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 30/09/2024 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, 14 December 2019
C
Chris.SE12:41 AM
Bert:
Yes it can be annoying that the predictor sometimes gives a different transmitter, it may be biased towards the predicted reception of PSBs 1&2, but at least it usually shows predicted reception from potentially available transmitters. Thanks for those updates, and well done for those checks.
Now, interesting question, has your C40 returned and is everything stable? You may have noticed Kif's has returned.
This could mean that if yours has returned , it could have been a transmitter issue or of course coincidence.
If yours hasn't returned, taking account of your suspicion of a fault between aerial and amp, that may mean Kif's fault could be an intermittent one which happens to have righted itself for the time being.
Kif:
If your neighbours haven't got a similar problem it could be an individual fault which has righted itself for the time being. Keep us updated, it can be useful if you need further help.
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K
Kif9:43 AM
Chris.
I had spoken with my immediate neighbour, whose aerial is proximate to mine, and aligned the same. Neither have signs of damage.
They advised that they have been experiencing pixilations, but didn't specify which channels/stations were effected. We didn't have long to talk, and they might not be familiar with how digital works.
CH40 is still up this morning (Saturday), but signal quality is still fluctuating with occasional break up, so a little worse than it was last night.
I'm still monitoring, but obviously can't be stuck in front of the telly all day!
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K
Kif10:10 AM
Additional.
For some reason not all of my post has come up - possibly because I used an emoji, as that's where it cut off.
I'm using Horror Channel as my test subject, as this was where I first encountered the problem trying to watch Star Trek. It's still unstable as I write, with sporadic blips in sound and vision rather than complete picture break-up. Film4+1 on CH43 is poorly again, and worse than CH40 in severity and regularity of disruption. Strength is at 10, Quality is all over the place.
Kif
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B
Bert1:35 PM
Chris.SE
I switched on the TV at 5:50 last night, Friday, went to the guide selected 66 & up came Judge Judy, quickly went into the set-up menu for manual tune for C40 & the strength bar was at max & the quality was good, selected scan & all the missing channels came back. What is going on?
Trouble is I have the aerial bods coming on Monday from the freeview helpline & now everything is OK.
I'm not sure my neighbour gave me the correct info when I asked him had any channels missing, I did not actually see what he beamed up to check. He has Sky so I might have got a bum steer from him. The other houses along here have dishes.
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C
Chris.SE3:06 PM
Bert:
Thanks for that update Bert. I wouldn't worry about those aerial bods coming and everything "seeming" ok. I would play it along the lines of "things seem to have been intermittent" and you are concerned that there's some sort of intermittent fault. Just let them/make sure they give you installation a thorough check out as they will be paid by Freeview in any event!
It's important that your installation is as good as it can be receiving the current multiplexes on their allocated UHF channels as no further changes in UHF channels is planned in the foreseeable future. The final change at Bluebell Hill resulting from 700MHz clearance was in July 2018.
The only changes that are likely to occur in the shorter term are where broadcasters move their programmes/channels around to a different multiplex, or some may close and new ones come along. In a lot of cases this might mean a "retune" but a lot of modern sets do this sort of update automatically.
And of course at some future date COMs 7&8 will close and we expect to see one or more of the other current SD multiplexes convert to T2 (HD) transmissions which will then make room for some of the channels currently on COMs 7&8.
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C
Chris.SE3:59 PM
Kif:
Without a full postcode, it's difficult to come to any conclusions about reception at your location as reception of the muxs from Bluebell Hill can vary somewhat across the ME10 postcodes.
I assume you've done obvious checks such as checking all you coax plugs, connections, flyleads etc, unplug connectors check for corrosion or other problems and reconnect them, flyleads can be a common problem, try swapping them.
Just a reminder that problematic connections, water ingress etc. can seem to affect reception of just an individual or several multiplexes. Whilst it looks like the possibility there may have been/still is a transmitter issue and depending on the nature of the problem if that latter, it may take several days to resolve, it's nevertheless prudent to ensure you don't have any latent issues in your own installation.
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Friday, 20 December 2019
K
Kif8:38 PM
Apologies for the long wait - real life got in the way. I've been going through recordings in the interim.
Things seemed to be better over the weekend 14th-15th Dec, but while CH43 and 40 were up they deteriorated over the week. I hadn't noticed that CH46 had also been weak, improved, and fell away a little, using Talking Pictures as my test subject; I had mistakenly believed this was a CH43 station.
On Wednesday, CH40 went off at some point, coming back at around 18:20. Since then, signal quality has been unpredictable, seeming stable for some time, then suddenly dropping off. Interruption levels also vary from minor windowing of a few pixels to losing half the picture. It's like someone is playing around with things, experimenting. It's disappointing, as reception appeared to be fixed in all three when CH40 returned, but then drifted away again.
I checked my connections, and they are fine.
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Saturday, 21 December 2019
C
Chris.SE7:12 AM
Kif:
As mentioned in previous posts, without a full postcode it's not possible to provide further constructive comment about your reception other than the general comments already made. Can't find any reports of recent transmitter problems or maintenance.
Bert:
It would be interesting to hear what the outcome was of the aerial bods visit and what their comments were.
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Sunday, 22 December 2019
B
Bert10:28 AM
Chris.SE
I called the helpline to cancel the appointment before I read your comments. I have not had any problems since it came back to full strength.
I have a question, if Bluebell Hill is just a transmitter, where does it get it's signal from? And in what form, OTA, microwave or fibre optic cable?
Thanks
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S
StevensOnln111:14 AM
Bert: Main transmitters such as Bluebell Hill usually have their signal fed to them via fibre optic leased line, with a satellite backup feed for the BBC channels in case the fibre gets damaged.
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