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Full Freeview on the Craigkelly (Fife, Scotland) transmitter

first published this on - UK Free TV
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The symbol shows the location of the Craigkelly (Fife, Scotland) transmitter which serves 430,000 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 Craigkelly (Fife, Scotland) mast?

Craigkelly transmitter - Craigkelly transmitter: Possible effect on TV reception week commencing 25/03/2024 Pixelation or flickering on some or all channels Digital tick


Choose from three options: ■ List by multiplex ■ List by channel number ■ List by channel name
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Which Freeview channels does the Craigkelly 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.

MuxH/VFrequencyHeightModeWatts
PSB1
BBCA
 H max
C27 (522.0MHz)311mDTG-20,000W
Channel icons
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
C24 (498.0MHz)311mDTG-20,000W
Channel icons
3 STV (SD) (STV Central (Edinburgh 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),

PSB3
BBCB
 H max
C21+ (474.2MHz)311mDTG-20,000W
Channel icons
46 5SELECT, 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, 204 CBBC HD, 205 CBeebies HD, plus 1 others

COM4
SDN
 H -3dB
C29 (538.0MHz)311mDTG-810,000W
Channel icons
20 Drama, 21 5USA, 29 ITV2 +1, 32 5STAR, 33 5Action, 38 Channel 5 +1, 41 Legend, 42 GREAT! action, 57 Dave ja vu, 58 ITVBe +1, 59 ITV3 +1, 64 Blaze, 67 TRUE CRIME, 68 TRUE CRIME XTRA, 78 TCC, 81 Blaze +1, 83 Together TV, 89 ITV4 +1, 91 WildEarth, 209 Ketchup TV, 210 Ketchup Too, 211 YAAAS!, 267 Al Jazeera English, plus 30 others

COM5
ArqA
 H -3dB
C31 (554.0MHz)311mDTG-810,000W
Channel icons
11 Sky Mix, 17 Really, 19 Dave, 31 E4 Extra, 36 Sky Arts, 40 Quest Red, 43 Food Network, 47 Film4 +1, 48 Challenge, 49 4seven, 60 Drama +1, 65 That's TV 2, 70 Quest +1, 74 Yesterday +1, 75 That's 90s, 233 Sky News, plus 11 others

COM6
ArqB
 H -3dB
C37+ (602.2MHz)311mDTG-810,000W
Channel icons
12 Quest, 25 W, 27 Yesterday, 34 GREAT! movies, 39 DMAX, 44 HGTV, 52 GREAT! romance, 56 That's TV (UK), 61 GREAT! movies extra, 63 GREAT! romance mix, 71 That’s 60s, 73 HobbyMaker, 82 Talking Pictures TV, 84 PBS America, 235 Al Jazeera Eng, plus 18 others

LEH
 H -6dB
C32 (562.0MHz)311mDTG-125,000W
Channel icons
from 30th June 2014: 8 STV Edinburgh,

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 Craigkelly transmitter?

regional news image
BBC Reporting Scotland 2.4m homes 9.2%
from Glasgow G51 1DA, 70km west-southwest (252°)
to BBC Scotland region - 230 masts.
regional news image
STV News 0.5m homes 1.7%
from Edinburgh EH3 9QG, 14km south (174°)
to STV Central (Edinburgh) region - 8 masts.

Are there any self-help relays?

DullaturTransposer20 km NE Glasgow40 homes
EdinburghTransposerSighthill area167 homes

How will the Craigkelly (Fife, Scotland) transmission frequencies change over time?

1984-971997-981998-20112011-133 Oct 2018
A K TK TK TK TW T
C21C4wavesC4wavesC4waves+BBCBBBCB
C24ITVwavesITVwavesITVwavesD3+4D3+4
C27BBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBCABBCA
C29SDN
C30LEH
C31BBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBC1wavesArqA
C32_local
C33com7
C34com8
C37ArqB
C39+ArqB
C42SDN
C45ArqA
C48C5wavesC5waves
C55tv_offcom7tv_off
C56tv_offCOM8tv_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 1 Jun 11 and 15 Jun 11.

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

Analogue 1-4 100kW
BBCA, D3+4, BBCB(-7dB) 20kW
com7, com8(-9.7dB) 10.8kW
SDN, ARQA, ARQB(-10dB) 10kW
LEH(-13dB) 5kW
Analogue 5, Mux 1*, Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*(-14dB) 4kW
Mux C*, Mux D*(-17dB) 2kW

Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Craigkelly transmitter area

Aug 1957-Jun 1997Scottish Television
Jun 1997-Dec 2014STV plc
Feb 1983-Dec 1992TV-am•
Jan 1993-Sep 2010GMTV•
Sep 2010-Dec 2014ITV Daybreak•
• Breakfast ◊ Weekends ♦ Friday night and weekends † Weekdays only. Craigkelly was not an original Channel 3 VHF 405-line mast: the historical information shown is the details of the company responsible for the transmitter when it began transmitting Channel 3.

Comments
Tuesday, 14 February 2012
Dave Lindsay
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

2:20 PM

Milner Fleming: It is not available on Freeview.

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Dave Lindsay's 5,724 posts GB flag
Monday, 27 February 2012
Briantist
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

6:44 AM

Milner Fleming: ITV 3 +1 is only on satellite.

link to this comment
Briantist's 38,915 posts GB flag
Wednesday, 9 May 2012
J
John Robinson
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

4:24 PM
Edinburgh

My shiny new Humax HDR-Fox T2 PVR won't pick the right frequencies when I do an auto-tune. I'm getting signals from Craigkelly (which I want), Black Hill and Angus. The Craigkelly ones are easily the strongest (~80% vs ~45% from Black Hill and ~30% from Angus).

