Full Freeview on the Sudbury (Suffolk, England) transmitter
 | Google Streetview |  | Google map |  | Bing map |  | Google Earth |  | 52.005,0.786 or 52°0'17"N 0°47'8"E |  | CO10 5NG |
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 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
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 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.
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?
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
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 West | Transposer | 1000 homes +1000 or more homes due to expansion of affected area? | |
| Witham | Transposer | 14 km NE Chelmsford. | 118 homes |
How will the Sudbury (Suffolk, England) transmission frequencies change over time?
| 1984-97 | 1997-98 | 1998-2011 | 2011-13 | 1 Aug 2018 | |||||
| B E T | B E T | B E T | E T | K T | |||||
| C29 | SDN | ||||||||
| C31 | ArqA | ||||||||
| C35 | C5waves | C5waves | |||||||
| C37 | ArqB | ||||||||
| C41 | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | D3+4 | D3+4 | ||||
| C44 | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBCA | BBCA | ||||
| C47 | C4waves | C4waves | C4waves | BBCB | BBCB | ||||
| C51tv_off | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | ||||||
| C56tv_off | ArqB | ||||||||
| C58tv_off | SDN | ||||||||
| 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
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Sunday, 10 June 2012
A
An Irate Freeview viewer3:29 PM
Braintree
Dave Lindsay: Thank you. Unlike A D Wood I've experienced this since the last retune was required some 7 months ago, not the last day or so.
Shame I can't get a partial refund on my TV tax for loss of service or some other financial recompense if I do end up having to buy further expensive equipment/services like Sky, simply to receive a handful of channels I was in receipt of prior to the last required retune and prior to the switchover.
The situation is a shambles, and that's being polite about it.
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An's: mapA's Freeview map terrainA's terrain plot wavesA's frequency data A's Freeview Detailed Coverage
J
jb384:44 PM
An Irate Freeview viewer: I presume that you do realise that you are not officially predicted as being able to receive these two channels? namely Ch54 & Ch63, and although you might well have managed to receive them before it should however be appreciated that this was only really through good luck and not through entitlement, but unfortunately this good luck having been spoiled because of the massive differential in power between the main muxes and the two commercials, as the main muxes will most likely be desensitizing your tuner thereby making it difficult for it to pick up the very much weaker signals being received from these two commercials, something thats affected quite a number of viewers in the Sudbury coverage area, even a number who unlike yourself, are actually predicted to receive it.
By the way, the three commercial channels of SDN / ArqA / ArqB are not connected in any way whatsoever with the TV licence, it only being linked with the PSB muxes, these three commercials being purely for profit purposes and likewise not being required in the legal sense to ensure they can be received by any licence holder.
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A
An Irate Freeview viewer5:47 PM
Braintree
Not predicted? How so. The maps here say I should have full Freeview coverage under the Sudbury transmitter, and that I would also think is supported by people up the road from me having the channels I do not.
But regardless of whether I was "predicted" to or not the idea of the digital switchover I believed was to bring more TV to more people not reduce what they can receive.
To be as polite as possible - I despise people who pretty much stand up for the shambles for many that is the digital switchover by way of making excuses and pointing out things like "they're not covered by the TV tax".
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An's: mapA's Freeview map terrainA's terrain plot wavesA's frequency data A's Freeview Detailed Coverage
H
Heinz7:05 PM
I'm sure, in 17 days time, you'll be a happy bunny and not An Irate Freeview viewer.
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J
jb389:31 PM
An Irate Freeview viewer: Copy and paste the link provided below into your browser and you can see that the two muxes in question are missing.
As an engineer myself I disapproved of this having been done right from the start, and had voiced my opinion that it might well be OK as far as the transmitting side of the equation was concerned but certainly not if consideration was given to the problems that this differential in power is very likely to cause with reception, basically because of the average domestic tuner not being able to cope with this type of situation, although some brands do much more than others, Humax and Panasonic being amongst the better types.
