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Full Freeview on the Winter Hill (Bolton, England) transmitter

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

53.625,-2.516 or 53°37'30"N 2°30'56"W

BL6 6SL

The symbol shows the location of the Winter Hill (Bolton, England) transmitter which serves 2,690,000 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 Winter Hill (Bolton, England) mast?

Winter Hill transmitter - Winter Hill transmitter: Possible effect on TV reception week commencing 04/11/2024 Pixelation or flickering on some or all channels

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

_______

Which Freeview channels does the Winter 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)	726m	DTG-	100,000W
	1 BBC One (SD) North West, 2 BBC Two England, 9 BBC Four, 23 BBC Three, 201 CBBC, 202 CBeebies, 231 BBC News, 232 BBC Parliament, plus 17 others
PSB2 D3+4	H max	C34 (578.0MHz)	726m	DTG-	100,000W
	3 ITV 1 (SD) (Granada), 4 Channel 4 (SD) North ads, 5 Channel 5, 6 ITV 2, 10 ITV3, 13 E4, 14 Film4, 15 Channel 4 +1 North ads, 18 More4, 26 ITV4, 28 ITVBe, 30 E4 +1, 35 ITV1 +1 (Granada), 71 That’s 60s,
PSB3 BBCB	H max	C35- (585.8MHz)	726m	DTG-	100,000W
	46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD North West, 102 BBC Two HD England, 103 ITV 1 HD (ITV Granada), 104 Channel 4 HD North 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	C29 (538.0MHz)	726m	DTG-8	100,000W
	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	C31 (554.0MHz)	726m	DTG-8	100,000W
	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	C37 (602.0MHz)	726m	DTG-8	100,000W
	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
LM	H -20dB	C40 (626.0MHz)	572m	DTG-12	1,000W
	from 1st October 2014: 7 That's Manchester,
LL	H -17dB	C24 (498.0MHz)	572m	DTG-12	2,000W
	from 30th June 2014: 7 Bay TV Liverpool,
LPR	H -20dB	C56 (754.0MHz)	572m	DTG-12	1,000W
	from 1st October 2014: 7 That's Lancashire,
GIM	H -20dB	C57 (762.0MHz)	572m	DTG-2	1,000W
	Now 90s, Spotlight TV, Clubland TV, Country Music Entertainment , Classic Hits MCR, 77 That's 60s MCR, 78 TCC, 80 That's 80s, 86 That's 90s MCR, 88 TV Warehouse+1,

DTG-8 64QAM 8K 3/4 27.1Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2
DTG-12 QSPK 8K 3/4 8.0Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2
DTG-2 16QAM 2K 3/4 18.1Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2
H/V: aerial position (horizontal or vertical)

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

BBC North West Tonight 3.1m homes 11.8%
from Salford M50 2QH, 22km southeast (140°)
to BBC North West region - 92 masts.

ITV Granada Reports 3.1m homes 11.6%
from Salford M50 2EQ, 22km southeast (139°)
to ITV Granada region - 80 masts.

How will the Winter Hill (Bolton, England) transmission frequencies change over time?

	1956-80s	1984-97	1997-98	1998-2009	2009-13	2013-18	2013-17	20 Feb 2020
	VHF	C/D E	C/D E	C/D E	C/D E	C/D E T	W T	W T
C9	ITV_waves
C12	BBCtv_waves
C24								_local
C29								SDN
C31							com7	com7
C32								BBCA
C34								D3+4
C35								BBCB
C37							com8	com8
C40								LOCAL2
C48			C5_waves	C5_waves
C49_{tv_off}						ArqA	ArqA
C50_{tv_off}						BBCA	BBCA
C54_{tv_off}					-BBCB	-BBCB	-BBCB
C55_{tv_off}		BBC1_waves	BBC1_waves	BBC1_waves	ArqB	ArqB	ArqB	com7_{tv_off}
C56_{tv_off}					_local	_local	_local	LPR
C57_{tv_off}					GIM	GIM	GIM	GIM
C58_{tv_off}					SDN	SDN	SDN
C59_{tv_off}		ITV_waves	ITV_waves	ITV_waves	D3+4	D3+4	D3+4
C61					ArqA
C62		BBC2_waves	BBC2_waves	BBC2_waves	BBCA
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 4 Nov 09 and 2 Dec 09.

