Full Freeview on the Ridge Hill (County of Herefordshire, England) transmitter
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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.
Are there any planned engineering works or unexpected transmitter faults on the Ridge Hill (County of Herefordshire, England) mast?
Ridge Hill transmitter - Ridge Hill transmitter: Possible effect on TV reception week commencing 04/11/2024 Pixelation or flickering on some or all channels 
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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 withheldTuesday, 9 July 2019
S
StevensOnln11:02 PM
Richard Sutton: ITV4 is only broadcast from Ridge Hill on UHF channel 25 (UHF 29 only carries ITV West with no other services). Have you checked for any loose or damaged cables or connections? Do you get the same results on ITV2 and ITV3 (both are on the same PSB2 mux as ITV4)? If you provide a full postcode someone may be able to offer more specific advice.
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Richard Sutton3:07 PM
Evesham
StevensOnln1:
Many thanks for commenting but surely the detailed listing above shows ITV4 and the other related Freeview channels as being available on both C25 and C29 as well as the regional version of ITV? At least, that's how I'm reading it but I might be wrong.
Either way, I can certainly receive both C25 and C29 but they are both hopelessly weak and one of them (I'm not sure which) used to be fine until the last few weeks.
I've just tried ITV2 and ITV3 and they are both breaking up and unwatchable just like ITV4. I don't see how it can be a connection issue as all the other channels are 100% quality.
This is the Coverage Checker result for WR11 4HQ: Coverage Checker - Detailed View
It used to show Ridge Hill as the best for me which is why I have been on it ever since switchover but that has now changed to Sutton Coldfield which is the transmitter I used to use pre-switchover.
Richard
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Richard's: mapR's Freeview map terrainR's terrain plot wavesR's frequency data R's Freeview Detailed Coverage
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StevensOnln13:58 PM
Richard Sutton: The detailed listing above is incorrect for UHF channel 29, there are no other services on the PSB2west mux from Ridge Hill (this mux is an anomaly that this website doesn't appear to be coded to cope with and no other transmitter has anything like it that I'm aware of).
Have you actually checked your cables and connections or are you just assuming that there's nothing wrong? If everything else is showing 100% signal strength then you may well be suffering with signal overload on those 2 muxes. You could also be suffering from local interference, although that seems less likely if PSB1 on UHF channel 28 (BBC 1 SD, BBC 2 SD, etc) are fine.
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Richard Sutton4:11 PM
StevensOnln1:
I just realised that our the newish LG 4K TV I can do a signal test on each Channel mux and it lists all the broadcast channels available on that mux and you're right. C29 which I can get with a watchable signal is only ITV and the LG has put that on 800.
ITV4 which I want is listed on C25 by the LG but the signal checker currently shows UHF Ch25 (506000 kHz) as being Signal Strength 94%, Signal Quality 1% - 4% so it's unwatchable.
This must mean that I have also now lost Film 4 on channel so I've just checked that live and that is just like the ITV channels, i.e. unwatchable. I've recorded dozens of films of over the last few years on Film 4, the most recent I've just checked was a film called "Thanks for Sharing" which I recorded on the Humax on the 4th July 2019 and I've just checked and that looks fine.
Whatever has happened to C25 seems to have happened in the last few days although I only realised when I tried to watch the BSB recording from ITV4 last night.
I wonder what's happened?
Richard
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StevensOnln15:58 PM
Richard Sutton: High signal strength is most likely either down to interference or signal overload. Try fitting an attenuator to reduce the signal strength (somewhere around 75% signal strength will still give the tuner plenty of signal without causing it to become overloaded if that is what is happening).
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Richard Sutton7:18 PM
StevensOnln1:
I've taken your advice and unplugged and re-plugged all the aerial cables in the lounge and in the loft and that seems to have restored the signal quality on C25/ITV4 back to around 50%. It's nowhere as near as good as all the other channels but the picture looks fine and it's not breaking up.
I don't understand why only C25 seems to be affected by the corroding connection or whatever it is but I'm delighted that I finally understand that C25 is the only one I need and I can stop trying to tune in to C29 as I'm not interested in ITV SD.
It seems that this connection thing is just something I will need to keep an eye on.
Many thanks for you help which has been invaluable.
Richard
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Saturday, 24 August 2019
J
JB8:56 AM
Hi - after some self help! I've recently moved into a property in Hagley, Worcestershire. Having auto tuned the 3 TVs around the house picked up variable signal quality and often dropped out. Having looking into further I believe auto tune was picking up a mixture of transmitters, namely Bromsgrove and Ridge Hill. Bizarrely it seemed Ridge Hill was delivering the most stable transmissons, so I manually tuned all the TVs to all of the COMs bar 7 & 8 as they were really sketchy. Even some of the lower powered COMs (10k) power used to drop out, but a lot of the time they were watchable. Now even the 20k COMs occasionally drop out. It's a rented property and the aerial in the loft, so I couldn't see for sure which way it's pointing. I did wonder if it was omnidirectional but having looked for the first time yesterday, the aerial is vertically polarised and points north of the property actually I believe towards Shropshire!
I'm really confused as I'm pretty sure I'm getting signal from Ridge Hill, but surely the aerial would be south of where we are and horizontal?
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I'm tempted to spin the aerial around south and put horizontal but i think that could be guesswork and might just make me worse off! DY9 0WQ
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StevensOnln19:02 AM
JB: Is this a new build property? Your postcode isn't returning a result on the Digital UK checker. If the aerial is vertical and pointing towards Shropshire, it's probably pointed at the Wrekin. Can you find another postcode for a shop/pub/school or other business/public building nearby?
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JB9:27 AM
StevensOnln1: DY9 ONS is local school. Yes it's new build. The Wrekin is horizontal too? I think some of their COMs might be similar to Ridge Hill in terms of frequency?
Thanks for quick reply
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J
JB9:29 AM
Stourbridge
Yes new build. Dy9 0NS is local school and just checking that says the Wrekin. However, the Wrekin is Horizontal too? Confused, this the COMs are similar in terms of frequency to Ridge Hill too
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JB's: ...
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