Full Freeview on the Tacolneston (Norfolk, England) transmitter
 | Google Streetview |  | Google map |  | Bing map |  | Google Earth |  | 52.518,1.139 or 52°31'6"N 1°8'22"E |  | NR16 1DW |
The symbol shows the location of the Tacolneston (Norfolk, England) transmitter which serves 330,000 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 Tacolneston (Norfolk, England) mast?
Tacolneston transmitter - Tacolneston 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
DTG-12 QSPK 8K 3/4 8.0Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2
H/V: aerial position (horizontal or vertical)
Which Freeview channels does the Tacolneston 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
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 Tacolneston transmitter?
BBC Look East (East) 0.8m homes 3.2%
from Norwich NR2 1BH, 16km northeast (37°)
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, 16km northeast (38°)
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?
| Gt Yarmouth | Transposer | 1 km S town centre | 30 homes |
| Lowestoft (2) | Transposer | Rotterdam Rd | 125 homes |
How will the Tacolneston (Norfolk, England) transmission frequencies change over time?
| 1950s-80s | 1984-97 | 1997-98 | 1998-2011 | 2011-13 | 2013-18 | 2013-17 | 17 Jul 2018 | ||
| VHF | C/D E | C/D E | C/D E | E | E T | W T | W T | ||
| C3 | BBCtvwaves | ||||||||
| C31 | com7 | com7 | |||||||
| C32 | _local | ||||||||
| C37 | com8 | com8 | |||||||
| C39 | +ArqB | +ArqB | ArqB | ||||||
| C40 | BBCA | ||||||||
| C42 | SDN | SDN | SDN | SDN | |||||
| C43 | D3+4 | ||||||||
| C45 | ArqA | ArqA | ArqA | ArqA | |||||
| C46 | BBCB | ||||||||
| C50tv_off | BBCB | BBCB | |||||||
| C52tv_off | C5waves | C5waves | |||||||
| C55tv_off | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | -BBCA | -BBCA | -BBCA | com7tv_off | ||
| C56tv_off | COM8tv_off | ||||||||
| C57tv_off | LNR | LNR | |||||||
| C59tv_off | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | -D3+4 | -D3+4 | -D3+4 | |||
| C62 | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBCB | |||||
| C65 | C4waves | C4waves | C4waves |
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 9 Nov 11 and 23 Nov 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 | |
| com7 | (-9.6dB) 27.4kW | |
| com8 | (-10.2dB) 24kW | |
| Mux 1*, Mux 2*, LNR | (-14dB) 10kW | |
| Mux A*, Mux B*, Mux C*, Mux D* | (-17dB) 5kW | |
| Analogue 5 | (-18dB) 4kW |
Local transmitter maps
Tacolneston Freeview Tacolneston DAB Tacolneston TV region BBC East Anglia (East micro region)Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Tacolneston transmitter area
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Friday, 9 November 2012
M
Martin Engwell1:55 PM
Thetford
Martin Engwell: Thank you, Dave Lindsay, for your helpful comments. I am currently suffering from very poor reception due, presumably to the engineering works at Tacolneston, and the reportedly low power output. I wonder, therefore, why it is that the BBC channels are most affected and the ITVchannels hardly at all. Another anomoly is that an old Philips small screen TV maintains a good reception but my much newer Samsung TVs suffer massively. Are the latter likely to be more sensitive to poor signal strength? In fairness, the latter do have a slightly longer cable run.
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Martin's: mapM's Freeview map terrainM's terrain plot wavesM's frequency data M's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Martin Engwell: There are 101 reasons why the picture on one multiplex is affected and not on another.
Digital reception is more an "all or nothing" system rather than analogue whose picture varies relative to the signal.
Take signal level for example. There is a threshold over which the signal level must be in order for a receiver to resolve a picture. Providing that the quality is good, then the picture will be exactly the same as if the signal strength were higher (but not above being too high such that it overwhelms the receiver).
Thus, a reduction in strength will not have any effect on the picture unless the reduction is greater than the amount that the level was above the threshold.
A reduction in strength with an analogue picture is likely to have some degree of detriment to its quality but may still be watchable.
Because the quality of a digital picture isn't analogous to signal strength, then the effect (or lack of) on the picture is therefore not necessarily the same as that on the signal.
So you could perhaps find that if you used the appropriate test gear that the signal level on all channels has changed but that this has only adversely affected the resolution of the pictures on the BBC mux.
Another factor is that not all channels will be exactly the same. As they propagate they will be reduced and refracted to different degrees.
It is possible that they are using the reserve antenna which is further down the mast and as such the path or line between it and you may be different and importantly there may be other objects that are affecting your reception that wouldn't otherwise do.
I said that there are 101 reasons; these are just a few possibilities. The length of the aerial cable and differences in the receivers are two others.
I'm not a professional, but I would certainly not dismiss mounting the aerial outside as then the signal will not be reduced and refracted by the roof which might be helpful. The professionals do say that reception is a black art, so "common sense" of increased height doesn't always pay off.
