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

Brian Butterworth first published this on 1st May 2004 at 08:20 - UK Free TV

53.625,-2.516 or 53°37'30"N 2°30'56"W

BL6 6SL

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 11/11/2024 Pixelation or flickering on some or all channels

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.

Mux	H/V	Frequency	Height	Mode	Watts
PSB1 BBCA	H max	C32 (562.0MHz)	726m	DTG-	100,000W
	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)	726m	DTG-	100,000W
	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), 71 That’s 60s,
PSB3 BBCB	H max	C35- (585.8MHz)	726m	DTG-	100,000W
	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 66 TBN UK,
COM4 SDN	H max	C29 (538.0MHz)	726m	DTG-8	100,000W
	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 max	C31 (554.0MHz)	726m	DTG-8	100,000W
	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 max	C37 (602.0MHz)	726m	DTG-8	100,000W
	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
LM	H -20dB	C40 (626.0MHz)	572m	DTG-12	1,000W
	from 1st October 2014: 7 That's Manchester,
LL	H -17dB	C24 (498.0MHz)	572m	DTG-12	2,000W
	from 30th June 2014: 7 Bay TV Liverpool,
LPR	H -20dB	C56 (754.0MHz)	572m	DTG-12	1,000W
	from 1st October 2014: 7 That's Lancashire,
GIM	H -20dB	C57 (762.0MHz)	572m	DTG-2	1,000W
	Now 90s, Spotlight TV, Clubland TV, Country Music Entertainment , Classic Hits MCR, 77 That's 60s MCR, 78 TCC, 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?

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

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?

	1956-80s	1984-97	1997-98	1998-2009	2009-13	2013-18	2013-17	20 Feb 2020
	VHF	C/D E	C/D E	C/D E	C/D E	C/D E T	W T	W T
C9	ITV_waves
C12	BBCtv_waves
C24								_local
C29								SDN
C31							com7	com7
C32								BBCA
C34								D3+4
C35								BBCB
C37							com8	com8
C40								LOCAL2
C48			C5_waves	C5_waves
C49_{tv_off}						ArqA	ArqA
C50_{tv_off}						BBCA	BBCA
C54_{tv_off}					-BBCB	-BBCB	-BBCB
C55_{tv_off}		BBC1_waves	BBC1_waves	BBC1_waves	ArqB	ArqB	ArqB	com7_{tv_off}
C56_{tv_off}					_local	_local	_local	LPR
C57_{tv_off}					GIM	GIM	GIM	GIM
C58_{tv_off}					SDN	SDN	SDN
C59_{tv_off}		ITV_waves	ITV_waves	ITV_waves	D3+4	D3+4	D3+4
C61					ArqA
C62		BBC2_waves	BBC2_waves	BBC2_waves	BBCA
C65		C4_waves	C4_waves	C4_waves

_{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

Local transmitter maps

Winter Hill Freeview Winter Hill DAB Winter Hill AM/FM Winter Hill TV region BBC North West Granada

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

May 1956-Jul 1968	Granada Television†
May 1956-Jul 1968	Associated British Corporation◊
Jul 1968-Feb 2004	Granada Television
Feb 2004-Dec 2014	ITV plc

Feb 1983-Dec 1992	TV-am•
Jan 1993-Sep 2010	GMTV•
Sep 2010-Dec 2014	ITV Daybreak•

• Breakfast ◊ Weekends ♦ Friday night and weekends † Weekdays only.

Is the transmitter output the same in all directions?

Comments

Sunday, 18 August 2019

StevensOnln1

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

10:26 AM

Stephane Swainson: Magic TV is not broadcast on .

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StevensOnln1's 3,670 posts GB flag

Sunday, 15 September 2019

Sally
9:08 AM

Hi, are there plans to broadcast Sony Christmas from threWinter Hill transmitters?

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Sally's 2 posts GB flag

Sally
9:12 AM

Will the Sony Christmas be available in Southport at all from the ?

