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

first published this on - UK Free TV
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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 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
_______

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.

MuxH/VFrequencyHeightModeWatts
PSB1
BBCA
 H max
C32 (562.0MHz)726mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
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)726mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
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),

PSB3
BBCB
 H max
C35- (585.8MHz)726mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
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

COM4
SDN
 H max
C29 (538.0MHz)726mDTG-8100,000W
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
C31 (554.0MHz)726mDTG-8100,000W
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
C37 (602.0MHz)726mDTG-8100,000W
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

LM
 H -20dB
C40 (626.0MHz)572mDTG-121,000W
Channel icons
from 1st October 2014: 7 That's Manchester,

LL
 H -17dB
C24 (498.0MHz)572mDTG-122,000W
Channel icons
from 30th June 2014: 7 Bay TV Liverpool,

LPR
 H -20dB
C56 (754.0MHz)572mDTG-121,000W
Channel icons
from 1st October 2014: 7 That's Lancashire,

GIM
 H -20dB
C57 (762.0MHz)572mDTG-21,000W
Channel icons
 Now 90s,  Spotlight TV,  Clubland TV,  Country Music Entertainment ,  Classic Hits MCR, 76 That's TV 2 MCR, 77 That's 60s MCR, 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?

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

1956-80s1984-971997-981998-20092009-132013-182013-1720 Feb 2020
VHFC/D EC/D EC/D EC/D EC/D E TW TW T
C9ITVwaves
C12BBCtvwaves
C24_local
C29SDN
C31com7com7
C32BBCA
C34D3+4
C35BBCB
C37com8com8
C40LOCAL2
C48C5wavesC5waves
C49tv_off ArqAArqA
C50tv_off BBCABBCA
C54tv_off-BBCB-BBCB-BBCB
C55tv_offBBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBC1wavesArqBArqBArqBcom7tv_off
C56tv_off_local_local_localLPR
C57tv_offGIMGIMGIMGIM
C58tv_offSDNSDNSDN
C59tv_offITVwavesITVwavesITVwavesD3+4D3+4D3+4
C61ArqA
C62BBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBCA
C65C4wavesC4wavesC4waves

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

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

May 1956-Jul 1968Granada Television†
May 1956-Jul 1968Associated British Corporation◊
Jul 1968-Feb 2004Granada 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
Wednesday, 25 April 2018
K
K Gardner
9:57 AM
Preston

Please clarify why poor signal strength/quality from tx channel 55.

The Tv channels I receive from Winter Hill on transmitter channel 55, are all indicated on channel 31 from the web page for Winter Hill. Is the information here current ?
i.e. Tv channels 56,82,87,97,107,109,110

Channel 55 transmitter power is indicated as 100kW, but reception quality for these TV channels (above) is 3 at best (but generally no signal) - postcode PR4 2BW

Signal quality is 10 from TV channels received from transmitter channels 31,37,49,50,54,56,58,59 which are all OK.

The problem is present on two televisions. Is channel 55 coverage different or lower power than advertised?

link to this comment
K Gardner's 1 post GB flag
K's: mapK's Freeview map terrainK's terrain plot wavesK's frequency data K's Freeview Detailed Coverage
S
StevensOnln1
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

10:12 AM

K Gardner: According to Digital UK COM6 is on UHF channel 37 at 100kW, COM7 is on C55 at 22.9kW, COM8 is on C31 at 22.6kW. The information at the top of this page doesn't seem to be have been updated to take account of recent frequency changes yet.

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StevensOnln1's 3,605 posts GB flag
C
Chris.SE
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

3:42 PM

K Gardner:
If you click on the link for "digitaluk trade" at the bottom of your previous post, it will show you the predicted reception for you on the appropriate channel for each mux at Winter Hill.
COM7 (UHF55) and COM8 (UHF31) are indeed on a lower power of 22.9kW and 22.6kW respectively.
There is no main mux on UHF56 currently, this is a local mux and is only being transmitted with 2kW!
Now, if you are picking up this local mux OK, it does suggest there are unlikely to be any major problems with your aerial/coax, however bad/dirty connections at plugs and sockets etc have been known to mess up reception of an individual UHF channel, so it's worth just checking all your connections are clean and connecting ok. I'm assuming that you do have a wideband aerial.
What is not helpful here, is you will see that the predicted reception for you for COM7 (UHF55) is much poorer than COM8. This will most likely be due to co-channel interference from other transmitters on UHF55 and other than checking your aerial alignment, there's unfortunately not a lot that you might be able to do to improve things.

link to this comment
Chris.SE's 4,101 posts GB flag
MikeP
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

4:25 PM

K Gardner:

Further to that said by fellow contributors above, you may need to change your aerial to a wideband type to enable recepotion of all available channels. If you look at thwe digital uk website with your postcode, Coverage Checker - Detailed View you will see that a wideband aerial is now recommended and it also shows the actual channels being used to broadcast the TV services. (Note that these are not the same as the Logical Channel Numbers used to identify each broadcast service, such as BBC 1 on LCN 1.)

You may qualify for some assistance, you can check by contacting Freeview on their website at www.freeview.co.uk/tvchanges or by ringing them on 0808 100 0288.



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MikeP's 3,056 posts GB flag
Monday, 30 April 2018
J
js
sentiment_satisfiedGold

4:00 AM

I'm seeing some unusual character codes in the freeview EPG; specifically, an apostrophe ' with code 0x19 and a dash or minus sign - with code 0x13.

I don't have a freeview HD device so can anyone tell me if the characters inside the curly brackets in the following event descriptions are rendered properly?

FreeSports, Mon 07 May 22:30 - 00:30: La Liga 2
Granada v Rayo Vallecano: Coverage from the latest round of Spain{'}s Segunda Division as teams battle it out to earn a promotion to the much coveted La Liga.

PBS America, Sun 06 May 21:10 - 23:35: The Vietnam War
Resolve (January 1966-June 1967): As an antiwar movement builds back home, soldiers and Marines discover that the war in Vietnam is nothing like their fathers{'} war. (Part 4 of 10)

Al Jazeera Eng HD, Wed 02 May 07:00 - 08:00: The Coming War On China
Journalist John Pilger, reveals what the news doesn't {-} that the world's greatest military power, the U.S. may well be on the road to war with China.

link to this comment
js's 822 posts GB flag
MikeP
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

1:03 PM

JS:

The curly brackets are extraneous, read it as if they are not present and it makes perfect UK English grammatical sense. Why they are showing I don't know.



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MikeP's 3,056 posts PT flag
R
Robert Lee
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

6:20 PM

UHF channel 55 has disappeard and with it BBC News HD and a few others. Everything else is OK. Any ideas as no fault flagged.

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Robert Lee's 87 posts GB flag
M
Michael
7:39 PM

Between this morning and this afternoon BBC News HD and Aljazeera HD have both vanished (no signal on 107 or 1108). No changes are indicated here, so what has happened?

link to this comment
Michael's 1 post GB flag
R
Robert Lee
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

7:46 PM

The missing programmes have just reappeared on UHF channel 32 which now carries programmes previously on 55. Nice of them to let us know.

Brianist - can we please have an update!

link to this comment
Robert Lee's 87 posts GB flag
R
Robert Lee
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

9:20 PM

Just realised that I'm probably getting a weak signal from Moel y Parc.
So, what has happened to UHF channel 55 on Winter Hill?

link to this comment
Robert Lee's 87 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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