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Full Freeview on the Sandy Heath (Central Bedfordshire, England) transmitter

first published this on - UK Free TV
sa_streetviewGoogle Streetviewsa_gmapsGoogle mapsa_bingBing mapsa_gearthGoogle Earthsa_gps52.130,-0.242 or 52°7'47"N 0°14'33"Wsa_postcodeSG19 2NH

 

The symbol shows the location of the Sandy Heath (Central Bedfordshire, England) transmitter which serves 920,000 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 Sandy Heath (Central Bedfordshire, England) transmitter.

Choose from three options: ■ List by multiplex ■ List by channel number ■ List by channel name
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Which Freeview channels does the Sandy Heath 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.

MuxH/VFrequencyHeightModeWatts
PSB1
BBCA
 H max
C27 (522.0MHz)291mDTG-180,000W
Channel icons
1 BBC One (SD) Cambridge, 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
C24 (498.0MHz)291mDTG-180,000W
Channel icons
3 ITV 1 (SD) (Anglia (West 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 (Anglia east), 71 That’s 60s,

PSB3
BBCB
 H max
C21+ (474.2MHz)291mDTG-180,000W
Channel icons
46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD Cambridge, 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

COM4
SDN
 H -0.2dB
C33 (570.0MHz)291mDTG-8170,000W
Channel icons
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 -0.2dB
C36 (594.0MHz)289mDTG-8170,000W
Channel icons
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 -0.2dB
C48 (690.0MHz)289mDTG-8170,000W
Channel icons
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 Sandy Heath transmitter?

regional news image
BBC Look East (West) 1.0m homes 3.7%
from Cambridge CB4 0WZ, 29km east-northeast (65°)
to BBC Cambridge region - 4 masts.
70% of BBC East (East) and BBC East (West) is shared output
regional news image
ITV Anglia News 1.0m homes 3.7%
from Norwich NR1 3JG, 119km east-northeast (60°)
to ITV Anglia (West) region - 5 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 80% evening news is shared with Anglia (East)

How will the Sandy Heath (Central Bedfordshire, England) transmission frequencies change over time?

1965-80s1984-971997-981998-20112011-1312 Feb 2020
VHFA K TK TK TW TW T
C6ITVwaves
C21C4wavesC4wavesC4waves+BBCBBBCB
C24ITVwavesITVwavesITVwavesD3+4D3+4
C27BBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBCABBCA
C31BBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBC1waves
C32com7
C33SDN
C34com8
C35_local
C36ArqA
C39C5wavesC5waves
C43_local
C48ArqBArqB
C51tv_offSDN
C52tv_offArqA
C55tv_offcom7tv_off
C56tv_offCOM8tv_off

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 30 Mar 11 and 13 Apr 11.

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

Analogue 1-4 1000kW
BBCA, D3+4, BBCB(-7.4dB) 180kW
SDN, ARQA, ARQB(-7.7dB) 170kW
com7(-13dB) 49.6kW
com8(-13.1dB) 49.1kW
Mux 1*, Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*, Mux C*, Mux D*(-17dB) 20kW
Analogue 5(-20dB) 10kW

Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Sandy Heath transmitter area

Oct 1959-Feb 2004Anglia Television
Feb 2004-Dec 2014ITV plc
Feb 1983-Dec 1992TV-am•
Jan 1993-Sep 2010GMTV•
Sep 2010-Dec 2014ITV Daybreak•
• Breakfast ◊ Weekends ♦ Friday night and weekends † Weekdays only.

Comments
Friday, 15 August 2014
K
Katie
12:31 PM

My TV signal has gone extremely poor today no HD signal and SD channels are quite poor to what's going on . my freind is having same problem to

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Katie's 1 post GB flag
M
Max
5:09 PM
Wellingborough

HI it seems I not the only one with HD channel problems, poor and missing (com7) BBC4 for example, anybody have any ideas or am I just to hope a large bolt of electricity travels to the transmitter and makes it glow.


Max in Stanwick

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Max's 1 post GB flag
Max's: mapM's Freeview map terrainM's terrain plot wavesM's frequency data M's Freeview Detailed Coverage
T
tom
5:57 PM

CH 32 signal extremely poor recently . only 10% or no signal at all

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tom's 1 post GB flag
M
MikeB
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

6:00 PM

Max: Although your only 32km from the transmitter, there is something blocking the signal path 1-3km away from your position. It could be that you've also got a problem with your aerial, and its dropping out the Com 7 channels, which are weaker anyway.

Tom: You've given no indication of your position, so there is not a lot that can be said, other than the obvious - check your aerial system, because the TV is telling you there is a problem getting any signal at all. Since Sandy Heath has no reported faults, the problem is likely to be at your end.

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MikeB's 2,579 posts GB flag
D
Dave
7:19 PM

Hi,

I have been experiencing very variable reception recently. We are in Highfields Caldecote, about 7 miles west of Cambridge. Our signal was always really good with no problems up until about a month ago and its been intermittent since then. Some days it will be fine with 100% signal strength and 80-100% signal quality. Other days its unwatchable with 100% signal strength and 0-20% signal quality.

Any ideas?



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Dave's 2 posts GB flag
Saturday, 16 August 2014
C
Craig
6:29 PM

I did a rescan of Freeview built into the TV and no ITV channels were found. Where have they gone from Sandy Heath?

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Craig's 4 posts GB flag
MikeP
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

8:46 PM

Craig:

They are still being transmitted from Sandy Heath. It could be that your signals are being affected by atmospheric propogation phenomena which is not unusual and affects DTV by inducing the receiver to give a 'No Signal' message when it is in fact having problems decoding the signals it is receiving.
Are your neighbours having the same problem with Freeview? Plus, a post code helps contributors to this site to understand where the difficulties may originate.

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MikeP's 3,056 posts GB flag
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

8:59 PM

Craig: ITV is being received perfectly OK up in South Lincolnshire (Stamford) , although the HD service from Sandy is a tad on the glitchy side with sizeable variations in the signal quality being indicated.

However, as far as reception from Sandy is concerned. Northampton, including large swathes of Northamptonshire is an area notorious for suffering from problems with reception from the Sandy transmitter at around this time of the year, the reason for basically down to most of the areas involved "not" being line-of-sight with the transmitter, whereby the signals received from same is via an element of diffraction (signal bending), reception under these sort of conditions being vulnerable to any changes in atmospheric conditions that may take place and the effect of on diffraction, the result of being areas of patchy (or zero) reception.

Changes in atmospheric conditions can also, in some cases, allow distant transmitters to be received, and if any of them happen to be operating on the same channels as Sandy, then the result of the clashing between them is once again, zero reception.

When the aforementioned happened during the analogue years, it usually resulted in ghostly negative images sweeping across the picture, or other forms of visual disturbances such as loss of colour etc but seldom ever the loss of the signal, as one analogue signal does not necessarily wipe out another, whereas where digital reception is involved in most cases it will, as one digital signal corrupts the other and vice versa.



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jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
C
Craig
9:13 PM

I had TV issues so did a rescan and found ITV channels aren't recieved. A message comes on screen saying not broadcasting. They were there about 3 weeks ago though. I'm in NN5 area

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Craig's 4 posts GB flag
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

11:18 PM

Craig: Maybe so! but that message will be originating from "within" your TV or box in response to no signal being detected, as nothing is wrong with Anglia's Mux24.

What to do is, go into the set up menu on whatever you are using and select "tuning" / "manual tune" and enter 24 into the box but NOT followed by pressing search or scan, because on most devices the signal & quality level will appear in the level bars no matter how low the signal may be.

Further info dependant on feedback.

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jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
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