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Full Freeview on the Rowridge (Isle Of Wight, England) transmitter

first published this on - UK Free TV
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The symbol shows the location of the Rowridge (Isle Of Wight, England) transmitter which serves 620,000 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 Rowridge (Isle Of Wight, England) transmitter.

Choose from three options: ■ List by multiplex ■ List by channel number ■ List by channel name
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Which Freeview channels does the Rowridge 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
 V max
 H max
C24 (498.0MHz)
320mDTG-200,000W
200,000W
Channel icons
1 BBC One (SD) South, 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
 V max
 H max
C27 (522.0MHz)
320mDTG-200,000W
200,000W
Channel icons
3 ITV 1 (SD) (Meridian (South Coast 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 (Meridian south coast), 71 That’s 60s,

PSB3
BBCB
 V max
 H max
C21+ (474.2MHz)
320mDTG-200,000W
200,000W
Channel icons
46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD South, 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 -6dB
 V -6dB
C25 (506.0MHz)
299mDTG-850,000W
50,000W
Channel icons
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 -6dB
 V -6dB
C22+ (482.2MHz)
302mDTG-850,000W
50,000W
Channel icons
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 -6dB
 V -6dB
C28 (530.0MHz)
302mDTG-850,000W
50,000W
Channel icons
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

LSO
 H -13dB
C37 (602.0MHz)299mDTG-1210,000W
Channel icons
from 22nd December 2014: 7 That's Solent,

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 Rowridge transmitter?

regional news image
BBC South Today 1.3m homes 4.9%
from Southampton SO14 7PU, 26km north (354°)
to BBC South region - 39 masts.
regional news image
ITV Meridian News 0.9m homes 3.6%
from Whiteley PO15 7AD, 24km north-northeast (20°)
to ITV Meridian (South Coast) region - 39 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 50% evening news is shared with all of Meridian plus Oxford

Are there any self-help relays?

Portsmouth DocksTransposer2 km N city centre50 homes Estimate. Group of houses'

How will the Rowridge (Isle Of Wight, England) transmission frequencies change over time?

1950s-80s1984-971997-981998-20122012-132 May 2018
VHFA K TA K TA K TA K TW T
C3BBCtvwaves
C21C4wavesC4wavesC4waves+BBCBBBCB
C22+ArqAArqA
C24BBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBCABBCA
C25SDNSDN
C27ITVwavesITVwavesITVwavesD3+4D3+4
C28ArqBArqB
C29LSO
C31BBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBC1wavescom7
C37com8
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 Mar 12 and 21 Mar 12.

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

Analogue 1-4 500kW
PSB1||, PSB1≡, PSB2||, PSB2≡, PSB3||, PSB3≡(-4dB) 200kW
COM4≡, COM4||, COM5≡, COM5||, COM6≡, COM6||(-10dB) 50kW
com7≡(-13.1dB) 24.4kW
Mux 1*, Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*, Mux C*, Mux D*(-14dB) 20kW
com8≡(-14.3dB) 18.4kW
LSO≡(-17dB) 10kW

Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Rowridge transmitter area

Aug 1958-Jan 1992Southern Television
Jan 1982-Dec 1992Television South (TVS)
Jan 1993-Feb 2004Meridian
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. Rowridge 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
Monday, 7 May 2018
S
StevensOnln1
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

8:43 PM

Terri: Have you checked for any loose or damaged cables or connections? Are all of your TVs fed from the same aerial?

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StevensOnln1's 3,672 posts GB flag
A
AR Sillence
9:25 PM
Southampton

During the summer we can and do get what is called "lift" radio conditions, during these summer periods associated with high pressure VHF FM, DRAB and UHF TV aka "digital TV" may be lost for hours on end, other stations may be seen French TV can be seen, only to disappear hours later. This is normal occasional behaviour of Radio and TV signals. There is now't you can do apart from using freesat. Apart from ensuring you are tuned to the local appropriate transmitter site. Retuning of course under these conditions will achieve nothing apart from un-tuning the stations when normal conditions return.

link to this comment
AR Sillence's 1 post GB flag
AR's: mapA's Freeview map terrainA's terrain plot wavesA's frequency data A's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Tuesday, 8 May 2018
T
Tony Whyman
4:21 PM

colin1951uk:
Well, if you are getting 45% at Eastleigh, I'm not so surprised that by Alresford it gets down to 0%. However, there is something seriously amiss with COM7 (ch 55) from Rowridge. Com8 (ch 56) comes in here at a signal strength of 90% with a 0 BER and all the other multiplexes are up around the 98% mark. Before the switch, Com7 (ch 31)was always the worst at 74%, but never so bad as to be unavailable.