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

Analogue 1-4	500kW
SDN, ARQA, ARQB, BBCA, D3+4, BBCB	(-7dB) 100kW
com7	(-12.9dB) 25.7kW
com8	(-13.4dB) 22.6kW
Analogue 5	(-16dB) 12.5kW
Mux 1, Mux 2, Mux A, Mux B, Mux C, Mux D	(-17dB) 10kW
LL	(-24dB) 2kW
GIM, LM, LPR	(-27dB) 1000W

Local transmitter maps

Winter Hill Freeview Winter Hill DAB Winter Hill AM/FM Winter Hill TV region BBC North West Granada

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

May 1956-Jul 1968	Granada Television†
May 1956-Jul 1968	Associated British Corporation◊
Jul 1968-Feb 2004	Granada Television
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.

Is the transmitter output the same in all directions?

Comments

Thursday, 23 April 2015

Dave Lindsay

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

1:23 PM

Keith Hill: Manual tuning or pulling the out for the part of the where the Welsh are, although this might be tricky due to Moel-y-Parc (the in which you are likely picking up) and .

The other possibility is to an attenuator, assuming that the wanted from Winter Hill is higher than that of the unwanted of Moel-y-Parc. This will reduce the signal levels with the that the unwanted ones are disregarded by your , or at least not given primary positions.

Some receivers, usually the HD ones, have a setting for or preference which would achieve the same objective.

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Dave Lindsay's 5,724 posts GB flag

anthony

_{sentiment_satisfied}Bronze

5:19 PM

Com 8 is now on air with QVC HD . is22.6 kW.

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anthony's 58 posts GB flag

Wednesday, 29 April 2015

_{sentiment_satisfied}Gold

1:52 AM

Does anyone know why the Arqiva T2 multiplexes have a different bitrate to that of BBC B?

com 7: 40,200,039 bps
com 8: 40,200,034 bps
BBC B: 40,214,669 bps

(bps = bits per second)

The bitrates were measured from recorded samples of the full transport stream by "DVB-T2 Data-Rate Calculator", which is a free tool found here:

DVB-T2 Data-Rate Calculator - decontis

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js's 841 posts GB flag

_{sentiment_satisfied}Gold

6:46 AM

To give an idea of the accuracy of the measured bitrates, here are the results for all the multiplexes.

40214625 bps BBC B

40200015 bps com 7
40200018 bps com 8

27144380 bps Arqiva A
27144382 bps Arqiva B
27144372 bps SDN

24128332 bps BBC A
24128338 bps D3&4

18096298 bps LocalMux1

9048132 bps LocalMux2

The results from "DVB-T2 Data-Rate Calculator" are identical to those from my own program, which works like this:

TS packets are read until a packet containing a PCR is found. The PID is noted and PCRs are read from packets with this PID, noting the corresponding packet count, until end of file.

Results from a ten second (long enough to capture all the service tables) sample of com 7 were

pcr pid = 401
first_pcr = 2138813251731
first_packet = 2
last_pcr = 2139084457513
last_packet = 268483

Using this data we get:

bitrate = 27000000*(last_packet-first_packet)*188*8/(last_pcr-first_pcr) = 40200015 bps

Notes:
A Transport Stream (TS) is a sequence of packets.
A TS packet is 188 bytes long or 188*8 bits.
PID = packet identifier = A unique integer value used to identify elementary streams in a Transport Stream.
PCR = Program Clock Reference = A time stamp in the Transport Stream from which decoder timing is derived.
PCR is a count of cycles of the 27 MHz system clock.

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js's 841 posts GB flag

Sunday, 3 May 2015

_{sentiment_satisfied}Gold

12:54 AM

For DVB-T, the NIT contains Delivery System descriptors which give the transmission parameters for each .
For example:

BBC A
centre_frequency = 706000
bandwidth = 8 MHz
constellation = 64-QAM
transmission_mode = 8k
code_rate = 2/3
guard_interval = 1/32

from which the theoretical bitrate is found to be 24128342 bps.

