Full Freeview on the Ridge Hill (County of Herefordshire, England) transmitter
 | Google Streetview |  | Google map |  | Bing map |  | Google Earth |  | 51.997,-2.540 or 51°59'49"N 2°32'25"W |  | HR8 2PG |
The symbol shows the location of the Ridge Hill (County of Herefordshire, England) transmitter which serves 270,000 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 Ridge Hill (County of Herefordshire, England) transmitter._______
Digital television services are broadcast on a multiplexes (or Mux) where many stations occupy a single broadcast frequency, as shown below.
64QAM 8K 3/4 27.1Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2
H/V: aerial position (horizontal or vertical)
Which Freeview channels does the Ridge 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.
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 Ridge Hill transmitter?
BBC Midlands Today 2.9m homes 10.9%
from Birmingham B1 1RF, 69km northeast (39°)
to BBC West Midlands region - 66 masts.
ITV Central News 2.9m homes 10.9%
from Birmingham B1 2JT, 69km northeast (39°)
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?
| Whitton | Transposer | 35 km NW Hereford | 40 homes |
How will the Ridge Hill (County of Herefordshire, England) transmission frequencies change over time?
| 1968-80s | 1984-97 | 1997-98 | 1998-2011 | 2011-13 | 1 Mar 2018 | ||||
| VHF | A K T | A K T | A K T | W T | W T | ||||
| C6 | ITVwaves | ||||||||
| C21 | +SDN | SDN | |||||||
| C22 | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | +BBCB | BBCB | ||||
| C24 | ArqA | ArqA | |||||||
| C25 | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | D3+4 | D3+4 | ||||
| C27 | ArqB | ArqB | |||||||
| C28 | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBCA | BBCA | ||||
| C29 | D3+4 | ||||||||
| C30 | _local | ||||||||
| C32 | C4waves | C4waves | C4waves | com7 | |||||
| C34 | com8 | ||||||||
| C35 | C5waves | C5waves | |||||||
| C51tv_off | _local | _local | |||||||
| C55tv_off | com7tv_off | ||||||||
| C56tv_off | COM8tv_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 6 Apr 11 and 20 Apr 11.
How do the old analogue and currrent digital signal levels compare?
| Analogue 1-5 | 100kW | |
| BBCA, D3+4, PSB2 iw, BBCB | (-7dB) 20kW | |
| com7 | (-9.8dB) 10.5kW | |
| SDN, ARQA, ARQB | (-10dB) 10kW | |
| com8 | (-10.1dB) 9.8kW | |
| Mux 1*, Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*, Mux C*, Mux D* | (-17dB) 2kW |
Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Ridge Hill transmitter area
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Is the transmitter output the same in all directions?
Radiation patterns withheldWednesday, 1 November 2017
S
StevensOnln12:23 PM
Mike Fisher: This is very likely caused by the high atmospheric pressure affecting various parts of the country, causing lift conditions which allow signals from distant transmitters which cannot normally be received to interfere with the signals from the transmitter you normally use. Do not attempt to retune as this will delete all of your channels which are already correctly tuned. As this is an entirely natural phenomenon, all you can do is wait for the atmospheric conditions to return to normal.
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Sunday, 14 January 2018
M
Mr. R Baylis10:43 PM
I'm confused by the diagram for Ridge Hill Frequency Changes Over Time. Everything changes massively post 31st March this year and there's no mention of support for com7 and com8. Does that mean we'll lose all the channels listed as carried on those MUX? It certainly looks as though a massive retune will be necessary.
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S
StevensOnln111:12 PM
Mr. R Baylis: According to Digital UK, the only frequency changes taking place at Ridge Hill are that COM7 & COM8 will move to UHF 55 & 56 on 1st March 2018. On the same day, the PSB3West mux (carrying ITV Westcountry West only) will reduce in transmission power to 2Kw and change transmission mode to QPSK in order to make the signal more robust. All other muxes remain on their current allocations.
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Tuesday, 16 January 2018
M
Mr. R Baylis10:02 AM
StevensOnln1: Thank you for that information. With com7 and com8 simply disappearing from the diagram it wasn't clear what was going to happen to the channels carried on those mux. So am I correct in thinking that UHF 55 and 56 will appear in the list as new entries in the first column in the 700 between the existing C53 and C57? If that is the case, it might be helpful to update the diagram to include those two lines now, and show com7 and com8 in those lines on the column for March 2018 to show they have moved there.
