Full Freeview on the Sudbury (Suffolk, England) transmitter
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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 11/11/2024 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, 1 July 2012
Nick: Now that the transmitter is on full power, try turning your aerial to see if it is currently a little off-beam.
I know with my own experience with Emley Moor that the PSBs appear to be stronger. The aerial can be turned off-beam to the point where the COMs degrade but the PSBs are still strong and good quality. All six are at the same transmission power, so it must be the beam of the signal being put out that's different.
There are discrepancies between the number of people who are expected to receive PSBs+COMs as against those who will get PSBs only from transmitters that carry both at the same power:
The commercial multiplex after switchover: ArqA, ArqB and SDN | ukfree.tv - independent free digital TV advice
Like Emley Moor, Sudbury is one of those whose COMs are at the same power as PSBs. Maybe the beam of the COMs' signals aren't quite as high towards the horizon as the PSBs.
It is also worth pointing out that the higher the gain of an aerial, the narrower the angle of acceptance is, as gain is simply a trade-off of sensitivity in different directions. So the more "gain" you have facing forward, the more "loss" you have in other directions. Hence it could be more critical that it must be pointing exactly on target.
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Nick8:11 PM
Thanks Dave, but am still mystified that higher power has done so much damage. I have actually tried my box in two houses and therefore different aerials, results identical. I assume the frequencies/power really have been changed and that the table above our comments is out of date. Even stranger is that 10 miles south of Aldeburgh I had a big aerial on Dover analogue, to save getting a box. At Dover switchover, rather than take the aerial down and go onto Sudbury, I wondered if I could get digital from Dover, well out of range. I get the lot!. [at present.] I would be interested to know if others have this problem with Sudbury, even lost ITV 3.
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Nick: The PSBs from Sudbury and Rouncefall operate as a Single Frequency Network (SFN). This means that they use the same channels and therefore the aerial might pick up some signal from one transmitter and a bit from the other. So the result is the sum of the two at the point where the aerial is.
Rouncefall doesn't carry the COMs, so orienting an aerial based solely on the PSBs could lead to a not-so-accurate aiming of the aerial.
The only possibility I can think of is that the COMs are more restricted (than the PSBs), perhaps because to prevent interference on the Continent.
What strengths do you get on the PSBs from Sudbury?
If you can't get the Sudbury COMs, then in order to get Angia regional programming, you could perhaps have another aerial on Aldeburgh. The channels allow diplexing with Dover. Rouncefall is 39 degrees clockwise of Dover, so this is probably too far off beam for the aerial you have to pick it up.
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KMJ,Derby10:51 PM
Nick: The prediction for reception of the COM muxes from Sudbury at your Woodbridge postcode is variable, with a very low chance of a reliable service for 99% of the time, (zero chance for C56), but a good chance of reliable reception for 50% of the time. It would seem to be possible that you are likely to experience interference from other transmitters at the slightest hint of lift conditions, Waltham and Belmont being the most likely sources. You might find that careful positioning of the aerial might improve the chance of reception, slight raising or lowering of the aerial as well as movement to either side could make a big difference to the level of signal being received.
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Mark Fletcher11:29 PM
Halifax
Ben.Clacton-on-Sea,CO16 8QJ.If as you state there are problems with Sudbury,are you still experiencing them at this moment in time while i am texting this reply to you.Is your aerial plus its cable and co-ax plug up to date.Albeit unlikely though but there is the possibly that the nearby new Clacton relay near your location may to some degree be causing some glitches now and again to your normal reception if your aerial is aimed at Sudbury itself.
But as i mentioned in my earlier reply to you the inversion effect here too is another possibly due to the recent settled spell over South East England.
Im sure the true engineering experts on here,Briantist,Mike Dimmick,JB38,KMJ Derby,etc,will offer even more qualified advice and assistance to you about your current predicament if you are still convinced that there is a fault on the Sudbury transmitter itself.
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Mark's: mapM's Freeview map terrainM's terrain plot wavesM's frequency data M's Freeview Detailed Coverage
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Mark Fletcher11:33 PM
Halifax
Dave C.I would look up Inversion Effect as the most likely cause !
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Mark's: mapM's Freeview map terrainM's terrain plot wavesM's frequency data M's Freeview Detailed Coverage
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Mark Fletcher11:46 PM
Halifax
Russell Battle:If as you state a new aerial is on the cards,if you reside in a poor signal/marginal signal area within Sudbury itself then either a semi-wideband group E (brown colour tipped) Yagi 18E or group E X-Beam XB16E with black coloured copper-copper co-ax cable and superior quality brass co-ax plugs will give many years of good quality Freeview service from Sudbury.
I would also look up the ATV Aerials and Television of Sheffield website for good quality advice and aerial accessories from them,they are in my honest option the UK's No1 aerial retailer they are the best,forget the rest !
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Mark's: mapM's Freeview map terrainM's terrain plot wavesM's frequency data M's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Monday, 2 July 2012
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Mark Fletcher12:08 AM
Halifax
David in Clacton.You may find if you switch to Crystal Palace you will only receive BBC1 London and ITV1 London Tonight local news instead,but if you're not handicapped by that then go for it.
However if you do switch to Crystal Palace also you will find that if your aerial is a group W wideband (coloured black at its tips) then you may need either to diplex this with a group A aerial (red coloured tips),or preferably replace the group W wideband with a group A aerial as Crystal Palace is an all group A transmitter and at your location over 40 miles from home to mast it is in effect a poor/marginal signal area and as such the group W wideband aerial often give a poor performance on group A frequencies,more so if the transmitter in this case Crystal Palace is an all group A transmitter itself.Hence you stated about signal strength from Crystal Palace being over 65%,a group A Yagi 18A would increase this to over 71% while a group A X-Beam 16A increases this to over 75% and up to 80%.
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Mark's: mapM's Freeview map terrainM's terrain plot wavesM's frequency data M's Freeview Detailed Coverage
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Mark Fletcher12:23 AM
Braintree
Mrs Gurney.Braintree,CM7 5HQ.You may have shot yerself in the foot with what you mentioned in your earlier text.You may have too much signal being located around 13 miles from your abode to Sudbury itself.If your aerial is polarised horizontally and facing Sudbury try fitting an attenuator to decrease the somewhat overpowering signal you may have.Or try a set-top aerial or even a piece of wire inserted into the aerial socket of yer appliance.
You may also need to reset your appliance,then with the aerial unplugged do an automatic scan,no channels will be picked up,then after this plug aerial back in then rescan only this time manual scan instead,it may just work.
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Mark's: mapM's Freeview map terrainM's terrain plot wavesM's frequency data M's Freeview Detailed Coverage
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Nick12:25 AM
Thanks to all who are trying to help, but before they messed about on June 27, ITV 3 was always good at 14kw, now not at all, and those weak ones on C63 even came in occasionally. Now, with high power, all has gone to pot. I can't see how those other distant transmitters can somehow now be blamed. Please confirm that all muxes are now on 100kw, contrary to what the table on this page shows.
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