All posts by Chris.SE
Below are all of Chris.SE's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Should have included mentioning that PSB3 also moves. Also note the previous UHF channels were all in Group C/D, the new ones are in Group B.
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Andrew Hannay:
Hi, the UHF channel numbers on this transmitter page & many others are not up-to-date. The site owner hasn't has the time to update it with all the 700MHz clearance changes, as well as all the broadcasters changing some of their programs on the COM muxes etc., as I'm sure you know there are 1100+ transmitters in the UK!
That OFCOM document is an interesting one with all the polar diagrams! But I'm afraid that even that one isn't 100% up-to-date as the power for that multiplex was increased to 15.8kW at the Sutton Coldfield retune in March 2018. You must be in a very good location to be able to pick-up Sutton Coldfield, especially that multiplex on C48 as if you look at the polar diagram Figure A3, it's not particularly beamed in your direction. You might also note figure A4 for the multiplex on C36, but that is only 1kW. AFAIK they both transmit the same programs.
Generally, the best place to get up-to-date information is from the Freeview site now that the DUK Detailed Coverage Checker has been amalgamated into the site (but the job hasn't been done that well and you can no longer reference particular predictions with a url!)
If you go to Freeview | All your favourite TV shows, all in one place and all for free and put your postcode and house name/number into the boxes then on the next page scroll down and select "Detailed view" this will show the predicted reception at your location which may include more than one transmitter. As it is a prediction, the actual coverage may not be 100% but especially for a location well outside the intended service area, and it won't show detail that you aren't expected to receive, so to get all the transmitter information you sometimes have to pick a postcode within the relevant area. If you hover over channel numbers it will give you transmission mode & power.
Also note at the top of the page, you can select a region to view eg. Central which can be linked with a shortened url Freeview | All your favourite TV shows, all in one place and all for free help/coverage-checker/detailed-view/central
I have seen the occasional odd result if the original submitted postcode isn't in the region you select, if you shorten the url you can replace the region name at the end of the url with the another of interest.
The information is generally correct but is different, it shows historic data but not detail like modes and power. You need to refer to clearance documents for the changes or the Detailed Coverage Checker for a specific postcode for detail.
Whilst most of the information can be relied upon, I've seen errors in all types of document, sometimes it pays to try and cross-reference with another document.
Other places on the Freeview site worth checking are -
Freeview | All your favourite TV shows, all in one place and all for free corporate/platform-management/channel-listings
Freeview | All your favourite TV shows, all in one place and all for free corporate/platform-management/planned-engineering-works
Freeview | All your favourite TV shows, all in one place and all for free service-updates
HTH.
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Andrew Hannay:
Apologies, a correction to the above, the LOC1 mux on C48 power increase was 30th October 2019 not March 2018.
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Keith Clark:
I can't find any reported problems with COM7 at Belmont. This could quite possibly be due to the fact that Waltham COM7 has moved today to this SFN channel of C55, so it can depend exactly where you are. We'll need a full postcode to look at the Freeview Detailed Coverage Checker to see what the predicted reception at your location is.
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Damian:
I'm not sure if Brian has corrected anything, or if there was some sort of error when you looked, but the map I'm looking at now appears to be correct.
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Robin Mccarthy:
A poor signal in parts of Basingstoke seems to be a problem that several have reported.
Can you be a bit more specific with exact location, eg. pick a business closest to where you have no signal and look up it's postcode.
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S S Stoker:
For your information, the only thing Freeview need to fix is their efficiency at dealing with the volumes of calls they are getting. The changes are all part of the 700MHz Clearance programme mandated by OFCOM What is 700MHz clearance? | Freeview
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Keith:
The Freeview Detailed Coverage Checker doesn't work on place names or partial postcodes, but taking a random selection of postcodes around the town centre shows reception of COMs 7&8 could be variable in some places with COM7 slightly worse than COM8. So aerial alignment and gain may be critical depending on your exact location.
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Wendy Orrowe:
Have a look in your TV's Tuning Section and look for something that says Signal Test or similar, you may have to look at Manual tuning.
It should list all the UHF channels that the set is tuned to for each of the multiplexes and also give the signal as a number or % and also the quality as a number or %, if it doesn't give quality it may give BER.
Post each channel number and the signal & quality/BER.
Has this problem only been occurring this week? If so it's possibly because Sandy Heath has Planned Engineering with "Possible weak signal".
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Wednesday 4 March 2020 12:45AM
All:
There is a major retune event on the 4th March. The transmitter will likely go off-air overnight and the multiplexes PSBs1-3 are changing UHF channel from aerial Group C/D to channels in aerial Group A. The transmitter may be off-air for several hours and may not be back on air until late morning or early afternoon.
The new channels are as follows, in the order PSBs1-3; C23, C26, C30;
People will need to retune and a Group A aerial may be needed for satisfactory reception of the multiplexes.
Anyone having problems receiving the PSB multiplexes may need a new aerial. Providing they don't have Cable or Satellite, they can get help for a free replacement aerial from Freeview by ringing 0808-100-0288 (a free call, but there might be long wait times on the phone!).