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Sally's 2 posts GB flag

StevensOnln1

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

10:41 AM

Sally: Sony Movies Christmas is broadcast on the mux, make it available in areas where a local TV is broadcast on 7 or 8. This includes some, but not all, of the areas served by .

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StevensOnln1's 3,670 posts GB flag

Thursday, 19 September 2019

_{sentiment_satisfied}Gold

8:13 AM

Chris.SE: Sorry about the late reply.

Yes, these bad codes will be generally discarded by the software leaving mostly grammatical errors due to the resultant missing quotes, dashes, hyphens and apostrophes.

As you know, the reason I am aware of the errors and no one else seems to be is I am fairly unique in having written EPG software for my own personal use.

In fact, I initially failed to spot the errors as I had included such a discard routine in my EPG program.

I became aware of them when they appeared in the of the Huffman decoder, which I expect to be pristine UTF-8 and thus not needing to be processed.

The culprits are always much the same - never from ITV or Channel4 .

The following is part of an automated dump from my program.

Note the Sony errors appear thrice because EPG for the three local multiplexes is sent from .

Invalid Character Codes in the EIT off North BBC A. Date: 2019/09/18 01:20:19

There are 1239 events with invalid codes in the current EIT.

The Culprits:
Format:
service_name, number of events containing errors

BBC ONE W Mid, 22
BBC ONE N West, 22
BBC TWO, 23
BBC NEWS, 4
BBC FOUR, 1
CBBC, 26
CBeebies, 39
BBC Parliament, 4
BBC R5L, 2
BBC 6 Music, 4
BBC Radio 4 Ex, 48
BBC R1X, 1
BBC Asian Net., 2
Sv., 48
BBC Manchester, 1
BBC Stoke, 1
BBC Lancashire, 1
BBC Radio 1, 5
BBC Radio 2, 5
BBC Radio 3, 10
BBC Radio 4, 16
BBC RB 1, 7
BBC ONE Yorks, 21
BBC ONE , 21
BBC TWO Wales, 24
Blaze, 6
ADULT Studio 66, 32
Planet Knowledge, 17
Sports Channel , 41
Sony Movies Action, 1
Ketchup TV, 14
BBC TWO HD, 23
BBC ONE HD, 21
CBBC HD, 26
RNIB Connect, 3
TBN UK, 13
YourTV, 6
Sony Movies, 14
POP, 116
Al Jazeera Eng, 4
Sony Channel +1, 31
POP Max, 134
Tiny Pop, 62
Sony Movies +1, 4
Sony Channel, 39
Tiny Pop, 62
Sony Movies +1, 4
Sony Channel, 39
Tiny Pop, 62
Sony Movies +1, 4
Sony Channel, 39
BBC NEWS HD, 4
CBeebies HD, 39
BBC FOUR HD, 1
PBS America, 20

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js's 841 posts GB flag

_{sentiment_satisfied}Gold

9:53 AM

A new stream has appeared sometime during the last two months in the BBC A and BBC B multiplexes with a Packet IDentifier (PID) value of 21 or hex 0x15.

From ETSI TS 101 191 V1.4.1 (2004-06):

"The present document specifies a mega-frame, including a Mega-frame Initialization Packet (MIP), which may be used for synchronization of Single Networks (SFN) as well as for the optional control of other important parameters in an SFN."

"The PID value for the Mega-frame initialization Packet (MIP) shall be 0 15."

A PID 21 stream has been present in the Winter Hill D3&4 for many years but is not present in the com7 and com8 multiplexes.

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js's 841 posts US flag

Friday, 20 September 2019

_{sentiment_satisfied}Gold

7:16 AM

I had hoped digitalbitrate.com might show the new stream but apparently not.

0 - - DigitalBitRate

They have the BBC B on "738.166Mhz", which it isn't, it's on uhf 54- or 737.833MHz and they pay no respect to Hertz.