When I allow a full automatic search to complete, so the box has picked up channels from Craigkelly, Black Hill and Angus transmitters, I am told that "Multiple Regions detected". There's an inset box which says "Scotland, GBR", and below that there's a menu for Central Scotland or North Scotland. The box always picks the channels which come from the Angus transmitter (and must therefore be the North channels), whichever option I pick. This is unfortunate, as they are the weakest and some channels (particularly the HD ones) break up.

When I do an automatic search but stop at channel 46 - i.e. after the box has scanned all the frequencies transmitted from Craigkelly, and already having picked some up from Black Hill, but not yet reached any of those from Angus - I am again offered a choice of region, with the inset box saying "Central Scotland, Scotland, GBR", but this time there are no menu items. I press OK to continue, and again the box chooses the weaker signals from Black Hill over the strong ones from Craigkelly.

Am I right in thinking that I should be being offered a choice of West and East - for example, STV has slightly different outputs on the Black Hill and Craigkelly transmitters (mostly just the local news programme, and of course the adverts).

Even if it is just Central, I think the box should be picking the strongest signal over the weaker ones.

Overall, I think there is a bug in the region selection feature on the box. I've reported this to Humax and I'm waiting for a response, but I don't expect much - when I called about it, they emailed me telling me to tune manually. I don't want to tune manually, in case there are programme or frequency changes, and I definitely don't want to recommend this box to my mum if it has to be tuned manually (she lives round the corner).

Is there anything I can do? Use an attenuator so the extra signals disappear? Get a more directional aerial? (Though this isn't going to stop me getting signals from Angus, the difference from us is about 3°).

Many thanks in advance for any ideas.

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John Robinson's 43 posts GB flag
John's: mapJ's Freeview map terrainJ's terrain plot wavesJ's frequency data J's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Dave Lindsay
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

4:44 PM

John Robinson: Looking at the channel allocations of the three transmitters, what I suggest you do is run the automatic tuning scan through and unplug the aerial at 30%.
Then, once it has completed the automatic tuning procedure, plug the aerial back in.

This should get you the three PSBs from Craigkelly; 27, 24, 21.

Then go to the manual tuning function and add the three COMs; 42, 45, 39.

This removes the possibility that it will ever "see" the other two transmitters when it carries out its scan.

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Dave Lindsay's 5,724 posts GB flag
J
John Robinson
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

7:46 PM
Edinburgh

Dave Lindsay: Yes I know I can do a partial scan and use manual tuning, but I don't want to. If the programme line-up changes, or the frequencies change, I want the box to tell me and retune itself.

link to this comment
John Robinson's 43 posts GB flag
John's: mapJ's Freeview map terrainJ's terrain plot wavesJ's frequency data J's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Wednesday, 16 May 2012
R
rob
10:15 PM
Dunfermline

Hi
I am getting a broken signal, squiffy sound and picture on coms 4,5 and 6. Worse on 5 and 6.
This has been like this for as long as I can remember. I am in a top floor flat and I presume I have a shared aerial. I am knowledgeable enough to do all basic interference and connection tests. I have a booster from the wall and a split aerial feeding 2 freeview boxes. I have plugged direct to socket, rewired the socket and connections. I have basically eliminated all causes except the aerial.
Should I contact the property management company or just install a loft aerial?
Many thanks

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rob's 2 posts GB flag
rob's: mapR's Freeview map terrainR's terrain plot wavesR's frequency data R's Freeview Detailed Coverage
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

11:24 PM

rob: As you are not that terribly far away from the transmitter I would be inclined to try a test using a set top aerial or a piece of wire about 12" long pushed into the inner part of the aerial socket, and if a picture of sorts is obtained then a simple loft aerial could be fitted as that should be suffice for satisfactory reception.

And with regards to the communal aerial, it might be prudent to ask any neighbours that you might be friendly with if they are also experiencing any of the problems you are having.

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jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
Friday, 18 May 2012
Transmitter engineering
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

4:30 PM

CRAIGKELLY transmitter - Over the next week Craigkelly main transmitter: TV (digital) Liable to interruption, Radio (analogue) working normally, Radio (digital) working normally. [DUK]

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Transmitter engineering's 149,822 posts xx flag
Transmitter engineering
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

4:30 PM

CRAIGKELLY transmitter - Over the next week Craigkelly main transmitter: TV (digital) Liable to interruption, Radio (analogue) working normally, Radio (digital) working normally. [DUK]

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Transmitter engineering's 149,822 posts xx flag
R
R. Rankine
11:20 PM

Why does STV+1 on Freeview from Cragkelly have poor crackly sound. This has been the case since the Channel launched.
STV do nothing about it.
ITV+1 sound on Sky is perfect. STV prevent its viewers from having ITV+1 on Sky because of its contract with Sky.
Does STV+1 from Blackhill have similar sound problems.
Why is this problem not being fixed.

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R. Rankine's 1 post GB flag
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Your comment please
Please post a question, answer or commentIf you have Freeview reception problems before posting a question your must first do this Freeview reset procedure then see: Freeview reception has changed, Single frequency interference, and Freeview intermittent interference.

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