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Full Freeview on the Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham, England) transmitter

first published this on - UK Free TV
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The symbol shows the location of the Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham, England) transmitter which serves 1,870,000 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 Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham, England) mast?

Sutton Coldfield transmitter - Sutton Coldfield transmitter: Possible effect on TV reception week commencing 25/03/2024 Pixelation or flickering on some or all channels Digital tick


Choose from three options: ■ List by multiplex ■ List by channel number ■ List by channel name
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Which Freeview channels does the Sutton Coldfield 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
C43 (650.0MHz)433mDTG-200,000W
Channel icons
1 BBC One (SD) West Midlands, 2 BBC Two England, 9 BBC Four, 23 BBC Three, 201 CBBC, 202 CBeebies, 231 BBC News, 232 BBC Parliament, plus 19 others

PSB2
D3+4
 H max
C46 (674.0MHz)433mDTG-200,000W
Channel icons
3 ITV 1 (SD) (Central (West micro region)), 4 Channel 4 (SD) Midlands ads, 5 Channel 5, 6 ITV 2, 10 ITV3, 13 E4, 14 Film4, 15 Channel 4 +1 Midlands ads, 18 More4, 26 ITV4, 28 ITVBe, 30 E4 +1, 35 ITV1 +1 (Central west),

PSB3
BBCB
 H max
C40+ (626.2MHz)433mDTG-200,000W
Channel icons
46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD West Midlands, 102 BBC Two HD England, 103 ITV 1 HD (ITV Central West), 104 Channel 4 HD Midlands 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 max
C42 (642.0MHz)433mDTG-8200,000W
Channel icons
20 Drama, 21 5USA, 29 ITV2 +1, 32 5STAR, 33 5Action, 38 Channel 5 +1, 41 Legend, 42 GREAT! action, 57 Dave ja vu, 58 ITVBe +1, 59 ITV3 +1, 64 Blaze, 67 TRUE CRIME, 68 TRUE CRIME XTRA, 78 TCC, 81 Blaze +1, 83 Together TV, 89 ITV4 +1, 91 WildEarth, 209 Ketchup TV, 210 Ketchup Too, 211 YAAAS!, 267 Al Jazeera English, plus 30 others

COM5
ArqA
 H max
C45 (666.0MHz)433mDTG-8200,000W
Channel icons
11 Sky Mix, 17 Really, 19 Dave, 31 E4 Extra, 36 Sky Arts, 40 Quest Red, 43 Food Network, 47 Film4 +1, 48 Challenge, 49 4seven, 60 Drama +1, 65 That's TV 2, 70 Quest +1, 74 Yesterday +1, 75 That's 90s, 233 Sky News, plus 11 others

COM6
ArqB
 H max
C39+ (618.2MHz)433mDTG-8200,000W
Channel icons
12 Quest, 25 W, 27 Yesterday, 34 GREAT! movies, 39 DMAX, 44 HGTV, 52 GREAT! romance, 56 That's TV (UK), 61 GREAT! movies extra, 63 GREAT! romance mix, 71 That’s 60s, 73 HobbyMaker, 82 Talking Pictures TV, 84 PBS America, 235 Al Jazeera Eng, plus 18 others

LB
 H -13dB
C48 (690.0MHz)433mDTG-1210,000W
Channel icons
from 31st October 2014: 7 Big Centre TV,

DTG-8 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 Sutton Coldfield transmitter?

regional news image
BBC Midlands Today 2.9m homes 10.9%
from Birmingham B1 1RF, 15km south-southwest (200°)
to BBC West Midlands region - 66 masts.
regional news image
ITV Central News 2.9m homes 10.9%
from Birmingham B1 2JT, 15km south-southwest (201°)
to ITV Central (West) region - 65 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 80% evening news is shared with Central (East)

Are there any self-help relays?

Burton (shobnall)Transposer1 km W Burton-on-Trent60 homes
CoalvilleTransposer18 km NW Leicester600 homes
SolihullTransposerLand Rover building400 homes

How will the Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham, England) transmission frequencies change over time?

1950s-80s1984-971997-981998-20112011-137 Mar 2018
VHFB E TB E TB E TB E K TW T
C4BBCtvwaves
C33com7
C35com8
C36LOCAL2
C39+ArqBArqB
C40BBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBC2waves+BBCBBBCB
C42SDNSDN
C43ITVwavesITVwavesITVwavesBBCABBCA
C45ArqAArqA
C46BBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBC1wavesD3+4D3+4
C48_local
C50tv_offC4wavesC4wavesC4waves
C51tv_offLB
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 7 Sep 11 and 21 Sep 11.

