Freeview Light on the Backwell (North Somerset, England) transmitter
 | Google map |  | Bing map |  | Google Earth |  | 51.441,-2.724 or 51°26'28"N 2°43'25"W |  | BS48 1NY |
The symbol shows the location of the Backwell (North Somerset, England) transmitter which serves 4,600 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.
This transmitter has no current reported problems
The BBC and Digital UK report there are no faults or engineering work on the Backwell (North Somerset, England) transmitter._______
Digital television services are broadcast on a multiplexes (or Mux) where many stations occupy a single broadcast frequency, as shown below.
H/V: aerial position (horizontal or vertical)
The Backwell (North Somerset, England) mast is a public service broadcasting (PSB) transmitter, it does not provide these commercial (COM) channels: 4seven, 5Action, 5STAR, 5USA, Al Jazeera Eng, Al Jazeera English, Blaze, Blaze +1, Challenge, Channel 5 +1, Dave, Dave ja vu, DMAX, Drama +1, E4 Extra, YAAAS!, Film4 +1, Food Network, GREAT! action, GREAT! movies, GREAT! romance, GREAT! romance mix, HGTV, HobbyMaker, ITV2 +1, ITV3 +1, ITV4 +1, ITVBe +1, Legend, PBS America, Quest +1, Quest Red, Really, Sky Mix, Sky News, Talking Pictures TV, TCC, That's 90s, That's TV 2, Together TV, TRUE CRIME, TRUE CRIME XTRA, W, Yesterday +1.
If you want to watch these channels, your aerial must point to one of the 80 Full service Freeview transmitters. For more information see the will there ever be more services on the Freeview Light transmitters? page.
Which Freeview channels does the Backwell 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 | V max | C25 (506.0MHz) | 125m | DTG- | 19W |
 1 BBC One (SD) 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 | V max | C28 (530.0MHz) | 125m | DTG- | 19W |
 3 ITV 1 (SD) (West), 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 (West), | |||||
| PSB3 BBCB | V max | C22 (482.0MHz) | 125m | DTG- | 19W |
 46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD West, 102 BBC Two HD England, 103 ITV 1 HD (ITV Meridian Southampton), 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 | |||||
Are you trying to watch these 44 Freeview channels?
The Backwell (North Somerset, England) mast is a public service broadcasting (PSB) transmitter, it does not provide these commercial (COM) channels: 4seven, 5Action, 5STAR, 5USA, Al Jazeera Eng, Al Jazeera English, Blaze, Blaze +1, Challenge, Channel 5 +1, Dave, Dave ja vu, DMAX, Drama +1, E4 Extra, YAAAS!, Film4 +1, Food Network, GREAT! action, GREAT! movies, GREAT! romance, GREAT! romance mix, HGTV, HobbyMaker, ITV2 +1, ITV3 +1, ITV4 +1, ITVBe +1, Legend, PBS America, Quest +1, Quest Red, Really, Sky Mix, Sky News, Talking Pictures TV, TCC, That's 90s, That's TV 2, Together TV, TRUE CRIME, TRUE CRIME XTRA, W, Yesterday +1.
If you want to watch these channels, your aerial must point to one of the 80 Full service Freeview transmitters. For more information see the will there ever be more services on the Freeview Light transmitters? page.
Which BBC and ITV regional news can I watch from the Backwell transmitter?
BBC Points West 0.9m homes 3.4%
from Bristol BS8 2LR, 8km east-northeast (75°)
to BBC West region - 60 masts.
ITV West Country News (East) 0.9m homes 3.4%
from Bristol BS4 3HG, 11km east (90°)
to ITV West region - 61 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 50% evening news is shared with West Country (West)
How will the Backwell (North Somerset, England) transmission frequencies change over time?
| 1984-97 | 1997-98 | 1998-2010 | 2010-13 | 5 Jun 2019 | |||||
| A K T | A K T | A K T | A K T | A K T | |||||
| C22 | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBCB | BBCB | ||||
| C25 | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | BBCA | BBCA | ||||
| C28 | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | D3+4 | D3+4 | ||||
| C32 | 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 24 Mar 10 and 7 Apr 10.
How do the old analogue and currrent digital signal levels compare?
| Analogue 1-4 | 94W | |
| BBCA, D3+4, BBCB | (-6.9dB) 19W |
Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Mendip transmitter area
|
|
Sunday, 28 April 2024
C
Chris.SE1:11 PM
Paul Dursley:
Hi Paul. I'm guessing you've had some good torrents of rain in the last 24hrs or so, how's the signals doing?
I can't find any issues with Mendip at present, and I was in N.Bristol yesterday and with no issues tuned in a set to |Mendip that used a loft aerial. So Backwell shouldn't be having problems with Mendip.
There's no reported faults in the last 5 days for Backwell, Mendip or Wenvoe.
| link to this comment |
Tuesday, 30 April 2024
P
Paul Dursley11:01 AM
Chris.SE:
Morning - yes plenty of rain recently enough to fill a 400 litre water butt overnight.
Backwell reception is steady and decent quality though not as good as the best reported reception recently.
Wenvoe reception is still well down on the best reported numbers; C42 is currently unusable.
My wall plate installation isn't the best so I have an Antiference item on order which I'll fit when I receive it. I'll let you know if that has any beneficial effect.
| link to this comment |
Thursday, 2 May 2024
P
Paul Dursley8:46 AM
Chris.SE:
Bit of a let down with Antiference wall plate - fitted it to find out no signal at the TV.
