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Full Freeview on the Oxford (Oxfordshire, England) transmitter

first published this on - UK Free TV
sa_streetviewGoogle Streetviewsa_gmapsGoogle mapsa_bingBing mapsa_gearthGoogle Earthsa_gps51.790,-1.179 or 51°47'25"N 1°10'46"Wsa_postcodeOX3 9SS

 

The symbol shows the location of the Oxford (Oxfordshire, England) transmitter which serves 410,000 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 Oxford (Oxfordshire, England) mast?

Oxford transmitter - Oxford 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 Oxford 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
C41+ (634.2MHz)295mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
1 BBC One (SD) South (Oxford), 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
C44- (657.8MHz)295mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
3 ITV 1 (SD) (Meridian/Central (Thames Valley 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 (Central west),

PSB3
BBCB
 H max
C47 (682.0MHz)295mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD South (Oxford), 102 BBC Two HD England, 103 ITV 1 HD (ITV Central West), 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 -3dB
C29 (538.0MHz)295mDTG-850,000W
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 -3dB
C37- (601.8MHz)319mDTG-850,000W
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 -3dB
C31 (554.0MHz)319mDTG-850,000W
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

LOX
 H -10dB
C46 (674.0MHz)295mDTG-1210,000W
Channel icons
from 22nd December 2014: 7 That's Oxford,

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 Oxford transmitter?

regional news image
BBC South (Oxford) Today 0.4m homes 1.6%
from Oxford OX2 7DW, 6km west-southwest (258°)
to BBC South (Oxford) region - 6 masts.
BBC South (Oxford) Today shares 50% content with Southampton service
regional news image
ITV Meridian News 0.9m homes 3.4%
from Whiteley PO15 7AD, 102km south (182°)
to ITV Meridian/Central (Thames Valley) region - 15 masts.
Thames Valley opt-out from Meridian (South). All of lunch, weekend and 50% evening news is shared with all of Meridian+Oxford

How will the Oxford (Oxfordshire, England) transmission frequencies change over time?

1950s-80s1984-971997-981998-20112011-132013-182013-1723 May 2018
VHFC/D EC/D EC/D EC/D EC/D E TW TW T
C2BBCtvwaves
C29SDN
C31com7com7
C37com8com8
C41BBCA
C44D3+4
C46_local
C47BBCB
C49tv_offC5wavesC5waves
C50tv_off SDNSDN
C51tv_offLOXLOX
C53tv_offC4wavesC4wavesC4waves+BBCA+BBCA+BBCA
C55tv_offArqBArqBArqBcom7tv_off
C56tv_offCOM8tv_off
C57tv_offBBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBCBBBCBBBCB
C59tv_off-ArqA-ArqA-ArqA
C60tv_offITVwavesITVwavesITVwaves-D3+4-D3+4-D3+4
C62SDN
C63BBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBC2waves

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 14 Sep 11 and 28 Sep 11.

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

Analogue 1-4 500kW
BBCA, D3+4, BBCB(-7dB) 100kW
SDN, ARQA, ARQB(-10dB) 50kW
Analogue 5(-11dB) 40kW
com8(-14.7dB) 17.1kW
com7(-14.8dB) 16.4kW
Mux 1*, Mux 2*, LOX(-17dB) 10kW
Mux C*, Mux D*(-18dB) 8kW
Mux A*, Mux B*(-19.2dB) 6kW

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

Feb 1956-Jul 1968Associated TeleVision†
Feb 1956-Jul 1968Associated British Corporation◊
Jul 1968-Dec 1981Associated TeleVision
Jan 1982-Dec 2006Central Independent Television
Dec 2006-Feb 2009ITV Thames Valley
Feb 2009-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. Oxford 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
Tuesday, 7 April 2020
P
Pat
8:33 AM

Oxford (Bexley) transmitter seems to be broadcasting the Film4 channel using some kind of weird reduced colour palette (I'd guess 16 colours). I've reproduced the problem on 3 different receivers and had confirmation from someone else some distance away (on the same transmitter).

This started around the afternoon of the 6th and is still persisting as of the morning of the 7th.

link to this comment
Pat's 1 post GB flag
C
Chris.SE
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

1:38 PM

Pat:

It seems Oxford are on Planned Engineering this week so that may have something to do with what you are observing. They are advising "Possible weak signal" which in recent observations from others can mean the disappearance of some channels and other effects for periods of time. If this persists for a lengthy period I'd try giving Channel 4 a call on 020 7396 4444 or 0345 076 0191 as Freeview are unlikely to be much help, they only seem to regurgitate a retuning script which I don't advise when you have weak or no signals.

