Full Freeview on the Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham, England) transmitter
 | Google Streetview |  | Google map |  | Bing map |  | Google Earth |  | 52.600,-1.835 or 52°36'1"N 1°50'5"W |  | B75 5JJ |
The symbol shows the location of the Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham, England) transmitter which serves 1,870,000 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 Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham, England) mast?
Sutton Coldfield transmitter - Sutton Coldfield transmitter: Possible effect on TV reception week commencing 01/12/2025 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
DTG-12 QSPK 8K 3/4 8.0Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2
H/V: aerial position (horizontal or vertical)
Which Freeview channels does the Sutton Coldfield 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
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 Sutton Coldfield transmitter?
BBC Midlands Today 2.9m homes 10.9%
from Birmingham B1 1RF, 15km south-southwest (200°)
to BBC West Midlands region - 66 masts.
ITV Central News 2.9m homes 10.9%
from Birmingham B1 2JT, 15km south-southwest (201°)
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?
| Burton (shobnall) | Transposer | 1 km W Burton-on-Trent | 60 homes |
| Coalville | Transposer | 18 km NW Leicester | 600 homes |
| Solihull | Transposer | Land Rover building | 400 homes |
How will the Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham, England) transmission frequencies change over time?
| 1950s-80s | 1984-97 | 1997-98 | 1998-2011 | 2011-13 | 7 Mar 2018 | ||||
| VHF | B E T | B E T | B E T | B E K T | W T | ||||
| C4 | BBCtvwaves | ||||||||
| C33 | com7 | ||||||||
| C35 | com8 | ||||||||
| C36 | LOCAL2 | ||||||||
| C39 | +ArqB | ArqB | |||||||
| C40 | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | +BBCB | BBCB | ||||
| C42 | SDN | SDN | |||||||
| C43 | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | BBCA | BBCA | ||||
| C45 | ArqA | ArqA | |||||||
| C46 | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | D3+4 | D3+4 | ||||
| C48 | _local | ||||||||
| C50tv_off | C4waves | C4waves | C4waves | ||||||
| C51tv_off | LB | ||||||||
| 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 7 Sep 11 and 21 Sep 11.
How do the old analogue and currrent digital signal levels compare?
| Analogue 1-4 | 1000kW | |
| SDN, ARQA, ARQB, BBCA, D3+4, BBCB | (-7dB) 200kW | |
| com7 | (-10.5dB) 89.2kW | |
| com8 | (-10.7dB) 86kW | |
| LB | (-20dB) 10kW | |
| Mux 1*, Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*, Mux C*, Mux D* | (-21dB) 8kW |
Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Sutton Coldfield transmitter area
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Saturday, 29 November 2025
C
Chris.SE1:50 AM
jack:
Hi again, thanks for the reply even though it's somewhat belated, that's not a problem.
I decided to have a complete re-read of all your posts to see what I may have missed or anything I haven't seen addressed correctly/directly.
Firstly an apology regarding asking about postcode again more recently, you have supplied it a few times!
So I'll try and comment on your points above and then any other more general issues.
1) I find that extremely odd that you're suddenly seeing what appears as a 40% increase in power, especially if you haven't changed anything.
Have those trees been cut back at all?
2) All I can say is what I said once before, that over the years I've seen all sorts of bugs and funnies reported with any assortment of Humax boxes. Just because you haven't seen any reports of similar issues doesn't mean that it's not buggy firmware.
These bugs could/might only appear with certain "combinations" of UHF channels and their respective signal strengths etc. as well as the possible addition of some interference. I'd say it was very likely we'll never get to the bottom of this one.
3) & 4) Now that's even odder. The only "common" factors afaik are the output from the studio complex which then goes to some "playout" centre but thereafter I would expect the feeds to be separate. I would expect the Ads to be fed by the Playout centre but again afaik there is no regionalisation on GB News. I'm not seeing any GB News issues on Freeview (Mendip).
Ok, lets look at some general things.
1) Aerial(s). I believe you've said in a previous post that you have two.
Are these both external? I don't recall seeing you mention exactly where they are located (apologies if you did). Have you checked them to see that their cable connections are still good, not corroded and water entering the connector boxes?
Check the coax/plugs on the end of the direct aerial leads for any wetness and corrosion. If any, then suspect water entering the system somewhere - this won't always affect all UHF Channels the same as it can affect the cable impedance which results in mismatches and signal reflections at different points in the cable, cause standing waves and so on.
2) Are these the original aerials you had when the COM7/8 muxes were on air? In which case, apart from the possibility of deterioration, they will be wideband and capable of picking up any interference from any new/upgraded phone masts now using 700MHz. - You are surrounded by multiple masts!!
3) I did mention in a previous post about checking for postcards from Restore TV which you should have had - https://restoretv.uk/post…ure/
My advice is contact Restore TV and ask for some Free Filters for each aerial. The filters MUST be fitted before any amp/splitter. If you have a mast-head amp on either aerial tell them, they should send an engineer free-of-charge to fit an external one before the masthead amp.