I also notice the aerial group has changed from W back to A & K again as of this date. I've read the linked piece on aerial groups but am none the wiser, although I assume it relates to the transmitter aerial rather than the receivers? Otherwise I'd have thought there would have been a big campaign to alert us to the possible need to change our aerials again. I'm in a marginal signal area so back in 2015 I bought a Labgear LAB450T which has a 15db gain and a signal amplifier to upgrade the existing equipment. I'm assuming this will be sufficient?
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S
StevensOnln110:24 AM
Mr. R Baylis: I believe the entries for 2018 onwards on the diagram above are based on which frequencies have international clearance for the transmitter after the 700MHz clearance is completed. Your Labgear LAB450T aerial is wide band so won't need to be replaced. Hardly anyone using Ridge Hill will need to replace their aerial unless they are using a group A aerial and loose COM7 & COM8 due to weak signal (many will have fitted a wide band aerial in order to receive Freeview prior to digital switchover).
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Tuesday, 6 March 2018
P
Paul Evans2:25 PM
Bromsgrove
I have retuned my Youview box and I no longer get Chs 106 and 107, BBC4 HD and BBC News HD. I don't tend to watch the other offerings on the Com 7 and Com 8 Muxs. I can understand that the recent bad weather may have prevented the changeover going smoothly. Can anyone shed any light on whether there is a problem with channels 32 and 34 on Ridge Hill? I am at B60 3DE and prior to the retune had no problems. I did unplug the aerial, retune, plug in again and retune.
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Paul's: mapP's Freeview map terrainP's terrain plot wavesP's frequency data P's Freeview Detailed Coverage
S
StevensOnln13:25 PM
Paul Evans: COM7 & COM8 moved to UHF channels 55 and 56 at Ridge Hill on 1st March, although they are predicted to be significantly weaker than the other COM muxes at your postcode.
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Paul Evans4:13 PM
Bromsgrove
Thanks for that. The move is not very clear on the chart above. Changing the channels is not hugely helpful to those that want decent TV reception of a couple of fairly mainstream HD channels!
If it were me I'd kick a few other channels into the wide blue yonder, 45, 105 and 204, perhaps. But then perhaps I'm just a grumpy old git...
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Paul's: mapP's Freeview map terrainP's terrain plot wavesP's frequency data P's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Wednesday, 7 March 2018
R
Richard Baylis12:14 PM
Ridge Hill is my only transmitter option and is far enough away that I do suffer from channels being unavailable at time of adverse weather conditions. Yet I too am now suffering from the move of these mainstream HD channels to the weaker muxs and currently cannot get BBC News HD, BBC4 HD, etc. Which is a travesty. What muppet is responsible for this and who do we have to target with a petition to get it put back the way it was? With the prevelence of PVRs, USB connected storage options and catch up service ces, why do we need the ridiculous abundance of +1 hour channels? Kick them off to make the room. No one need lose any of the low quality channels, even though I'd personally like love to see them consigned to the dustbin to make room for more quality offerings. It's frustrating that E4 isn't offered in HD on freeview for a start.
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S
StevensOnln112:50 PM
Richard Baylis: Frequency changes are planned and co-ordinated by Ofcom. You would be wasting your time with a petition as these changes have been planned over the last few years (in conjunction with the rest of Europe although nothing to do with the EU) in order to free up the 700MHz band so that it can be auctioned to the mobile networks for future 4G/5G mobile services when the frequency clearance program is completed in 2020.
BBC News HD & BBC Four HD are broadcast on the temporary COM7 & COM8 multiplexes. Removal of +1 channels isn't going to happen as they are all broadcast by commercial broadcasters who pay for the broadcast capacity used for theses channels and removing the few that broadcast full time on Freeview (several of them are just placeholders that only broadcast for a couple of hours overnight to reserve a channel number) would not create sufficient space for a HD channel anyway. E4 HD is a subscription channel which only exists as a result of receiving subscription income from Sky and Virgin in exchange for the HD version being available to their subscribers.
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