Full Freeview on the Winter Hill (Bolton, England) transmitter
Brian Butterworth first published this on - UK Free TV
Google Streetview | Google map | Bing map | Google Earth | 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.
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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.
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 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 | |||||
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-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 | ITVwaves | ||||||||
C12 | BBCtvwaves | ||||||||
C24 | _local | ||||||||
C29 | SDN | ||||||||
C31 | com7 | com7 | |||||||
C32 | BBCA | ||||||||
C34 | D3+4 | ||||||||
C35 | BBCB | ||||||||
C37 | com8 | com8 | |||||||
C40 | LOCAL2 | ||||||||
C48 | C5waves | C5waves | |||||||
C49tv_off | ArqA | ArqA | |||||||
C50tv_off | BBCA | BBCA | |||||||
C54tv_off | -BBCB | -BBCB | -BBCB | ||||||
C55tv_off | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | ArqB | ArqB | ArqB | com7tv_off | ||
C56tv_off | _local | _local | _local | LPR | |||||
C57tv_off | GIM | GIM | GIM | GIM | |||||
C58tv_off | SDN | SDN | SDN | ||||||
C59tv_off | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | D3+4 | D3+4 | D3+4 | |||
C61 | ArqA | ||||||||
C62 | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBCA | |||||
C65 | C4waves | C4waves | C4waves |
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 GranadaWhich companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Winter Hill transmitter area
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Sunday, 13 September 2020
J
js12:23 PM
Bad Codes Update.
Something is happening here. Maybe it's finally being fixed.
There were 1399 invalid codes in the EIT of 2020/09/10. Many have now been corrected, leaving a mere 296 errors in the current EIT.
Who knows how many devices have been crippled by this garbage. A few years ago, all it took was a missing slash character in the EIT data to crash Sony PVRs across the country.
Here is an excerpt from the error report generated by my EIT parser. Note: Some errors are repeated because they are on each of the three Local Multiplexes or both BBCA - real and unreal - multiplexes:
Invalid Character Codes in the EIT off North West multiplex BBC A. Date: 2020/09/13 00:45:19
It has become apparent through observation that invalid bytes in the Freeview EIT text strings are the low-order bytes of the Unicode General Punctuation Block:
Of course only bytes less than 0x20 qualify as invalid codes in the context of EIT text strings.
Since about April 2018, the following invalid codes have been found in the Freeview EIT text items:
0x01, substitute: {0x01} -> Unicode Character: "EM QUAD" (U + 2001)
0x08, substitute: { } -> Unicode Character: "PUNCTUATION SPACE" (U + 2008)
0x0B, substitute: {} -> Unicode Character: "ZERO WIDTH SPACE" (U + 200B)
0x10, substitute: {-} -> Unicode Character: "HYPHEN" (U + 2010)
0x13, substitute: {--} -> Unicode Character: "EN DASH" (U + 2013)
0x14, substitute: {---} -> Unicode Character: "EM DASH" (U + 2014)
0x18, substitute: {L'} -> Unicode Character: "LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK" (U + 2018)
0x19, substitute: {R'} -> Unicode Character: "RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK" (U + 2019)
0x1C, substitute: {L''} -> Unicode Character: "LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK" (U + 201C)
0x1D, substitute: {R''} -> Unicode Character: "RIGHT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK" (U + 201D)
There are 296 invalid codes in the current EIT:
invalid code, count, percentage
0x0B, 6, 2.03%
0x18, 2, 0.68%
0x19, 280, 94.59%
0x1C, 2, 0.68%
0x1D, 6, 2.03%
There are 267 events with invalid codes in the current EIT.
