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Full Freeview on the Mendip (Somerset, England) transmitter

first published this on - UK Free TV
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The symbol shows the location of the Mendip (Somerset, England) transmitter which serves 720,000 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 Mendip (Somerset, England) mast?

Mendip transmitter - Mendip 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 Mendip 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)591mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
1 BBC One (SD) 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)591mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
3 ITV 1 (SD) (West), 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 (West),

PSB3
BBCB
 H max
C35 (586.0MHz)591mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD West, 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 max
C48 (690.0MHz)591mDTG-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
C33 (570.0MHz)591mDTG-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
C36 (594.0MHz)591mDTG-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

LBS
 H -10dB
C30 (546.0MHz)591mDTG-1210,000W
Channel icons
from 22nd September 2014: 7 Made in Bristol,

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 Mendip transmitter?

regional news image
BBC Points West 0.9m homes 3.4%
from Bristol BS8 2LR, 25km north (3°)
to BBC West region - 60 masts.
regional news image
ITV West Country News (East) 0.9m homes 3.4%
from Bristol BS4 3HG, 23km north (11°)
to ITV West region - 61 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 50% evening news is shared with West Country (West)

Are there any self-help relays?

CheddarTransposer15 km E Weston-super-Mare1674 homes
LuccombeActive deflector6 km w Minehead38 homes

How will the Mendip (Somerset, England) transmission frequencies change over time?

1984-971997-981998-20102010-132013-182013-1727 Feb 2018
C/D EEEC/D EC/D E TW TW T
C30_local
C32BBCA
C33com7com7
C34D3+4
C35com8com8
C36ArqB
C37C5wavesC5waves
C48SDNSDNSDNSDN
C49tv_off BBCABBCA
C51tv_offLBSLBS
C52tv_offArqBArqBArqB
C54tv_offC4wavesC4wavesC4wavesD3+4D3+4D3+4
C55tv_offcom7tv_off
C56tv_offArqAArqAArqACOM8tv_off
C58tv_offBBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBCBBBCBBBCB
C61ITVwavesITVwavesITVwavesBBCA
C64BBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBC2waves

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 24 Mar 10 and 7 Apr 10.

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

Analogue 1-4 500kW
Analogue 5(-6dB) 126kW
SDN, ARQA, ARQB, BBCA, D3+4, BBCB(-7dB) 100kW
com7(-8.4dB) 72.4kW
com8(-8.6dB) 69.1kW
Mux 1*, Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*, Mux C*, Mux D*, LBS(-17dB) 10kW

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

Jan 1958-Jul 1968Television Wales and the West
Jul 1968-Feb 2004Harlech 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. Mendip 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
Friday, 5 April 2019
C
Chris.SE
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

9:10 PM

Iain Davies:

Of course they realise that some very old C/D aerials won't pick up C32 satisfactorily, but many will. And for those where the aerial is an issue, as long as they don't also have Cable and/or Satellite, they may be eligible for assistance with an aerial change as detailed on this page Important changes to Freeview TV signals | Freeview (which you could have mentioned!). Thanks to Tony H for mentioning the details again which have been posted several times on this board.

Brian:

As has been mentioned on previous posts on this board (if you scroll back a bit), there are retune events taking place this year for the eventual clearance of the 700 Mhz band. Did you not see any on-screen retune messages for this one? The link I've just posted (& previous ones) and those mentioned by Tony H provide the information. As of today the correct list is currently 32, 54, 58, 48, 56, 36, 33, 35 & 51 for the local mux, but 49 is still on air at present.

Brian: Adrian Auton: & Graham:
If you are still having trouble getting all the muxes tuned in on some devices, try a complete retune with the aerial unplugged to clear all the current tunings. Then reconnect the aerial and ideally do a manual tune for the UHF channels listed above to avoid any clashes with Wenvoe signals. Some devices will allow you to choose a region after an automatic scan where you are getting more than one transmitter.

For those still having problems with the lower UHF channels 32, 33 etc, then your aerial system may need upgrading to a T group or wideband, but check other things such as poor connections on all your connectors by unplugging them, check connections and plugging in again.

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

9:17 PM

Tony H:

Brian Butterworth has posted elsewhere about the mostly "final" position listings showing on a lot of transmitter pages, and this is in part due to a bug in his code, but yes keeping up with all the changes across the country is no mean feat. But thanks anyway to Brain Butterworth for providing and hosting the site at no cost to us.

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Chris.SE's 4,101 posts GB flag
Saturday, 6 April 2019
B
Brian
10:00 AM

Chris.SE: The problem, I've taken 24 hours to work out, is simple:
C49 is still active, sending out guide info, and therefore won't allow c32 to overwrite it.
The Mendips transmitter needs to close down c49 soonest.
Who is in charge at Mendips?
To whom do I report this issue?
.
It also doesn't help that the channels shown here on ukfree are WRONG, as they haave yet to be changed, as Tony H says above. All very confusing and unhelpful.
Who is in charge of ukfree? It's usually been correct!