Pre-switchover, the signal strength of COM7 was meant to 24.4K with Com8 down at 18K. To get this bad, they must have reduced the signal strength down to sweet FA. Even before digital switchover we got all the multiplexes at often low power levels.

Maybe the transmitter output mask has been configured wrongly. That seems to be the only way COM7 could have got so bad compared with Com8.

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Tony Whyman's 6 posts GB flag
K
Ken
4:41 PM

Dave Watson:
I had a similar problem and it turned out to be the aerial was oriented for Rowridge's Vertical Polarisation transmissions. Rowridge broadcast this to reduce co-channel interference from the continent.

The recent retune didn't just shift COM7 and COM8 out of Group A, which probably includes most aerials in its catchment since it has been a Group A transmitter for 50 odd years. It also stopped transmitting them in VP completely which is why, like you, I couldn't get anything of channel 55.

If so then you have a choice:
1: Change the aerial orientation from VP to HP and risk loss of signal quality on some Muxes in good weather or
2: Keep the VP alignment and watch BBCNews24 and the other COM7 & 8 channels on SD/fuzzyvision - less inclination to fork out for that new 4K HDR TV.

I took Option 1, but the Bank Holiday weather saw Mux D3+4 quality going all over the place despite a strong signal, which I assume to be the DTV effect of co-channel problems.

link to this comment
Ken's 1 post GB flag
M
Martin G Nash
7:58 PM

A number of people here in Ferndown have lost at least the BBC HD News channel that was 107. Now if we try to use 107 the TV almost immediately re-tunes to whatever channel you're watching.

I see above that the March/May re-tune included a switch that included Channels to 55 & 56 and that we may have to have a new aerial to tune into this. This hardly seems fair?

Kind regards,


Martin

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Martin G Nash's 2 posts GB flag
S
StevensOnln1
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

10:54 PM

Ken: COM7 & COM8 were never broadcast with vertical polarity from Rowridge, they were only ever horizontal before the recent frequency changes. Perhaps your aerial was just less effective at rejecting the horizontally polarized signal on the old lower frequencies when mounted with the elements vertical.

Martin G Nash: If you don't have satellite or cable you may be eligible to have a replacement wideband aerial fitted free of charge if the missing channels cannot be restored by manual tuning. This can be arranged by contacting the Freeview Advice Line (see link below).

Important changes to Freeview TV signals | Freeview

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StevensOnln1's 3,672 posts GB flag
Friday, 11 May 2018
C
Colin Hobbs
8:37 AM

I have lost channels 106 to 201 and retuned several times including complete retune by Freeview staff i.e. Removing aerial etc. Tv is only 12 months old and new aerial installed in loft with no effect. Please advise if I need a wide and aerial. Regards
Colin Hobbs

link to this comment
Colin Hobbs's 1 post GB flag
J
js
sentiment_satisfiedGold

10:35 AM

Colin Hobbs: You are missing the com7 and com8 multiplexes. This page still shows these as on UHF channels 31 and 37 respectively but they have moved to UHF channels 55 and 56.

This change means a wideband aerial is now needed.

If you look at the top right of this page you will see an envelope icon, and next to it a link with the postcode of the Rowridge transmitter.

Clicking that link will take you to a coverage checker page where you can enter your own postcode by clicking "Change address" and see the predicted coverage for your location.

The message above yours from StevensOnln1 details how you might qualify for a free aerial.


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js's 841 posts RO flag
Saturday, 12 May 2018
T
Tim Forsyth
9:43 AM

Hey StevensOnln1,

Do you know if anyone has been successful getting a replacement aerial / engineer visit from freeview?

I have tried phoning twice and both times (oddly I seem to have got the same guy) was told the same story about low power and there's no way I would be able to get COM7/8.

I feel like I'm being fobbed off. I asked directly about an aerial upgrade last time and was told it wouldn't help.

Thanks,
Tim.

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Tim Forsyth's 3 posts GB flag
T
Tim Forsyth
2:09 PM
Lyndhurst

Hey Mike,

Thanks for your reply,. I'm in SO40 8DZ. Always used to get excellent signal from com7 and 8 before they moved.

I'm definitely on rowridge, also my aerial is pointing towards the Isle of Wight so it's s definite yes,.

If you think I should get good coverage for channels 55 and 56 from here, I'll be more direct with freeview.

Thanks,
Tim.

link to this comment
Tim Forsyth's 3 posts GB flag
Tim's: mapT's Freeview map terrainT's terrain plot wavesT's frequency data T's Freeview Detailed Coverage
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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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