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R
ryan10:52 PM
Newmarket
Is their ongoing works at Tacolneston at the moment?
I live in cheveley and installed our aerial (in the loft) about 2 months ago with amazing results, full signal and full HD channels. Over the last few weeks the signal totally fails normally at night but sometimes during the day too.
Trying to figure out if i need to try a diferent transmitter or if their is current work at Tacolneston?
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ryan's: mapR's Freeview map terrainR's terrain plot wavesR's frequency data R's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Monday, 12 November 2012
M
Martin French11:56 AM
Downham Market
We have had problems with getting almost all Freeview channels for weeks (our best signal is on Sky News channel 82 but even this often breaks up and is unwatchable). We have the latest updates installed on our Samsung LE 32A457 TV and despite resetting the factory defaults and reprogramming the channels on many, many different occasions we cannot get any of the BBC channels and each time we reprogram we get some different programs (but not many). Our signal strength varies between 24 and 27 with a bit error level 4 (whatever that is). This is exceedingly frustrating (to put it mildly) so can you please tell us when things will get back to normal? Previously with analogue TV we didn't experienced any problems at all but ever since we were switched over on to digital TV we have experienced nothing but problems. We get no o2 mobile 3G signal at our home and virtually no watchable TV and are concerned that when 4G is rolled out we have been told to expect that our Digital TV will get even worse! Our aerial is located on the roof and we believe that we are on the Tacolnestone transmitter
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Martin's: mapM's Freeview map terrainM's terrain plot wavesM's frequency data M's Freeview Detailed Coverage
M
Mary Macer8:47 PM
Bury St. Edmunds
I have a Panasonic dmr-ez49veb combi recorder, and just this evening (12th November) I suddenly am unable to access the programme Guide on this unit, and sometimes when viewing via the recorder the screen goes blank after a few seconds. I have done a retune by signal quality twice, but the usual boxes that come up on-screen when I do this are missing although the unit display is working. The subtitle function via the unit is also not working properly. Is this to do with reduced signal strength? I am on the Tacolneston transmitter. The unit seems to be working just fine otherwise. My TV also is working fine. Normally I have no problems with either TV or recorder and I cannot think what else may have caused the problems. I hope the unit itself has not broken down. Any comments please?
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Mary's: mapM's Freeview map terrainM's terrain plot wavesM's frequency data M's Freeview Detailed Coverage
J
jb3811:18 PM
Mary Macer: Although its a bit late now to say this by the fact of you having already carried out a retune, but any time its found that some programmes are missing (no matter how many) never carry out a retune, because all that's achieved is to lose all of the channels that are already stored in the tuners memory, this then necessitating frequent retunes to try and recover them.
Work of an on-going nature is taking place at the Tacolneston transmitter and with engineering notices to this effect having been posted warning of a possible weak signal, and this could well have been the reason for your problem.
As things are now, you dont really have any option but the carry out a rescan now and again to hopefully recover the programmes lost, once recovered though if its again found that some programmes as missing just leave things as they are as they will return automatically once things at the transmitter are back to normal.
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J
jb3811:24 PM
Martin French: Please see my 11.18pm reply (above) to Mary Macer regarding the on going engineering work taking place at the Tacolneston transmitter, as part of the content also applies to your situation.
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Tuesday, 13 November 2012
M
Mary Macer4:00 PM
Bury St. Edmunds
Thank you jb38 - I came down this morning and found that I had my programme Guide back again. Honestly, it is quite scary to find that suddenly things don't work that did before. I had come to the conclusion after I posted my panicky note last evening that the signal strength was the problem (I went on-line to check a few more things and this seemed to be the only sensible cause apart from a broken unit). I take on board what you say about a re-tune. How much longer is the engineering work at Tacolneston going on I wonder, and does it ever get back to normal? Suddenly to find a blank screen etc. is worrying, and had I not had access to the internet and been reasonably good at looking up things I would have had no idea what to do or who to ask about it. Thanks again for your input.
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Mary's: mapM's Freeview map terrainM's terrain plot wavesM's frequency data M's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Wednesday, 14 November 2012
J
jb3812:12 AM
Mary Macer: You are obviously a thinker! as signal strength (or lack of) was most likely the reason for your problem, but as far as the engineering work at Tacolneston is concerned its not really determinable when it will finish, although at least you are now aware of the pitfalls of carrying out an auto scan when signals that were hitherto OK are now found to have vanished.
Pleased all is OK again though!
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Thursday, 15 November 2012
A
anne12:59 AM
I had perfectly good reception prior to the last digital retune date. Over the last month or so the reception has been getting worse. ITV went completely this evening. I have disconnested and reconnected all cables and gone through auto set up numerous times. Is this a transmitter fault in which case is there an alert system to prevent unnecessary checks, Also how long will this go on for?
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