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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.

Are there any planned engineering works or unexpected transmitter faults on the Sandy Heath (Central Bedfordshire, England) mast?

Sandy Heath transmitter - Sandy Heath 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 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),

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 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 -0.2dB
C36 (594.0MHz)289mDTG-8170,000W
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 -0.2dB
C48 (690.0MHz)289mDTG-8170,000W
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

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
Tuesday, 19 July 2016
M
MikeB
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

11:57 PM

John rye: Your missing some muxes, so check that TV is actually locking on to that transmitter. And check signal strength - could be that the aerial lead to it has a problem - try swapping them over.

BBC4 HD if often at lower strength than ITV, but if your missing both, it cant be the transmitter - it either works, or it doesn't.

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MikeB's 2,579 posts GB flag
Tuesday, 26 July 2016
Transmitter engineering
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

12:09 AM

SANDY HEATH transmitter - Possible weak signal [DUK]

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Transmitter engineering's 149,799 posts xx flag
Saturday, 30 July 2016
J
John King
5:22 PM

a quick thanks to jb38 as I was indeed having some problems from my digibox retuning to the wrong transmitter. when my reception of ch51 and ch52 is poor it sometimes retunes com4 and com5 to ch42 and ch45 (Tacolneston, perhaps).
I've retuned now (2 or 3 weeks ago) and keeping an eye in case it retunes again - but of course if the signal was good I wouldn't have the problem.

Quick update, I am in Peterborough (PE3), since early June my Com5 reception has been a couple of seconds of picture followed by longer gaps of no picture. Sometimes Com4 is affected too but the other muxes are fine.
But last week things changed ...and went on changing
Sunday was the same as it had been.
Monday, it was fine (except for occasional very small glitches)
Tuesday, the problem returned to com5.
Wednesday, occasional brief picture loss on com5 but the quiz shows on Challenge were watchable
after that ... virtually nothing on any of the com5 channels (so worse than before)

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John King's 3 posts GB flag
M
MikeB
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

8:44 PM

John King: I'm in Peterborough as well, but on Waltham. Check the signal levels on all the muxes - Com 5 should be about the same as most of the others (Com7 is certainly weak).

The most likely problem is somewhere in your system - perhaps a frayed cable, loose join, etc. Cables can be odd, and a problem might mean a really strong mux is wiped out, but a much weaker one is OK. Simply changing the aerial lead isn't a bad idea - they are cheap, easy to change, and if there is no difference, then at least you know its not that.

If there is still a problem, then you'll have to check up the signal path - good luck!

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MikeB's 2,579 posts GB flag
Tuesday, 6 September 2016
S
Stephen Kightley
6:25 PM

Hello and please help! I live in the NN3 area and our freeview signal (assume from Sandy Heath) has gone from excellent (with no problems) to completely pixelated in the last couple of weeks. Several re-tuning attempts haven't worked - in fact, signal strength is excellent, whilst signal quality is poor - which I thought was odd. Another website mentioned about removing booster boxes so am going to try that next.

I really don't want to have to call an aerial company so would appreciate any thoughts on what to do...

Thanks
Stephen

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Stephen Kightley's 1 post GB flag
M
MikeB
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

7:29 PM

Stephen Kightley: See the page 'too much of a good thing' - the fact that you have a booster sounds about right for too high a signal.

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MikeB's 2,579 posts GB flag
Friday, 21 October 2016
A
Andy
7:17 PM

Since the power cut in the Ely Cambs area on wensday we have lost every thing but BBC 1 & 2, bbc4 and the radio channels and children's channels.
I have retuned and we would appricate any help.

link to this comment
Andy's 1 post GB flag
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

11:41 PM

Andy: Provided that your TV or box was not in the process of updating when the power dropped out? then you shouldn't really have lost anything, however as you partially have done and with retuning not having rectified the problem, try carrying out a full reset on your receiver, this on some models called "first time installation" / "default setting" etc.

That said is on the assumption that your Freeview reception is from the Sandy Heath transmitter via normal aerial system (not communal), if it isnt? then a post code will be required for signal strength assessment purposes.

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jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
Tuesday, 1 November 2016
J
J Knights
8:53 AM
Wisbech

Really bad reception over the last three days. Picture breaking up or no picture because 'no signal or weak signal'. Atmospherics may be partly at fault but can anything be done about the strength of the signal. We are in North Cambs PE13 5LB and prefer East Anglia to other transmitters.

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J Knights's 12 posts GB flag
J's: mapJ's Freeview map terrainJ's terrain plot wavesJ's frequency data J's Freeview Detailed Coverage
MikeP
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

11:18 AM

J Knights:

It is not an issue with signal strength or quality from the transmitter but a perfectly natural and well known atmospheric phenomenon that no one can change. Your best solution is patience. The high pressure that gives rise to this tropospheric disturbance is predicted to move away from around Thursday so everything should come back to normal after then - unless you have tried to retune your equipment. If you have done that, wait until at least Thursday before retuning again to recover the lost channels.



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MikeP's 3,056 posts GB flag
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Your comment please
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.

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