Freeview Light on the Cow Hill (Highland, Scotland) transmitter
 | Google map |  | Bing map |  | Google Earth |  | 56.815,-5.095 or 56°48'52"N 5°5'41"W |  | PH33 6HW |
The symbol shows the location of the Cow Hill (Highland, Scotland) transmitter which serves 5,000 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.
This transmitter has no current reported problems
The BBC and Digital UK report there are no faults or engineering work on the Cow Hill (Highland, Scotland) transmitter._______
Digital television services are broadcast on a multiplexes (or Mux) where many stations occupy a single broadcast frequency, as shown below.
H/V: aerial position (horizontal or vertical)
The Cow Hill (Highland, Scotland) mast is a public service broadcasting (PSB) transmitter, it does not provide these commercial (COM) channels: U&Yesterday, 4seven, 5Action, 5STAR, 5USA, Al Jazeera Eng, Al Jazeera English, Blaze, Blaze +1, Challenge, Channel 5 +1, DMAX, E4 Extra, YAAAS!, Film4 +1, Food Network, FRANCE 24 (in English), GREAT! action, GREAT! christmas, GREAT! movies, GREAT! romance mix, HGTV, HobbyMaker, ITV2 +1, ITV3 +1, ITV4 +1, ITVBe +1, Legend, PBS America, Quest +1, Quest Red, Really, Sky Mix, Sky News, Talking Pictures TV, That's 90s, That's TV 2, Together TV, TRUE CRIME, TRUE CRIME XTRA, U&Dave, U&Dave ja vu, U&Drama +1, U&W.
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 Cow 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 | V max | C46 (674.0MHz) | 344m | DTG- | 13W |
 1 BBC One (SD) Scotland, 2 BBC Two Scotland, 7 BBC Alba HD, 23 BBC Three, 24 BBC Four (Scotland SD), 201 CBBC, 202 CBeebies, 231 BBC News, 232 BBC Parliament, plus 13 others | |||||
| PSB2 D3+4 | V max | C43 (650.0MHz) | 344m | DTG- | 13W |
 3 STV (SD) (STV Central (Glasgow micro region)), 4 Channel 4 (SD) Scotland ads, 5 Channel 5, 6 ITV 2, 10 ITV3, 13 E4, 14 Film4, 15 Channel 4 +1 Scotland ads, 18 More4, 26 ITV4, 28 ITVBe, 30 E4 +1, 35 ITV1 +1 (STV Edinburgh), 35 STV+1 (STV Edinburgh), 71 That’s 60s, | |||||
| PSB3 BBCB | V max | C40 (626.0MHz) | 344m | DTG- | 13W |
 46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD Scotland, 102 BBC Two HD Scotland, 103 ITV 1 HD (STV West), 103 STV HD (STV West), 104 Channel 4 HD Scotland ads, 105 Channel 5 HD, 106 BBC Four HD, 108 BBC Scotland HD, 204 CBBC HD, 205 CBeebies HD, plus 1 others | |||||
Are you trying to watch these 44 Freeview channels?
The Cow Hill (Highland, Scotland) mast is a public service broadcasting (PSB) transmitter, it does not provide these commercial (COM) channels: U&Yesterday, 4seven, 5Action, 5STAR, 5USA, Al Jazeera Eng, Al Jazeera English, Blaze, Blaze +1, Challenge, Channel 5 +1, DMAX, E4 Extra, YAAAS!, Film4 +1, Food Network, FRANCE 24 (in English), GREAT! action, GREAT! christmas, GREAT! movies, GREAT! romance mix, HGTV, HobbyMaker, ITV2 +1, ITV3 +1, ITV4 +1, ITVBe +1, Legend, PBS America, Quest +1, Quest Red, Really, Sky Mix, Sky News, Talking Pictures TV, That's 90s, That's TV 2, Together TV, TRUE CRIME, TRUE CRIME XTRA, U&Dave, U&Dave ja vu, U&Drama +1, U&W.
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 Cow Hill transmitter?
BBC Reporting Scotland 2.4m homes 9.2%
from Glasgow G51 1DA, 118km south-southeast (157°)
to BBC Scotland region - 230 masts.
STV News 1.3m homes 4.8%
from Glasgow G51 1PQ, 118km south-southeast (157°)
to STV Central (Glasgow) region - 94 masts.