4) If filters don't improve/get rid of any of the problems, going back to the "original' aerials, maybe replacing them with new Group K aerials, I'd suggest med-high gain Log periodics - yes Group K logs have been available for some time. If you want a link, ask. Also replace the downleads with double screened coax cable.
Can't think of anything else right now, I'll post again if I do, or maybe someone else may come up with something.
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C
Chris.SE1:55 AM
jack:
Regarding contacting Restore TV mentioned above, I wouldn't elaborate on all the details you've given here, just tell them you seem to be suffering multiple interference issues across a range of channels which has been going on for some time and despite carrying out an assortment of checks the problems continue.
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S
Steve Donaldson11:42 PM
jack: With respect to why C26 keeps cropping up, then you have touched on why. It was your comment about BBC Radio Shropshire appearing that caused me to see whether it is carried by Sutton Coldfield, and it turns out that it is not. C26, as has already been mentioned, is PSB1 from The Wrekin, and this is where BBC Radio Shropshire is coming from.
Freeview has capacity for five BBC local radio stations. The BBC West Midlands region has three main transmitters: Ridge Hill, Sutton Coldfield and The Wrekin, and collectively they cover a very large area. Across that area there are more than five local stations, and consequently each carries a different set of five stations. The PSB1 multiplexes from each of the transmitters are thus different, even though they are the same region.
The BBC Reception checker [bbc.co.uk/reception] allows one to enter a postcode to see what transmitters may be available there. This includes a full list of services (TV and radio channels) carried on each multiplex by transmitter. I entered postcodes within the service area of each of the three transmitters to see which BBC local radio stations each carries and it turned up the following:
- The Wrekin: BBC Radio Coventry & Warwickshire, BBC Radio Hereford & Worcester, BBC Radio Shropshire, BBC Radio Stoke, BBC WM 95.6
- Sutton Coldfield: BBC Coventry & Warwickshire, BBC Radio Derby, BBC Hereford & Worcester, BBC Radio Stoke, BBC WM 95.6
- Ridge Hill: BBC Radio Coventry & Warwickshire, BBC Radio Gloucestershire, BBC Radio Hereford & Worcester, BBC Radio Shropshire, BBC WM 95.6
From this we can see that all three transmitters carry BBC CWR (formerly BBC Radio Coventry & Warwickshire), BBC Hereford & Worcester and BBC WM.
Of the four other stations:
- BBC Radio Derby is carried by Sutton Coldfield only.
- BBC Radio Gloucestershire is carried by Ridge Hill only.
- BBC Radio Shropshire is carried by The Wrekin and Ridge Hill.
- BBC Radio Stoke is carried by The Wrekin and Sutton Coldfield.
Freeview lists these seven stations as each assuming a different logical channel number[1]:
711 BBC CWR
712 BBC H&W
713 BBC Shropshire
714 BBC WM
715 BBC Stoke
716 BBC Gloucestershire
717 BBC Derby
With the Digital Bitrate website we can see the output of some transmitters across the country[2]. While it doesn't feature The Wrekin, it does have Lark Stoke. Lark Stoke and The Wrekin operate as a single-frequency network for the PSBs, and thus we can take the output of Lark Stoke's PSBs as being identical to those of The Wrekin. Digital Bitrate samples Sutton Coldfield too.
We can see that the local BBC radio stations carried by each of the above transmitters is as listed above. The TSIDs (transport stream IDs) are different for PSB1 per transmitter which isn't surprising. However, the TSIDs for PSB2 and for PSB3 are the same for all three transmitters.
PSB1 TSIDs are as follows:
Ridge Hill: 4176
Sutton Coldfield: 4165
Lark Stoke: 4179
The TSID of PSB2 is the same for all three: 8198. PSB3 is also the same for all three: 16517.
Of course, while the PSB1s are different (they have different TSIDs), the majority of the services carried on them are the same. For example, BBC One West Midlands is SID (service ID) 4165, and this is the same for all three transmitters sampled. BBC Two is 4287.
During the automatic tuning scan, the box picks up PSB2 from The Wrekin on C23. Later on, when it gets to C46, it picks up Sutton Coldfield's counterpart and sees it's got all the same services on it and probably prefers it because the signal is better (potentially moving the others to the 800s, depending on how the box works, of which I'm not familiar).
By contrast, having scanned C26, PSB1 from The Wrekin, later on at C43 it tunes PSB1 from Sutton Coldfield. All but BBC Shropshire may be overwritten.
The situation at your receivers is one where these two PSB1 muxes are both the same region, but different TSIDs with one service different on each, and all the rest the same. Sutton Coldfield carries BBC Derby whereas The Wrekin does not, and the latter has BBC Shropshire but the former does not. Could this be the cause of the crashes?
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[1] https://www.freeview.co.uk/corporate/platform-management/channel-listings-industry-professionals
[2] https://www.digitalbitrate.com/dtv.php?lang=en&liste=2&live=35
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Sunday, 30 November 2025
C
Chris.SE12:25 AM
jack:
If BBC Shropshire remains at LCN713 after a full tune, is there signal present?
You could try deleting it to see if that affects the crashing issue.
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