-971997-981998-20122012-1321 Mar 2018
VHFA K TA K TA K TA K TW T
C1BBCtvwaves
C22ArqAArqA
C23ITVwavesITVwavesITVwavesBBCABBCA
C25SDNSDN
C26BBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBC1wavesD3+4D3+4
C28-ArqBArqB
C29LW
C30C4wavesC4wavesC4waves-BBCBBBCB
C33BBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBC2wavescom7
C35com8
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 4 Apr 12 and 18 Apr 12.

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(-13.7dB) 43.1kW
com8(-14dB) 39.8kW
Mux 1*, Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*, Mux C*, Mux D*, LW(-17dB) 20kW

Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Crystal Palace transmitter area

Sep 1955-Jul 1968Associated-Rediffusion†
Sep 1955-Jul 1968Associated TeleVision◊
Jul 1968-Dec 1992Thames†
Jul 1968-Feb 2004London Weekend Television♦
Jan 1993-Feb 2004Carlton†
Feb 2004-Dec 2014ITV plc♦
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. Crystal Palace 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
Friday, 20 April 2012
D
Dave Hughes
10:12 AM

Hi,

To start with I am not a techie so go gentle with me. I live just outside Chelmsford and at about 9pm to 11pm most nights pixels start to drop from my HD channels, also channels seemed to randomly dissapear in the morning. I thought that the retune on 18th would solve this but woke this morning to find BBC radio channels gone, and most of the TV gone, so went through the rigmoral of doing a full rescan again. I select Anglia on my box - but also have the option to select London or Kent, am I doing something wrong or am I doomed to have to do full rescans most days to watch tele / listen to radio. It is frustrating as I have to set up the timer recordings each time I do a full rescan

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Dave Hughes's 1 post GB flag
K
Kevin Hodges
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

10:28 AM
Chelmsford

Dave Hughes, I too live in Chelmsford and use Sudbury and receive a good signal. Chelmsford is very localised as to which is the best transmitter. Which way does your aerial point as from Chelmsford Crystal Palace and Sudbury are almost in opposite directions. Might I suggest a manual tune to only select the required channels

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Kevin Hodges's 27 posts GB flag
Kevin's: mapK's Freeview map terrainK's terrain plot wavesK's frequency data K's Freeview Detailed Coverage
C
Chris
11:10 AM

Hmm, my channel scan has resulted in all my SDN channels having QPSK modulation?! I've got no idea how QPSK differs from 64QAM, but I still seem to get a picture.

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Chris's 15 posts GB flag
Dave Lindsay
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

11:13 AM

Dave Hughes: What transmitter does your aerial point to? If it is Crystal Palace then you need to select London or if it is Sudbury then you need to select Anglia.

If you have two aerials (one on each transmitter) that are combined into one cable, then you should be able to choose either.

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Dave Lindsay's 5,724 posts GB flag
K
Kate
11:51 AM
London

Roger, on one PC I stopped all the media center services, cleared out the database and tried a fresh setup of the TV signal. Big mistake. Now I can get no channels at all on that PC, even after a system restore. On the PC where I just tried to update the TV signal, I can at least get the BBC channels which have not changed location. I have no idea how to fix this.

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Kate's 7 posts GB flag
Kate's: mapK's Freeview map terrainK's terrain plot wavesK's frequency data K's Freeview Detailed Coverage
N
NICK ADSL UK
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

1:39 PM

Just an update in that the aerial engineers for crawley and gatwick and surrounding areas have told me that on the switch over all was well but in the second switch-over everything has gone wrong and they in many cases have had to go out again to find out why

Does anyone know on what the guys at crystal palace have done for the second changeover that was so very different from the first changeover ?

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NICK ADSL UK's 72 posts GB flag
D
David Taylor
2:42 PM
Swanley

Hi JB38
Tried with an indoor aerial and got freezing
and pixelating but wiggly picture seemed better I think a job to tell with the picture freezing.
Does this mean iv'e got to try and get a signal strength between the two ?
Would an attenuater help?
This is the price of progress I guess after it took me years faffing about to get a decent analogue picture they do away with it.
This seems a familiar story of the powers that be believing all the hype about new technology and jumping in feet first without
thinking of the consequences for the man
(or woman)in the street.
Yours Dave

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David Taylor's 12 posts GB flag
David's: mapD's Freeview map terrainD's terrain plot wavesD's frequency data D's Freeview Detailed Coverage
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

4:04 PM

NICK ADSL UK : Well as far as I can gather they haven't really done anything other than up the power of the remaining muxes, that said though, it is possible that this action would have had the effect of further adding to the level of swamping (overloading) that was most likely already being experienced by many from the high powered PSB BBC mux that was already switched, albeit that because there was only one channel involved it only affected a small part of the overall channel span of the tuner, but when the power was increased on the remaining five muxes the high powered signals then covered a broader spectrum and spread the overloading already experienced across a higher percentage of the tuners total channel span, thereby taking the slight overloading already experienced nearer to the critical level at which a receiving devices tuner can cope with before causing picture freezing and glitches of various sorts to occur, and the stage just before complete blocking of the signal.

In other words, most tuners can cope with a strong signal on a small part of a frequency range they might cover, but when overly strong signals are multiplied and cover a larger area in a tuner then the effect on the input circuitry is much greater.

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jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
N
NICK ADSL UK
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

4:34 PM

Many thanks JB
I will keep you updated for this neck of the woods and will let you know what the chief engineer of Digital UK has to say when i speak with him on Monday

I'm finding in my house only my 10 years old Japanese sony dvd recorder working perfectly and my sony tv in my daughters bedroom

my sons new phillips tv and our main top of the range new Panasonic that was ok on the first change over but has now failed on the second change over

looks like i will now need to buy a another couple of Sony TV's i do know that only Sony hold the main patent for the receiver chip

samsung and LG TV's don't work in my house at all and never have done despite the companies concerned were looking in to it

My train of thought here is that the whole oversight of the switch over has been badly executed by team without much overall understanding of the tv tuner chips involved

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NICK ADSL UK's 72 posts GB flag
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

4:45 PM

David Taylor: Yes, what you have found would appear to confirm a case of signal overloading, but as mentioned in my last posting, if signal overloading is the culprit then the symptoms referred to should not be evident at all when viewing the background of a menu screen when NO aerial is plugged in, as that positively confirms that the problem is being caused by an overly strong signal, although of course if you still see the problem without the aerial then it isn't!

I would advise though that rather than purchasing an attenuator at this present time (albeit they are only just under £4.00 or so) reinforce the findings made with the set top aerial by trying a short (about 8 / 12") piece of wire pushed into the inner portion of the aerial socket (a core from two core lighting flex etc) as even although the picture might freeze it doesn't quite matter about that as you are only interested if the wiggly line you refer to has vanished as well as the hum on the audio.

By the way, when referring to the motorised aerial rotator, "if" you are still using that can it be taken that the control / power cable to the aerial is NOT taped onto the co-ax, which of course it should not be, and another little point about some of these Freeview boxes being, that always have cables from / to them well clear of the cabinet, i.e: take them directly away from the rear and never curled on top of, or under the boxes casing, as some boxes radiate horrendous levels of interference from directly above / under the chassis.

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