After some head scratching and continuity testing I find that the wall plate is open circuit between the coaxial wire binding post and the IEC connector output pin!
Refitted the old unit and TV now receiving signal.
Reception is definitely weather affected at the moment so not much point experimenting right now. Let's see how it improves (if it approves) over the next few days....
| link to this comment |
Sunday, 5 May 2024
P
Paul Dursley1:49 PM
Chris.SE:
Afternoon - so we've had 48 hours of dry (mostly) weather with light winds to boot.
I have located and fitted a screened wall plate and can report as follows.
Backwell signals all have improved reception strength and quality - C22 had dropped off significantly to 5 out of 10 for both strength and quality; now showing solid 6-7 for both parameters.
Wenvoe signal reception is better but still confusing - still much lower strength and quality on certain channels but good to very good on others (considering its side lobe reception only) - results below (quality / strength all out of 10)
C39 - 3 and 4.5
C41 - 1.5 and 5
C42 - 0 and 1
C44 - 4 and 3
C45 - 10 and 4.5
C47 - 6 and 5
All the Wenvoe channels except C45 had been stronger a couple of weeks ago. Really don't know what's happened to C42 (which carries some of my favourite commercial channels) which seems to have just about disappeared completely. Even the Backwell channels had been better.
The only significant change I have made is the fitting of a screened wall plate.
| link to this comment |
C
Chris.SE3:06 PM
Paul Dursley:
Hi Paul. Obviously frustrating.
Unless you have trees directly on the line-of-sight to both transmitters, then I suspect that water getting into the aerial connections and/or coax is still a strong possibility.
Whether you can safely get a ladder out (or have a friend that could) and have a closer look, it has to be a strong possibility with an installation this old. It only needs small cracks in various places, either on the aerial connector box and/or the coax for problems to show up, and of course it'll take a while for it to dry out after as well.
The problem with this sort of thing is you can't predict the exact effects. Sometimes you just get (maybe start off) with some attenuation, but then as the characteristic impedance changes depending where/how far along the coax the water may be, you can then get standing waves in the cable, these being frequency dependant. So at whatever that frequency may be, it can cancel out any signal or at best cause severe attenuation. And because it's frequency dependant, it won't necessarily affect all frequencies at all/or to the same extent.
The other thing that can affect off-beam signals to a degree, is propagation conditions.
I have an aerial pointing at Mendip (horizontal obviously) that can get some Wenvoe signals off sidelobes. I usually find C42 & C45 stronger and higher quality than C41 & C44 (none ever 100%) but the former adequate quality to decode, but today they are the other way about!! Rarely get any C47 & C39. But I can also get CCI from Oxford PSBs affecting Wenvoe PSBs and sometimes Hannington PSBs affecting Wenvoe COMs! A lot of this is obviously aerial performance and location dependant.
I keep meaning to experiment with another aerial to see what I can get!
Before 700MHz clearance, I recall a situation with a loft aerial, but the coax went out under a tile and down the roof and wall and in with no wall-plate, just looped up from floor level to the set. During some very wet weather, things started with a bit of attenuation of the highest frequency C64, later then some other lower frequencies were severely affected. Nothing obvious looking at the coax plug UNTIL the cable had been left unplugged lying on the floor and then a teaspoonful + of water came out of the plug!
Getting up to the roof, several cracks in the coax sheath were found and it was generally quite brittle.
In all these situations it's very much a case of "suck it and see" to use an expression (not literally!!).
| link to this comment |
Tuesday, 7 May 2024
P
Paul Dursley6:18 PM
Chris.SE:
Hi Chris, thanks for your response.
I understand the issues of water ingress - I am a retired Subsea Oil & Gas Engineer for control systems so I've seen the results of water ingress on both power and communications cables. Generally fatal to the channel suffering the ingress! Interesting to note the affect on signal propagation of water ingress into the coaxial cable though.
I suspect you may be right about water ingress somewhere along the coaxial path however I don't see me getting up on the roof to inspect the installation - too high up and I do like being in one piece!
So right now I am getting the channels I originally had issues with so that in theory answers my original enquiry. That I have lost access to some commercial channels from Wenvoe sounds like it would have happened anyway assuming some water ingress. I think I can stream the programmes that I'm missing on the commercial channels so not the end of the world....
I think I will leave well alone for a while now and see if anything develops further. If I really want access to the full Freeview offering it may well take a new aerial installation to achieve it (that or a Freesat installation).
| link to this comment |
Wednesday, 8 May 2024
C
Chris.SE2:20 AM
Paul Dursley:
Hi Paul. Yes remaining in one piece is a good idea :)
Just post again if you need any more help or info or just to give us an update whenever it suits you. Regards.
| link to this comment |
Sunday, 12 May 2024
P
Paul Dursley11:22 AM
Chris.SE:
Morning - just a quick signal quality/strength (out of 10) update FYI
C22 9 / 9
C25 10 / 10
C28 10 / 10
C39 10 / 6
C41 10 / 7
C42 10 / 5
C44 10 / 6
C45 10 / 5
C47 10 / 6
Pretty impressive Wenvoe reception given where my aerial is pointing and its polarisation!
Been rock steady at these figures for the last 3 or 4 days - wonder if it will survive the forecast weather conditions later to day / next week?
| link to this comment |
Select more comments
Your comment please