However, as commented by Heinz your difficulty should be rectified on the 27th.
Postcode Checker - Trade View
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Wednesday, 13 June 2012
H
Harrumph12:32 AM
Stowmarket
It's gobsmacking, all this effort that's going into sorting out Freeview and I just couldn't be bothered reading the posts immediately above mine in case they give any useful information. It's not like 21 pages of information might be relevant or anything! For crying out loud, I have to post now or I might notice that the answers are even on the same page!!!!
Indeed, why the heck would the engineers bother to increase the power on two muxes and move them to better channels that are easier to receive, putting them on a par with the BBC channels when they could just leave them the same as they are now and let people whinge.
For goodness sake people, if you're going to complain, spend 10 minutes, look around you and you never know, you might actually learn something (God forbid!!!) But I guess you'll just moan about the fact that it'll never work because it's the English thing to do to moan moan moan.
Roll on the 27th June when all the muxes are transmitting on the same power!
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Harrumph's: mapH's Freeview map terrainH's terrain plot wavesH's frequency data H's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Saturday, 23 June 2012
T
Trevor Wright10:10 AM
An Irate Freeview Viewer:
I live in Rayne (CM77 6) not that far from you and had a good 40-year-old Group B aerial until six weeks back when I finally switched to a five-element Wideband aerial (Blake DMX5 I think) with a channel 21-39 (I think) Antiference filter to remove any London reception, installed by Witham Aerials & Satellite (witsat.co.uk). Previously I could not get a reliable ITV4 (same issued with BTCC) but realised that an aerial change was the only option. I also had the old style of aerial downlead instead of the WF100 satellite style downcable now used. I now have a neat small aerial (awful-looking 10-element Blake DMX10's or similar were previously fitted), new downcable, and get all the channels without problem, even though channel 63 is down at 30% signal strength according to my Humax PVR. So, if you have an old aerial and old downcable the an aerial update is the only answer. Yes, it's annoying we are forced into this by the digital switchover, but it's something we all have to live with.
I can thoroughly recommend Witham Aerial & Satellite. He's an ex-Marconi chap like me and a professional installer, not like some of the cowboy installers.
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Trevor Wright: The Commercial channels are on low power from Sudbury. Since last November there have been many reports through this website of people unable pick-up C63.
The changes due to happen this Wednesday will see all of Sudbury's Commercial multiplexes going to full power (finally!). As you know, this is around a year since Sudbury switched, but it has been in this "temporary" low power state.
For this reason I suggest that no changes be made until then, when an assessment of reception of the final-state signals can be made.
The three Commercial multiplexes will use 56, 58 and 60 which are above the former analogue Group B channels, and so may be outside the officially-designed range of many aerials, but because digital reception is all about getting sufficient level above the threshold, then this "may" work fine when the signals go up to full power.
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M
Mazbar11:59 AM
dave having a low power transmitter is not allways a bad thing. When a transmitter goes on high power it can mask a problem i go to lots of houses that only have very mild problems only to find water pouring out of the coax from breaks or broken caps. So informing people to wait till it is high power is not allways the right answer if the coax comes direct from the aerial people should allways look for rust, a milky white aroumd the plug or just water, this allways needs atention straigth away. One last thing please stop advising people to check there aerial some stupid people will think it is fine to clamber over there roof puting themself at risk a little bit of knowledge is a dangerious thing.
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Sunday, 24 June 2012
Mazbar: Of course water getting into a cable needs sorting, irrespective of any other factor that may be affecting reception.
I don't recall advising anyone to check their aerial. The nearest I have gone to this is advising people using Rowridge that switching their aerial to vertical may help. Granted, a qualification that this should be done by a professional or at least someone proficient in going up on to the roof safely may be wise.
As you say, there are some who are not suitably qualified in going on the roof and unable to appreciate that, as a result, they should not go on the roof.
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