Full Freeview on the Bluebell Hill (Medway, England) transmitter
 | Google Streetview |  | Google map |  | Bing map |  | Google Earth |  | 51.324,0.520 or 51°19'25"N 0°31'13"E |  | ME5 9RD |
The symbol shows the location of the Bluebell Hill (Medway, England) transmitter which serves 200,000 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 Bluebell Hill (Medway, England) mast?
Bluebell Hill transmitter - Bluebell Hill transmitter: Possible effect on TV reception week commencing 02/10/2023 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
H/V: aerial position (horizontal or vertical)
Which Freeview channels does the Bluebell 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.
64QAM 8K 3/4 27.1Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2
H/V: aerial position (horizontal or vertical)
Which BBC and ITV regional news can I watch from the Bluebell Hill transmitter?
BBC South East Today 0.8m homes 3.2%
from Tunbridge Wells TN1 1QQ, 28km southwest (218°)
to BBC South East region - 45 masts.
ITV Meridian News 0.7m homes 2.7%
from Maidstone ME14 5NZ, 5km south-southeast (155°)
to ITV Meridian (East) region - 36 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 50% evening news is shared with all of Meridian plus Oxford
How will the Bluebell Hill (Medway, England) transmission frequencies change over time?
| 1984-97 | 1997-98 | 1998-2012 | 2012-13 | 19 Jul 2018 | |||||
| E | E | E | W T | W T | |||||
| C21 | _local | ||||||||
| C28 | _local | ||||||||
| C32 | com7 | ||||||||
| C34 | com8 | ||||||||
| C39 | +ArqA | ||||||||
| C40 | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | +BBCB | SDN | ||||
| C43 | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | D3+4 | ArqA | ||||
| C45 | SDN | BBCB | |||||||
| C46 | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBCA | ArqB | ||||
| C54tv_off | ArqB | ||||||||
| C55tv_off | com7tv_off | ||||||||
| C56tv_off | COM8tv_off | ||||||||
| 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 13 Jun 12 and 27 Jun 12.
How do the old analogue and currrent digital signal levels compare?
| Analogue 1-4 | 30kW | |
| SDN, ARQA, ARQB, BBCA, D3+4, BBCB | (-1.8dB) 20kW | |
| com8 | (-7.8dB) 5kW | |
| com7 | (-8.1dB) 4.7kW | |
| Mux 1*, Mux B*, Mux C*, Mux D* | (-10dB) 3kW | |
| Mux 2*, Mux A* | (-11.8dB) 2kW |
Local transmitter maps
Bluebell Hill Freeview Bluebell Hill DAB Bluebell Hill TV region BBC South East Meridian (East micro region)Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Bluebell Hill transmitter area
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Saturday, 8 August 2020
C
Chris11:43 PM
YZ
Signal gone to shit again this evening. As you say, there are no engineering works now or in the last few days. The fact is that Freeview has sold out to 5G clearance and has become unreliable since the start of these changes. If you want free TV, just accept that the service will get progressively worse, or pay your money to greedy service providers that don't use the same system
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Sunday, 9 August 2020
C
Chris.SE12:53 AM
YZ:
Yes you have been looking in the wrong place. You need to look here -
Planned engineering works | Freeview
There are 15 Meridian transmitters that have been listed for the w/c 03/08/2020 and Bluebell Hill is the 11th down that list.
Chris:
Did you bother to read the information that I posted, this has nothing to do with 5G, the 700MHz frequencies haven't even been auctioned yet never mind any 5G operating there. The small amount of 5G that is operating is in a totally different band, up around 3.4GHZ well away from TV bands. And this is not "Freeview" sold out to 5G clearance, this is a European wide re-allocation of frequencies subject to International agreements.
Try reading What is 700MHz clearance? and What is 700MHz clearance? | Freeview
The SE (as well as some other parts of the UK) has been affected this evening by some moderate Tropospheric ducting. Here's some links about "Tropospheric Ducting" -
https://www.bbc.co.uk/rec….jpg
Tropospheric propagation - Wikipedia
How does good weather affect my television? | Help receiving TV and radio
There's plenty more if you want to get technical, use your favourite search engine.
So if you read just some of that lot, you may actually learn something!
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Wednesday, 9 September 2020
H
Ham Gat1:37 PM
I am slightly north of 30km due east of Bluebell Hill and can't get any com7 and com8 stations. Does anyone know the channels they are broadcast on so that I can try a manual retune (auto-retune achieves nothing). I was told 56 but this was ineffective
I can pull signals from Crystal Palace (70km to the west of me) but get no com7/8 signals from there either. Likewise, if anyone knows the channels for these I can try a manual retune.
Thanks.
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S
StevensOnln12:13 PM
Ham Gat: COM7 is on UHF channel 55, COM8 was on 56 but closed at the end of June due to commercial reasons.
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Tuesday, 15 September 2020
D
Dean9:18 PM
5g signal runs 2 signals and one part of the signal is right on 700mhz end of freeview so its not all in ghz part of spectrum
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S
StevensOnln110:09 PM
Dean: There are no 5G services using the 700MHz band yet in the UK. Ofcom were due to auction off the 700MHz band earlier this year, however the auction has been delayed due to the pandemic and is now due to take place by early 2021.
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Wednesday, 16 September 2020
C
Chris.SE11:36 AM
Dean:
To be crystal clear, 5G signals will be operating on several bands when it is all operational. At present it is ONLY operating up around the 3.4GHz band and only in some mainly urban areas.
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Monday, 21 September 2020
Y
YZ10:24 AM
Chris.SE:
Thanks for the previous post 9/8, booked marked this for the future.
Signal's been screwed yesterday evening and now today due to the atmospheric conditions. It's a pain in the rear but the South East is under 'intense' conditions for the time being as it's pretty much all or nothing if I get any signal from Bluebell at the moment.
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C
Chris.SE11:53 PM
YZ:
Yes, a lot of people all around the country have been suffering from similar issues. Unfortunately climate change is likely to make this sort of event more common.
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Thursday, 11 February 2021
C
Chris.SE3:02 PM
All:
Since parts of the listings at the top of the page haven't been fully updated yet, just to note -
For Bluebell Hill the correct UHF channels are C32, C34, C45, C40, C43, C46, C55, C21 for the multiplexes in the order BBCA/PSB1, D3&4/PSB2, BBCB HD/PSB3, SDN/COM4, ArqA/COM5, ArqB/COM6, COM7 & the Local multiplex.
Reception of particular multiplexes, especially the temporary COM7 and Local will depend very much on location.
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