Are there any self-help relays?
| Conaglen | Active deflector | 9 km SW Fort William | 8 homes |
| Gairlochy | Active deflector | 12 km NE Fort William | 6 homes |
| Glen Loy | Active deflector | 7 km N Fort William | 4 homes hotel |
| S.locheilside | Active deflector | Loch Eil, 5-15 km NW Fort William | 25 homes |
How will the Cow Hill (Highland, Scotland) transmission frequencies change over time?
| 1984-97 | 1997-98 | 1998-2010 | 2010-13 | 4 Oct 2017 | |||||
| B E T | B E T | B E T | B E T | B E K T | |||||
| C40 | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBCB | |||||
| C43 | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | D3+4 | D3+4 | ||||
| C46 | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBCA | BBCA | ||||
| C50tv_off | C4waves | C4waves | C4waves | BBCB |
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 Oct 10 and 27 Oct 10.
How do the old analogue and currrent digital signal levels compare?
| Analogue 1-4 | 65W | |
| BBCA, D3+4, BBCB | (-7dB) 13W |
Local transmitter maps
Cow Hill Freeview Cow Hill DAB Torosay TV region BBC Scotland STV Central (Glasgow micro region)Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Torosay transmitter area
|
|
Thursday, 7 April 2011
W
W THAIN4:11 PM
Fort William
I don't think it's fair, because we only get 20TV programs from Cow Hill transmitter. When will be able to receive all FREEVIEW PROGRAMS?
| link to this comment |
W's: mapW's Freeview map terrainW's terrain plot wavesW's frequency data W's Freeview Detailed Coverage
M
Mike Dimmick11:15 PM
Reading
W THAIN: At that postcode you're predicted to have a reasonable chance of getting good results from the Torosay main transmitter, which provides all six multiplexes. This requires a Group A aerial oriented vertically, pointing south-west.
There are no public plans to provide any more channels. The commercial multiplexes turned down the option to broadcast from more sites than they had done before switchover, and they're not required to.
| link to this comment |
Mike's: mapM's Freeview map terrainM's terrain plot wavesM's frequency data M's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Friday, 8 February 2013
B
Bruce6:40 PM
Fort William
Are there any plans to increase the amount of TV channels you can get from the Cow Hill transmitter?
| link to this comment |
Bruce's: mapB's Freeview map terrainB's terrain plot wavesB's frequency data B's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Bruce: Unfortunately not. See here for an explanation:
Londonderry (Northern Ireland) digital TV transmitter | ukfree.tv - 10 years of independent, free digital TV advice
| link to this comment |
Saturday, 21 December 2013
8:20 AM
when will cow hill transmitter be working. what is the problem.
| link to this comment |
Tuesday, 11 February 2014
M
MB5:05 PM
11.02.14 17:02 TV now back on but DAB still off. DAB is sometimes slower settling down than TV after a fault but there is no signal of any sort showing on DAB at the moment
| link to this comment |
Sunday, 14 January 2024
W
W Goode .11:34 AM
Live in Fort William no TV reception from cow hill transmitter (Freeview) information says no fault with transmitter.?
| link to this comment |
C
Chris.SE4:42 PM
W Goode .:
The Freeview information doesn't seem to be up-to-date.
I hope you haven't retuned at all, that advise is very bad.
IF you were correctly tuning to start with, then retuning when you have NO Signal or badly pixellated pictures/broken sound usually just clears your correct tuning (or may tune you to incorrect weak signals from another transmitter which disappear as weather changes).
The BBC have reported a fault at the transmitter -
From 10:09am on 14th Jan 2024 BBC A/BBCB HD Off the air due to a fault
If you are receiving from Cow Hill, it's fault is no doubt due to it being a relay of Torosay which is also off-air with the same fault.
IF you haven't retuned, then Do NOT, as signals will return when the fault is fixed.
If you have retuned and you get your signals from Cow Hill, you could try a manual tune of its UHF channels which are C46, C43, C40 in the multiplex order BBCA, D3&4, BBCB HD.
You may have to try several times until the signals return.
If you actually get your signals from Torosay, post back if you still have a problem
| link to this comment |
C
Chris.SE6:08 PM
W Goode .:
The transmitter should now be back on air -
From 10:09am to 3:53pm on 14th Jan 2024 BBC A/BBCB HD Off the air due to a fault
If you haven't already got your signals back, try that manual retune I suggested.
| link to this comment |
Sunday, 26 May 2024
J
Joseph MacColl1:10 PM
Currently without HD TV channels on Freeview.
All SD working fine. Any advice, thanks.
| link to this comment |
Select more comments
Your comment please