They have a section under the heading "This Mux has Ghost PIDs : total bitrate of these PIDs"

They inform us:

"These PIDs are not declared within the DVB tables. They are not usefull and are taking bandwith inside this Mux.
The PID list is available in PRODBR website, you can also contact us for more information."

It is a common error to refer to PIDs where streams are meant. PIDs don't have a Bitrate.

I couldn't find any PID list at the PRODBR website.

Finally, they show the Winter Hill BBC B Bitrate as 40.10 Mb/s. It isn't. It's now 40.209 Mbps but it used to be 40.215 Mbps so something has changed.

I would be interested in reports as to the presence or otherwise of a stream with PID 21 in the BBC A and BBC B transport streams from other regions.

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js's 841 posts GB flag

Monday, 23 September 2019

_{sentiment_satisfied}Gold

9:36 PM

Bad Character Update.

The BBC seems to have fixed its EPG text.

There are just two BBC events with errors left.

Curiously, it's the same expression in both events, but with different error bytes, specifically:

The low byte 0x10, substitute {-), of a Unicode hyphen 0x2010 in the first and the low byte 0x0B, substitute {), of a Unicode zero-width space 0x200B in the second.

As is most often the case, the EIT off BBC A has the error bytes and that off BBC B omits them. As usual, show what the text should be.

BBC Radio 3, Wed 25 Sep 14:00 - 15:30: Afternoon Concert:

BBC A:
Poulenc's Organ Concerto, Mathias's Threnos and Saint{-}Saens's mighty Symphony No 3 from the Cathedral Festival with organist David Briggs. Conducted by Daniel Blendulf.
Plain: 53 61 69 6E 74 10 53 61 C8 65 6E 73

BBC B:
Poulenc's Organ Concerto, Mathias's Threnos and SaintSans's mighty Symphony No 3 from the St Davids Cathedral Festival with organist David Briggs. Conducted by Daniel Blendulf.
Huffman: 53 61 69 6E 74 53 61 C3 AB 6E 73

Freesat:
Poulenc's Organ Concerto, Mathias's Threnos and SaintSans's mighty Symphony No 3 from the St Davids Cathedral Festival with organist David Briggs. Conducted by Daniel Blendulf.
Huffman: 53 61 69 6E 74 E2 80 90 53 61 C3 AB 6E 73

BBC Radio 3, Mon 30 Sep 19:30 - 22:00: Radio 3 in Concert

BBC A:
The opening concert in the Ulster Orchestra's 2019/2020 season, conducted by the orchestra's new chief conductor, Daniele Rustioni. Music by Verdi, Elgar and Saint-Saen{}s.
Plain: 53 61 69 6E 74 2D 53 61 C8 65 6E 0B 73

BBC B:
The opening concert in the Ulster Orchestra's 2019/2020 season, conducted by the orchestra's new chief conductor, Daniele Rustioni. Music by Verdi, Elgar and Saint-Sans.
Huffman: 53 61 69 6E 74 2D 53 61 C3 AB 6E 73

Freesat:
The opening concert in the Ulster Orchestra's 2019/2020 season, conducted by the orchestra's new chief conductor, Daniele Rustioni. Music by Verdi, Elgar and Saint-Sans.
Huffman: 53 61 69 6E 74 2D 53 61 C3 AB 6E E2 80 8B 73

As for errors from other service providers, they continue much as before.

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js's 841 posts FR flag

Chris.SE

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

11:26 PM

js:

Unfortunately this website doesn't correctly show some characters which is why they have shown as ? in your post!

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Chris.SE's 4,358 posts GB flag

Tuesday, 24 September 2019

Tom Quirk
11:15 AM

I live in Winstanley, Wigan and living halfway up a huge hill have really good from when viewing . However on days like today (24 Sep 2019), cloudy and rainy, I have lost all freeview . No reception at all. Not a problem as I usually watch Virgin TV but really irritating as it limits my choices. Am I alone in this or do other people have this problem. I have tried to contact Winter Hill but, understandably, they do not seem to have a general contact email.

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Tom Quirk's 1 post GB flag

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