Full Freeview on the Bluebell Hill (Medway, England) transmitter

Brian Butterworth first published this on 1st May 2004 at 08:20 - UK Free TV

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51.324,0.520 or 51°19'25"N 0°31'13"E

ME5 9RD

The symbol shows the location of the Bluebell Hill (Medway, England) transmitter which serves 200,000 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 Bluebell Hill (Medway, England) mast?

Bluebell Hill transmitter - Bluebell Hill transmitter: Possible effect on TV reception week commencing 25/11/2024 Pixelation or flickering on some or all channels

Choose from three options: ■ List by multiplex ■ List by channel number ■ List by channel name

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Which Freeview channels does the Bluebell Hill 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.

Mux	H/V	Frequency	Height	Mode	Watts
PSB1 BBCA	H max	C32 (562.0MHz)	242m	DTG-	20,000W
	1 BBC One (SD) South 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	C34 (578.0MHz)	242m	DTG-	20,000W
	3 ITV 1 (SD) (Meridian (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 (Meridian south coast), 71 That’s 60s,
PSB3 BBCB	H max	C45+ (666.2MHz)	242m	DTG-	20,000W
	46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD South 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 66 TBN UK,
COM4 SDN	H max	C40 (626.0MHz)	242m	DTG-8	20,000W
	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	C43+ (650.2MHz)	245m	DTG-8	20,000W
	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	C46 (674.0MHz)	245m	DTG-8	20,000W
	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)

Which BBC and ITV regional news can I watch from the Bluebell Hill transmitter?

BBC South East Today 0.8m homes 3.2%
from Tunbridge Wells TN1 1QQ, 28km southwest (218°)
to BBC South East region - 45 masts.

ITV Meridian News 0.7m homes 2.7%
from Maidstone ME14 5NZ, 5km south-southeast (155°)
to ITV Meridian (East) region - 36 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 50% evening news is shared with all of Meridian plus Oxford

How will the Bluebell Hill (Medway, England) transmission frequencies change over time?

	1984-97	1997-98	1998-2012	2012-13	19 Jul 2018
	E	E	E	W T	W T
C21					_local
C28				_local
C32					com7
C34					com8
C39				+ArqA
C40	BBC1_waves	BBC1_waves	BBC1_waves	+BBCB	SDN
C43	ITV_waves	ITV_waves	ITV_waves	D3+4	ArqA
C45				SDN	BBCB
C46	BBC2_waves	BBC2_waves	BBC2_waves	BBCA	ArqB
C54_{tv_off}				ArqB
C55_{tv_off}					com7_{tv_off}
C56_{tv_off}					COM8_{tv_off}
C65	C4_waves	C4_waves	C4_waves

_{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 13 Jun 12 and 27 Jun 12.

How do the old analogue and currrent digital signal levels compare?

Analogue 1-4	30kW
SDN, ARQA, ARQB, BBCA, D3+4, BBCB	(-1.8dB) 20kW
com8	(-7.8dB) 5kW
com7	(-8.1dB) 4.7kW
Mux 1, Mux B, Mux C, Mux D	(-10dB) 3kW
Mux 2, Mux A	(-11.8dB) 2kW

Local transmitter maps

Bluebell Hill Freeview Bluebell Hill DAB Bluebell Hill TV region BBC South East Meridian (East micro region)

Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Bluebell Hill transmitter area

Sep 1955-Jul 1968	Associated-Rediffusion†
Sep 1955-Jul 1968	Associated TeleVision◊
Jul 1968-Dec 1981	Thames†
Jul 1968-Dec 1981	London Weekend Television♦
Jan 1982-Dec 1992	Television South (TVS)
Jan 1993-Feb 2004	Meridian
Feb 2004-Dec 2014	ITV plc

Feb 1983-Dec 1992	TV-am•
Jan 1993-Sep 2010	GMTV•
Sep 2010-Dec 2014	ITV Daybreak•

• Breakfast ◊ Weekends ♦ Friday night and weekends † Weekdays only. Bluebell Hill 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.