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Brian's 4 posts GB flag
A
Adrian
10:22 AM

All,

Thanks for all the useful posts. My problem was that I had an RF modulator using C32, interfering with BBC MUX! (oops). Removing that and rescanning the channels shown on digitaluk.co.uk resolved my issues.

link to this comment
Adrian's 3 posts GB flag
I
Iain Davies
11:50 AM

I think the organisers of this re-ture have shot themselves in the foot, not warning people that an aerial upgrade would be most probable. In the analogue days when Channel 5 was on Ch 37 you would get just about a watchable picture using a C/D group aerial. But using a W/B or group A aerial gave you perfect pictures. Living in the Mendip area I haven't seen anything in the local papers or on Points West about re-tuning or needing new aerials.

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Iain Davies's 11 posts GB flag
G
Gammerx
11:50 AM

Since 4th April I have lost Freeview HD channels.

link to this comment
Gammerx's 2 posts GB flag
S
StevensOnln1
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

1:24 PM

Iain Davies: COM5 moved to UHF channel 33 at Mendip last year, so most viewers having issues with C/D group aerials should have noticed and done something about it already. There were on-screen notification messages broadcast the day before the change. Don't forget there is a scheme to provide free replacement wideband aerials to affected viewers who don't have satellite or cable (see link below).

Important changes to Freeview TV signals | Freeview

Gemmerx: There were frequency changes at Mendip on 4th April. If retuning doesn't restore the missing channels, give the Freeview Advice Line a call (see link above).

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StevensOnln1's 3,605 posts GB flag
MikeP
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

9:38 PM

Brian:

All UK transmitters are operated by Arqiva and they can be contacted at https://www.arqiva.com/co…us/.

For the most up-to-date details of the abailable channels, please look at the Digital UK Coverage Checker at Digital UK - Coverage checker That is managed by Arqiva and the broadcasters.



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MikeP's 3,056 posts GB flag
Sunday, 7 April 2019
C
Chris.SE
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

12:40 AM
Daventry

Brian:

I suggest you re-read my Friday post at 9.10pm - the long one before your last. Especially the paragraph beginning "If you are still having trouble getting all the muxes ....".
Closing down C49 will make no difference. If you follow the MANUAL tuning method I described after clearing the tuning memory by scanning with the aerial unplugged, it should solve the problem.

I'm also reminded by Adrian finding and resolving the cause of his issue with C32 being blocked by an RF modulator, that if you have any RF modulators running from any other "boxes", in the first instance switch them off to see if it solves your retuning problems with the aerial then plugged directly into the device you are retuning. It would probably be best to adjust the modulator channels to ones at the top of the UHF band above C60.

Yes, the channels on this site are currently wrong, please re-read my post immediately preceding your last.
As has been mentioned many times on this board and most other transmitter boards putting your postcode into the DigitalUk coverage checker at Digital UK - Coverage checker will not only give you the current Mux channel allocations, but details of retunes etc. Other pages on DigitalUk and Freeview will give you a wealth of useful information.
The tvchanges page also has some useful FAQs as well as mention of a "Code of Service" and mention of the changes being announced by OFCOM whose site will have lots of background information if you wish to search for it.

link to this comment
Chris.SE's 4,101 posts GB flag
Chris.SE's: mapC's Freeview map terrainC's terrain plot wavesC's frequency data C's Freeview Detailed Coverage
C
Chris.SE
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

1:15 AM

Iain Davies:

Your post Mendip (Somerset, England) Full Freeview transmitter | free and easy gives the impression you are an experienced aerial installer, you also made mention of the 2019 retune events in a post prior to that, so frankly I'm flabbergasted that you aren't aware of all the information and support that's available.

The "organisers" haven't shot themselves in the foot at all. As mentioned by StevensOnln1, retune events, 700Mhz clearance etc has been well publicised over recent times as well as the potential need for a new aerial. In the last few days before the retune(s), there've been on screen messages.

FYI in the analogue days when Channel 5 started up it's UHF allocations were typically C35/C37 indifferent parts of the country. With it being C37 at Mendip, there were "Enhanced" C/D group aerial produced to give improved reception of C35/C37. I guess it probably made them a bit like a Group E.
Anyone with one of these may not have any particular problems with the retunes. But as mentioned in previous posts, help is available from Freeview.
I would guess that C49 will remain on air a while, to give those having problems with C32 chance to contact Freeview for possible help with an aerial upgrade.


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Chris.SE's 4,101 posts GB flag
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