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

Analogue 1-4 1000kW
SDN, ARQA, ARQB, BBCA, D3+4, BBCB(-7dB) 200kW
com7(-10.5dB) 89.2kW
com8(-10.7dB) 86kW
LB(-20dB) 10kW
Mux 1*, Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*, Mux C*, Mux D*(-21dB) 8kW

Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Sutton Coldfield transmitter area

Feb 1956-Jul 1968Associated TeleVision†
Feb 1956-Jul 1968Associated British Corporation◊
Jul 1968-Dec 1981Associated TeleVision
Jan 1982-Feb 2004Central Independent 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. Sutton Coldfield 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.

Comments
Wednesday, 30 March 2016
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

6:03 PM

David Attwood: Malvern (@ 7.5mls/219 degrees, aerial vertical polarity) is listed as the station covering your friends area, Sutton Coldfield (@ 32 mls/ 30 degrees) indicated as not being receivable with the exception of an extremely poor and unreliable signal from its BBC B HD Mux.

Malvern's Mux channels being : BBC-53 / ITV- 57 / BBC B HD- 60 / COM4- 50 / COM5- 59 / COM6- 55.

Mux channels only mentioned in case you decide to give your friends TV a manual tune.


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jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
K
KMJ,Derby
sentiment_satisfiedGold

6:43 PM

David Attwood: further to jb38's advice, a look at streetview shows aerials also pointing to Ridge Hill (same direction as Malvern, but uses horizontal polarisation), The Wrekin and somewhat oddly, Kidderminster. As a consequence there is plenty of scope for receivers to be tuned to a different transmitter to the one that the aerial is pointing to.

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KMJ,Derby's 1,811 posts GB flag
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

10:38 PM

KMJ,Derby: Yes, quite so, as a Google roof top check over a relatively short distance in the area in question reveals a number of aerials pointing in a variety of directions, the fact of most of being mounted on tall poles somewhat suggesting that reception in this area is a tad on the iffy side, Ridge Hill as you will no doubt have seen, predicting variable reception on its PSB channels.




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jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
Thursday, 14 April 2016
S
Steve Gee
8:24 PM

Is there work being done on the Sutton Coldfield transmitter as this is the 2nd evening in a row I have not been able to get any of the channels on CON4 ( 5USA, ITV3, Horror etc ) yet come the morning they work fine. They seem to lose signal around 6 pm.

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Steve Gee's 1 post GB flag
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

11:11 PM

Steve Gee : As there are no faults nor engineering work taking place at the Sutton Coldfield transmitter, then this suggests that the problem is caused by something connected with your installation. However its not really possible to make a proper assessment of the situation without prior knowledge of your location, this preferably being in the form of a post code or one from somewhere nearby, e.g: a shop / Post Office.

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jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
Tuesday, 26 April 2016
Stuart Owens
sentiment_satisfiedSilver

3:17 PM
Wrexham

Do you have the correct information about the transmitter powers for COM7 and COM8?
According to this other website, COM7 is 89.22kW and COM8 is 85.99kW, not 89.200 and 8.300kW as displayed here on UK Free TV.

COM7 and COM8 - a516digital


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Stuart Owens's 156 posts GB flag
Stuart's: mapS's Freeview map terrainS's terrain plot wavesS's frequency data S's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Briantist
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

5:38 PM

Stuart Owens: If I recall there is a difference between the licenced output and the actual output levels. I think the lower values are the correct current output levels.

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Briantist's 38,915 posts US flag
Briantist's: mapB's Freeview map terrainB's terrain plot wavesB's frequency data B's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Stuart Owens
sentiment_satisfiedSilver

8:01 PM
Wrexham

If those lower output levels are the correct current output levels, then that would mean I would receive even less signal on COM8 than on the LOCAL multiplex.
I currently receive about 100 Quality / 96 Strength for PSB/COM4-6, 100 Quality / 85 Strength for COM7-8, 97 Quality / 42 Strength for LOCAL (Big Centre TV).
So I would've thought considering the actual signals I receive, with the signals for COM 7 and 8 not much less than PSB/COM4-6 and LOCAL a bigger signal drop, if I get 97/42 for LOCAL at 10kW, that should mean I would get even somewhere also around or slightly less than 97/42 for COM8 at 8.3kW so maybe COM7 at 89.22 and COM8 at 85.99 is correct as stated on Digital UK/a516 and this site is incorrect.
Likewise on this site at Winter Hill it says 14kW for COM8 but on Digital UK/a516 it says 22.6kW.

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Stuart Owens's 156 posts GB flag
Stuart's: mapS's Freeview map terrainS's terrain plot wavesS's frequency data S's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Wednesday, 4 May 2016
Transmitter engineering
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

12:09 AM

SUTTON COLDFIELD transmitter - Possible weak signal [DUK]

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Transmitter engineering's 149,799 posts xx flag
Transmitter engineering
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

2:32 PM

SUTTON COLDFIELD transmitter - DAB: BBC National DAB Radio Off Air from 11:37 today to 11:38 today. [BBC] Possible weak signal [DUK]

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Transmitter engineering's 149,799 posts xx flag
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