Is the transmitter output the same in all directions?

K

KMJ,Derby

_{sentiment_satisfied}Gold

11:13 PM

kevin rose: I have just had a look at yesterday's chart from the William Hepburn's Tropospheric Ducting forecast and it shows that the could be responsible for your loss of .

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KMJ,Derby's 1,811 posts GB flag

Dave Lindsay

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

10:39 AM

kevin rose: Perhaps have tuned in (probably in the 800s) as a back-up.

It is only 11 degrees off the bearing for .

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Dave Lindsay's 5,724 posts GB flag

T

Tony Wilson
3:30 PM

Hello

In the last few weeks we have lost ITV4 Film4 yesterday and some others and it makes no difference how many times we re-tune they do not appear.Can you advise as to why this has happened.

Regards

Tony Wilson

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Tony Wilson's 6 posts GB flag

G

Geoff Carter
11:18 AM

Hi Tony,
I had the same problem when tuning my mothers box - It did not pickup (ITV4,Yesterday etc)from . She lives in Whitstable which lines up with Bluebell Hill and also . I simply tuned in 28 (ITV4, Yesterday etc) from Crystal Palace and its working fine. I still have no idea why C54 seems impossible to get.

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Geoff Carter's 3 posts GB flag

D

David
12:39 PM

I am just 3 miles from (Vinters park Maidstone) yet is poor especially at the moment.Why is this? Is it the weather or what?

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David's 1 post GB flag

Dave Lindsay

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

12:44 PM

David: See:

Freeview signals: too much of a good thing is bad for you | ukfree.tv - 10 years of independent, free digital TV advice

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Dave Lindsay's 5,724 posts GB flag

D

David
8:42 PM

Suddenly this evening things are a lot better.I have a STRENGTH OF 6 AND of 8 now.It is always 54 that suffers the most when things go awry.

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David's 1 post GB flag

J

jb38

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

9:26 PM

David: If as was likely, that you were receiving signals from the that strength wise were bordering on the verges of being "over the top", then if your has suddenly improved it simply means that the signal strength has dropped slightly thereby taking the edge off the tuner from operating in a semi-overload situation.

By the way don't trust any signal strength / indications seen when in this type of situation, as the receivers signal measuring circuitry gets corrupted due to an element of instability occurring in the tuner and with this resulting in inaccurate indications, these nearly always being much lower than in reality.

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jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag

C

Colin Halton
5:27 PM

Having lost on film4, yesterday, and a few others, I did a factory reset and auto rescan on all my tv's and my Humax fox t2 and this cured the problem. I noticed that the carrying these signals had changed to 54.
However my Humax DTR 1000 T box won't allow me to do this without wiping the hard drive & therefore losing all the recordings nor does it allow manual scans so I can't Channel 54 alone. Fresh autoscanning does not find the channel 54 items so the problem remains. This is going to be a real pain if it happens every time there is this kind of update.

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Colin Halton's 1 post GB flag

Dave Lindsay

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

5:55 PM

Colin : COM6 which carries Film4, Yesterday and others has always been on since . Therefore if you were tuned to a different channel you must have been receiving it from another .

If the unwanted signals are outside the range of used by then you may be able to get around it by unplugging the lead for that part of the . For example, 's are all in the 20s so unplug the aerial for the first 30% of the scan.

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Dave Lindsay's 5,724 posts GB flag

Page 27

Please post a question, answer or commentIf you have Freeview reception problems before posting a question your must first do this Freeview reset procedure then see: Freeview reception has changed, Single frequency interference, and Freeview intermittent interference.

If you have no satellite signal, see Sky Digibox says 'No Signal' or 'Technical fault'

If you have other problems, please provide a full (not partial) postcode (or preferably enter it in box at the top right) and indicate where if aerial is on the roof, in the loft or elsewhere.

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