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Chris.SE's 4,101 posts GB flag
P
Pat
3:50 PM

Chris.SE:

Thanks for that, I did see: Planned engineering works | Freeview
...so, Central - Oxford - Main - Possible weak signal - is that all the detail that's available? Is an 8-bit colour palette a symptom of a weak signal? The signal reports fine (80%+) and there are no drop-outs, just the washed-out picture for Film4. All the other PSB2 channels look fine.

There seems to be so little information nowadays that I'm feeling more and more of a dinosaur even knowing what Freeview is.

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Pat's 2 posts GB flag
C
Chris.SE
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

9:00 PM

Pat:

I'm afraid trying to get more detailed information on Planned Engineering seems to be a waste of effort as "Freeview" generally don't seem to have a clue (the best they seem to say is it may affect your reception!).
Whether the DigitalUK staff know what Arqiva are doing in detail (without asking) is anyone's guess, I get the impression they don't, as the last time I pursued a fault with them it was like banging a head against a wall and ended up with Arqiva denying there was any fault - despite the fact that the fault mysteriously got rectified at the crack of dawn on the first day of "Planned Engineering" (ha ha).

As far as the actual problem is concerned, it depends on exactly what they are doing at the transmitter. Whilst a weak signal itself shouldn't cause what you are seeing, whatever they need to do may require the transmitter power to be reduced at some point, I'm not a transmitter engineer!
Past experienced suggests that contacting the broadcaster about a persisting problem gets quicker action than anything else, as they know exactly who to get on to, to get it sorted.

There never has bee any clear information about any faults for any of the commercial transmissions whether it be Radio or TV, only the BBC have publicly accessible reporting mechanisms for anything affecting their own broadcasts.

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Chris.SE's 4,101 posts GB flag
Wednesday, 8 April 2020
P
Pat
9:12 AM

Chris.SE:

When I went to bed last night the channel was still borked, this morning it's back to normal. I guess I'll put it down to the engineering works. I am astonished that such a major Freeview channel can get so broken and yet it goes almost unremarked. Oh well.

Anyway, thank you for your informative responses.

link to this comment
Pat's 2 posts GB flag
Saturday, 25 April 2020
L
Leslie Stacey
2:10 PM
Buckingham

We have lost ITV, Channel 4, 5,6,10,13 - All C44 broadcasts for approaching a week now.
MK18 2HR post code.
Any thoughts?

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Leslie Stacey's 1 post GB flag
Leslie's: mapL's Freeview map terrainL's terrain plot wavesL's frequency data L's Freeview Detailed Coverage
C
Chris.SE
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

2:39 PM

Leslie Stacey:

Well that is very strange. I can find no current or recent faults listed either by Freeview or the BBC for the Oxford transmitter and it's not currently listed for Planned Engineering.

I suggest that you check all you coax plugs, connections, flyleads etc, unplug connectors check for corrosion or other problems and reconnect them. Flyleads can be a common problem, try swapping them. See what signal strengths (if any) and quality you are getting for the multiplexes shown in your TV's tuning section, this might indicate potential issues with your aerial or downlead. Also check that your downlead looks undamaged and that your aerial seems intact and pointing in the correct direction.
Problematic connections, water ingress etc. can seem to affect reception of just an individual or several multiplexes.

If that all seems ok, I suggest you carry out a retune as follows - unplug the aerial and carry out a full automatic retune which should clear all previous tuning as no channels will be found. Switch off the set for 10 minutes.
Then plug the aerial back in and switch on and repeat the retune, hopefully all channels will be correctly restored.

Also note that the correct UHF channels for Oxford are C41, C44, C47, C29, C37, C31, C55, C56, C46 in the order PSBs1-3, COMs4-8, Local. Unfortunately the site owner has not had the time to update one of the tables at the top of the page as a result of the 700MHz clearance.

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Chris.SE's 4,101 posts GB flag
Monday, 27 April 2020
C
Chris.SE
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

1:39 PM

Leslie Stacey:

Oxford is now listed for Planned Engineering with "Possible weak signal", so there's obviously been some sort of issue.

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Chris.SE's 4,101 posts GB flag
Thursday, 11 June 2020
Transmitter engineering
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

4:34 AM

OXFORD transmitter - DAB: Slightly reduced power due to a fault from 3 Mar 04:52 until 3 Mar 05:13. . [BBC]

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Transmitter engineering's 149,799 posts xx flag
Transmitter engineering
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

5:09 AM

OXFORD transmitter - DAB: Slightly reduced power due to a fault from 3 Mar 04:52 until 3 Mar 05:13. . FM: Slightly reduced power due to a fault from 6 Aug 19:51 until 6 Aug 20:38. . [BBC]

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Transmitter engineering's 149,799 posts xx flag
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