The Culprits:
Format:
service_name, number of events containing errors
CBeebies, 2
BBC World Sv., 1
BBC Radio 4, 2
CBeebies, 2
BBC World Sv., 1
BBC Radio 4, 2
YAAAS!, 3
Blaze, 6
Ketchup, 4
RNIB Connect, 3
ADULT Studio 66, 32
POP Max, 137
Sony Movies Classic, 4
That's TV, 29
Sony Movies Classic, 4
That's TV, 29
Sony Movies Classic, 4
CBeebies HD, 2
Events with invalid codes in the eight-day EIT off multiplex BBC A at 2020/09/13 00:45:19:
#1: 202 CBeebies, Tue 15 Sep 09:15 - 09:20: title = "Dog Loves Books", description = "Dog Loves Don Quixote{}. Pug needs a story about how to be brave, so Dog and Pug meet the great Spanish knight Don Quixote and his partner, Sancho Panza. Also in HD. [S]", description error byte: 0x0B
#2: 202 CBeebies, Wed 16 Sep 09:15 - 09:20: title = "Dog Loves Books", description = "Dog Loves Amazing Facts{}. Dog and Pug are talking about facts, and they go on an adventure to check one of Pug's. Also in HD. [S]", description error byte: 0x0B
#3: 710 BBC World Sv., Sun 13 Sep 02:50 - 03:00: title = "Over to You", description = "Many millions rely on it to listen every day, so what does the future hold for shortwave? Plus Weekend is back after earlier this year being {L''}temporarily suspended{R''} due to Covid..", description error bytes: 0x1C, 0x1D
#4: 704 BBC Radio 4, Tue 15 Sep 16:00 - 16:30: title = "Costing the Earth", description = "Peter Gibbs looks into housing developments and asks how we respond in an environmentally positive way to Boris Johnson's call to arms to "build build build{R''} post lockdown.", description error byte: 0x1D
#5: 704 BBC Radio 4, Wed 16 Sep 21:00 - 21:30: title = "Costing the Earth", description = "Peter Gibbs looks into housing developments and asks how we respond in an environmentally positive way to Boris Johnson's call to arms to "build build build{R''} post lockdown.", description error byte: 0x1D
#6: 757 CBeebies, Tue 15 Sep 09:15 - 09:20: title = "Dog Loves Books", description = "Dog Loves Don Quixote{}. Pug needs a story about how to be brave, so Dog and Pug meet the great Spanish knight Don Quixote and his partner, Sancho Panza. Also in HD. [S]", description error byte: 0x0B
#7: 757 CBeebies, Wed 16 Sep 09:15 - 09:20: title = "Dog Loves Books", description = "Dog Loves Amazing Facts{}. Dog and Pug are talking about facts, and they go on an adventure to check one of Pug's. Also in HD. [S]", description error byte: 0x0B
#8: 772 BBC World Sv., Sun 13 Sep 02:50 - 03:00: title = "Over to You", description = "Many millions rely on it to listen every day, so what does the future hold for shortwave? Plus Weekend is back after earlier this year being {L''}temporarily suspended{R''} due to Covid..", description error bytes: 0x1C, 0x1D
#9: 766 BBC Radio 4, Tue 15 Sep 16:00 - 16:30: title = "Costing the Earth", description = "Peter Gibbs looks into housing developments and asks how we respond in an environmentally positive way to Boris Johnson's call to arms to "build build build{R''} post lockdown.", description error byte: 0x1D
#10: 766 BBC Radio 4, Wed 16 Sep 21:00 - 21:30: title = "Costing the Earth", description = "Peter Gibbs looks into housing developments and asks how we respond in an environmentally positive way to Boris Johnson's call to arms to "build build build{R''} post lockdown.", description error byte: 0x1D
#11: 212 YAAAS!, Mon 14 Sep 10:00 - 14:00: title = "Cracking! Wallace & Gromit", description = "Wallace{R'}s inventions are truly imaginative if not always the most efficient!Cracking Contraptionsis a showcase of 10 short films about Wallace{R'}s wonderfully eccentric ideas.", description error bytes: 0x19, 0x19
