Full Freeview on the Black Hill (North Lanarkshire, Scotland) transmitter

Brian Butterworth first published this on 1st May 2004 at 08:20 - UK Free TV

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55.861,-3.874 or 55°51'40"N 3°52'27"W

ML7 4NZ

The symbol shows the location of the Black Hill (North Lanarkshire, Scotland) transmitter which serves 940,000 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 Black Hill (North Lanarkshire, Scotland) mast?

Black Hill transmitter - Black Hill transmitter: Possible effect on TV reception week commencing 13/10/2025 Pixelation or flickering on some or all channels

Choose from three options: ■ List by multiplex ■ List by channel number ■ List by channel name

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Which Freeview channels does the Black 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	C46 (674.0MHz)	576m	DTG-	100,000W
	1 BBC One (SD) Scotland, 2 BBC Two Scotland, 7 BBC Alba HD, 23 BBC Three, 24 BBC Four (Scotland SD), 201 CBBC, 202 CBeebies, 231 BBC News, 232 BBC Parliament, plus 13 others
PSB2 D3+4	H max	C43 (650.0MHz)	576m	DTG-	100,000W
	3 STV (SD) (STV Central (Glasgow micro region)), 4 Channel 4 (SD) Scotland ads, 5 Channel 5, 6 ITV 2, 10 ITV3, 13 E4, 14 Film4, 15 Channel 4 +1 Scotland ads, 18 More4, 26 ITV4, 28 ITVBe, 30 E4 +1, 35 ITV1 +1 (STV Edinburgh), 35 STV+1 (STV Edinburgh), 71 That's TV 3,
PSB3 BBCB	H max	C40 (626.0MHz)	576m	DTG-	100,000W
	46 5SELECT, 57 U&Eden, 101 BBC One HD Scotland, 102 BBC Two HD Scotland, 103 ITV 1 HD (STV West), 103 STV HD (STV West), 104 Channel 4 HD Scotland ads, 105 Channel 5 HD, 106 BBC Four HD, 108 BBC Scotland HD, 203 CBBC HD, 204 CBeebies HD, plus 1 others 66 TBN UK,
COM4 SDN	H max	C41+ (634.2MHz)	576m	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, 58 ITV3 +1, 59 ITV4 +1, 61 GREAT! mystery, 64 Blaze, 67 TRUE CRIME, 68 TRUE CRIME XTRA, 74 U&DaveJaVu, 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, plus 21 others
COM5 ArqA	H max	C44 (658.0MHz)	576m	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, 76 That's Dance, 233 Sky News, plus 11 others
COM6 ArqB	H max	C47 (682.0MHz)	576m	DTG-8	100,000W
	12 Quest, 25 U&W, 27 U&Yesterday, 34 GREAT! movies, 39 DMAX, 44 HGTV, 52 GREAT! romance, 56 That's TV (UK), 63 GREAT! player, 73 HobbyMaker, 75 That's Melody, 82 Talking Pictures TV, 84 PBS America, 207 POP UP, plus 10 others
LG	H -13dB	C30 (546.0MHz)	576m	DTG-12	5,000W
	from 2nd June 2014: 8 STV Glasgow,

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 Black Hill transmitter?

BBC Reporting Scotland 2.4m homes 9.2%
from Glasgow G51 1DA, 26km west (271°)
to BBC Scotland region - 230 masts.

STV News 1.3m homes 4.8%
from Glasgow G51 1PQ, 26km west (271°)
to STV Central (Glasgow) region - 94 masts.

Are there any self-help relays?

Ardtornish A	Transposer	22 km NW Oban	15 homes
Balquhidder	Transposer	12 km NW Callander	42 homes
Benmore B	Active deflector	50 m WNW Glasgow	7 homes
Blair Drummond	Transposer		5 homes caravan park
Blyth Bridge	Active deflector	30 km SW Edinburgh	50 homes
Glendaruel	Active deflector	40 hotel	40 homes hotel
Glendaruel B	Active deflector		12 homes (second level)

How will the Black Hill (North Lanarkshire, Scotland) transmission frequencies change over time?

	1957-80s	1984-97	1997-98	1998-2011	2011-13	3 Oct 2018
	VHF	B E T	B E T	B E T	E T	W T
C10	ITV_waves
C30						_local
C32						com7
C35						com8
C37			C5_waves	C5_waves
C40		BBC1_waves	BBC1_waves	BBC1_waves	BBCB	BBCB
C41					+SDN	SDN
C43		ITV_waves	ITV_waves	ITV_waves	D3+4	D3+4
C44					ArqA	ArqA
C46		BBC2_waves	BBC2_waves	BBC2_waves	BBCA	BBCA
C47					ArqB	ArqB
C50_{tv_off}		C4_waves	C4_waves	C4_waves
C51_{tv_off}						LG
C55_{tv_off}						com7_{tv_off}
C56_{tv_off}					_local	COM8_{tv_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 8 Jun 11 and 22 Jun 11.

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

Analogue 1-5	500kW
SDN, ARQA, ARQB, BBCA, D3+4, BBCB	(-7dB) 100kW
com7	(-10.7dB) 42.9kW
com8	(-11.1dB) 39.2kW
Mux 1, Mux 2, Mux A, Mux B, Mux C, Mux D	(-14dB) 20kW
LG	(-20dB) 5kW

Local transmitter maps

Black Hill Freeview Black Hill DAB Black Hill TV region BBC Scotland STV Central (Glasgow micro region)

Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Black Hill transmitter area

Aug 1957-Jun 1997	Scottish Television
Jun 1997-Dec 2014	STV plc

Feb 1983-Dec 1992	TV-am•
Jan 1993-Sep 2010	GMTV•
Sep 2010-Dec 2014	ITV Daybreak•

• Breakfast ◊ Weekends ♦ Friday night and weekends † Weekdays only.

Is the transmitter output the same in all directions?

J

jimmy

_{sentiment_satisfied}Bronze

5:54 PM

While still experiencing the black outs from which is a Light transmitter I tried re-tuning out of curiosity and OMG I seem to have tuned in all the blackhill transmitter programs as I now have 148 tv instead of about 38 and they are all working perfect with one exception..... there are no HD channels, all the ones from 100-200 are missing. This is all very strange to me as I don't know the tech stuff regarding frequencies. Is there a way on my Humax box to switch between transmitters? Or is this the deal.... I either do without HD but get all the SD ones or if I want HD I need to go back to using Freeview light? I am sure on one of my early Humax boxes (DTR1000) I could switch between frequencies/transmitters but I don't see it on my more modern T2100 box.

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C

Chris.SE

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

7:51 PM

jimmy:

I thought that this had all been explained to you before.
These weather conditions cause signals from more distant transmitters to travel further.
In this case you have found that you can get the signals from BUT this may not remain a stable as weather conditions change.
IF you are still getting all the other multiplexes with stable viewing, you could try going to your TV Tuning settings and do a MANUAL tune of UHF channel 40 which is the Black Hill channel for the HD . Just because the others may be coming through doesn't mean you'll get those HD ones.

On quite a few TVs/Boxes/etc you are sometimes given the choice of a or to tune IF it's picking up more than one when you tune BUT you can't "switch" in the manner you are hoping.
IF you can't get the HD ones from Black Hill, then MANUAL tune UHF channel 37 for the HD multiplex from .but bear in mind the weather conditions may disrupt things.

MANUAL tuning is the way to select what you want, if as in this case your seems to be able to pick up Black Hill, but it may not last of course. In which case try tuning the PSB multiplexes from Millburn Muir (UHF 29,31,37) and the COMs from Black Hill (UHF Channels 41,44,47).
Good luck with that!

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