On UK DTT, in the case of a T2 multiplex, the so called "T2 Delivery System" descriptor is just three bytes.
For example:

BBC B
plp_id = 00
T2_system_id = 402A

No transmission parameters are given so the theoretical bitrate is unknown. Not even the transmission . Utterly Useless.

The measured bitrates are generally close to the theoretical bitrates:

Multiplex: Measured Bitrate, Theoretical Bitrate

COM 7: 40200022, unknown
COM 8: 40200018, unknown
Arqiva A: 27144380, 27144385
BBC A: 24128332, 24128342
BBC B: 40214633, unknown
Arqiva B: 27144381, 27144385
LocalMux2: 9048132, 9048128
LocalMux: 18096364, 18096257
SDN: 27144349, 27144385
D3&4: 24128338, 24128342

In ETSI TS 102 831 V1.2.1
Implementation guidelines for a second generation terrestrial television broadcasting system (DVB-T2)
Table 17: Maximum bit-rate and recommended configurations for 8 MHz, 32 K 1/128, PP7

Modulation = 256-QAM
Code rate = 2/3
Frame length = 60
FEC blocks per frame = 202

gives a Theoretical Bitrate of 40214645 bps, which is very close to the Measured BBC B bitrate of 40214633 bps.

Does anyone know of a T2 parameter set which matches the COM 7 and COM 8 Measured Bitrates?

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js's 841 posts GB flag

Tuesday, 5 May 2015

Anthony
12:26 AM

Com 8 is now active and is on air from with QVC HD and it is expected that other will also launch on this in due course.

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Anthony's 1 post GB flag

Wednesday, 20 May 2015

J V Gethic
8:11 PM

we are having serious problems receiving HD from Winterhill .
This has been getting worse in the last couple of weeks.
SD Freeview is OK on all but HD is very low less than 20% and at the moment 0 and the bit rate error is 2000 using the data on the TV menue for .
There is today no of any of the HD signal channels 101.... etc.
Is there a problem at the transmitter? My is physically OK and there is also a functional head amp which has been fitted for many years. This seems to be in working order.
Can you tell me if there is a problem at the transmitter?
many Thanks
J V Gethic

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J V Gethic's 1 post GB flag

MikeB

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

11:16 PM

J V Gethic: We need a postcode, the your actually tuned to, and an idea of what the strength of the other SD are like.

Also worth checking your system - if the signal is degraded, then its your system which is probably at fault - corrosion, frayed , or a failing amp might all be the issue.

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MikeB's 2,579 posts GB flag

Monday, 25 May 2015

_{sentiment_satisfied}Gold

1:36 AM

The former M has been running without Service Information tables since at least the 19th April.

Consequently, the have no names or numbers on that multiplex. No Service Description Table = no names. No Information Table = no LCNs

If the services are already present on a device, the only obvious effect will be lack of EPG from that multiplex.

On my LG telly, no services were found on a manual of UHF 57 even though the services were present in the service list, with their correct names, on their correct numbers and playing perfectly.

The EPG and complete service list (names and numbers) are carried on each multiplex, so the information is available - in principle. In practice, most devices (like my telly) only read the data from the current multiplex.

This information, for example, emanates from the BBC A multiplex:

762 MHz, UHF 57, 8 MHz, 16-QAM, 8k, 3/4, 1/32
(
50 mov4men+1
54 Heart TV
56 CAPITAL TV
60 FIRE HIT TV
67 Chart Show TV
127 POP+1
)

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js's 841 posts GB flag

Thursday, 28 May 2015

DAVID
1:25 AM
Blackpool

Com 7 on the Fylde coast is at it again with the break ups,and .
I am in FY2 0DP and have reports of similar in FY1.This has worsened over the last couple of weeks.
on and checked out ok.

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DAVID's 6 posts GB flag

DAVID's: D's Freeview map D's terrain plot D's frequency data D's Freeview Detailed Coverage

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