#12: 212 YAAAS!, Tue 15 Sep 14:00 - 17:00: title = "Swamp Chats With Shrek & Donkey", description = "Shrek and Donkey dish the dirt on all fairytales in this talk show. They give the scoop on things like Prince Charming{R'}s dating life, or how to make Little Red Riding Hood stew.", description error byte: 0x19
#13: 212 YAAAS!, Sat 19 Sep 06:00 - 10:00: title = "Purr-fect Puss In Boots", description = "Known the world over as the most daring swashbuckler ladies{R'} man, and all around coolest cat, Puss In Boots shares advice, stories and tasty titbits with his fans.", description error byte: 0x19
#14: 063 Blaze, Sun 13 Sep 20:00 - 21:00: title = "Ray Winstone's Sicily", description = "Palermo, Fit for a Duchess: Ray discovers Palermo{R'}s markets and its traders. They try the opera - which isn't a great success - and charm a Duchess.", description error byte: 0x19
#15: 063 Blaze, Mon 14 Sep 22:00 - 23:00: title = "Ronnie O{R'}Sullivan{R'}s American...", description = "...Hustle: Chicago: Ronnie and Matt's road trip continues in Chicago, where the snooker champion faces one of the game's deadliest players, 'Black Widow' Jeanette Lee.", title error bytes: 0x19, 0x19
...
#265: 050 Sony Movies Classic, Fri 18 Sep 15:40 - 17:00: title = "Micki & Maude", description = "A TV reporter longs for a baby, but when both his wife and his mistress announce they{R'}re pregnant, he finds himself with more than he hoped for. Stars Dudley Moore, Amy Irving, Ann Reinking. (1984)", description error byte: 0x19
#266: 205 CBeebies HD, Tue 15 Sep 09:15 - 09:20: title = "Dog Loves Books", description = "Dog Loves Don Quixote{}. Pug needs a story about how to be brave, so Dog and Pug meet the great Spanish knight Don Quixote and his partner, Sancho Panza. [S] [HD]", Huffman coded, description error byte: 0x0B
#267: 205 CBeebies HD, Wed 16 Sep 0915 - 09:20: title = "Dog Loves Books", description = "Dog Loves Amazing Facts{}. Dog and Pug are talking about facts, and they go on an adventure to check one of Pug's. [S] [HD]", Huffman coded, description error byte: 0x0B
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Tuesday, 15 September 2020
J
js3:54 PM
js: When I see errors that probably will not be seen by anyone else, that may cause problems, I feel the need to alert people to them.
When the subject matter is complex, if there are no appropriate avenues of contact, it becomes impossible to communicate.
Regarding the invalid codes in the Freeview EIT data, I have tried to get the message through on a number of occasions, both to DUK and the BBC, evidently without success.
In case it is thought that I am making some mistake and the errors are mine, here is the proof that they are real:
In this example event, the Freesat description contains a "zero-width space", Unicode 200B, and the Freeview description contains the invalid code 0B in its stead.
For those, like me, who don't know what a "zero-width space" is, see Zero-width space - Wikipedia
The same program is used to read both Freeview and Freesat EITs.
When the EIT is Huffman coded, which is the case for all Freesat data and all Freeview HD data, the utf-8 output bytes of the Huffman decoder, which are untouched by my program, may be compared directly as follows:
Freesat:
CBeebies HD, Mon 21 Sep 09:15 - 09:25: Dog Loves Books
Dog Loves Calm.
Huffman: 44 6F 67 20 4C 6F 76 65 73 20 43 61 6C 6D E2 80 8B 2E
Freeview:
CBeebies HD, Mon 21 Sep 09:15 - 09:25: Dog Loves Books
Dog Loves Calm{}.
Huffman: 44 6F 67 20 4C 6F 76 65 73 20 43 61 6C 6D 0B 2E
Freesat: E2 80 8B
Freeview: 0B
E2 80 8B in binary is 11100010 10000000 10001011
For 16 bit codes U+0800 U+FFFF, 3 bytes are used for the utf-8 representation: 1110xxxx 10xxxxxx 10xxxxxx
1110xxxx 10xxxxxx 10xxxxxx
11100010 10000000 10001011
So the Unicode code bits are 0010 000000 001011 which in hex is 20 0B
All we have on Freeview is 0B, an invalid code, which is the low order byte of 200B.
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J
js3:58 PM
Another example, this time in the title:
Freesat:
Channel 5 HD, Tue 22 Sep 04:30 - 05:25: Now That's Funny
Huffman: 4E 6F 77 20 54 68 61 74 E2 80 99 73 20 46 75 6E 6E 79
Freeview:
Channel 5 HD, Tue 22 Sep 04:30 - 05:25: Now That{R'}s Funny
Huffman: 4E 6F 77 20 54 68 61 74 19 73 20 46 75 6E 6E 79
Huffman: 4E 6F 77 20 54 68 61 74 E2 80 99 73 20 46 75 6E 6E 79
Huffman: 4E 6F 77 20 54 68 61 74 19 73 20 46 75 6E 6E 79
E2 80 99
19
1110xxxx 10xxxxxx 10xxxxxx
11100010 10000000 10011001
0010 000000 011001 = 20 19
Unicode/UTF-8-character table - starting from code position 2000
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Thursday, 17 September 2020
J
js5:22 AM
Seeing some tropo again. D3&4 off Ridge Hill, last seen on the 12 August, 190km distant, coming in on 506MHz C25.
As always now when tropo is about, Com7 is intermittent, on or below the cliff edge with around 20dB s/n.
A Hisense telly reports C55 as 86% strength with quality jumping between 0 and 100%.
Back on Feb 7 am, picked up all three PSBs off Mendip 275km away.
I won't see those again now Winter Hill is on the same frequencies.
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J
js6:48 AM
Now getting perfect reception of all three Mendip Coms on C48, C33 and C36.
Com7 is completely gone.
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C
Chris.SE7:09 AM
js:
Hadn't experienced any myself, but not had time to go looking. I see there was a lot of tropo at the beginning of the week and more predicted towards the end of the week/weekend and predictions suggest some of it could be very strong. I note some regular dxers have been busy and some unusually strong dx on the I-o-W a few days ago!
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K
Karl2:34 PM
The updated channels/retune for Sky Arts and Pick have just gone live but I've also noticed that COM 7 seems to have gone missing. It was fine last night.
Wondering if it has been turned off permanently now. We know it is coming but... today?
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C
Chris.SE2:47 PM
Karl:
No, COM7 is still there. BUT there has been/is some significant "tropospheric ducting" around (see Effect of tropospheric ducting on Freeview | Help receiving TV and radio for a simplistic explanation) causing disruption in various parts of the country at different times and unfortunately it is likely to be around over the next few days. However, predictions, like weather forecasts, could change!
If you can do a manual tune on UHF C55 that may be the best way to get correctly tuned without the possibility of disrupting the other multiplexes as the "tropo" could affect them as well, although your set will be able to cope with limited interference it may baulk a bit on a total retune at any given time, then you'd have to go through the process again when signals are more stable.
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K
Karl5:16 PM
Chris.SE:
Many thanks for the info Chris. Coincidental then that it happens today of all days when a retune was performed. COM7 (News 24 in HD) has been fine right up until today.
Thanks again.
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J
js7:45 PM
Chris.SE: Well, the Mendip Coms soon went but I managed to grab some transport stream samples and read the SI tables out of them while they were up.
I also did a CrazyScan spectrum at the tail end of it:
tropo ImgBB
The image is of the active tropo scan - coloured red - followed by a scan made tonight, followed by a superimposition of the two that shows the difference.
Com7 appears as an undecodable lump of carrier at 746 MHz in the top scan.
The Hisense telly still reported C55 as 86% strength with zero quality.
The s/n of BBCB, on 586 MHz, at 27dB, was down from 35dB - presumably due to CCI from Mendip.
The Mendip SDN peak at 690 MHz is impressive.
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