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Full Freeview on the Crystal Palace (Greater London, England) transmitter

first published this on - UK Free TV
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The symbol shows the location of the Crystal Palace (Greater London, England) transmitter which serves 4,490,000 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 Crystal Palace (Greater London, England) mast?

Crystal Palace transmitter - Crystal Palace transmitter: Possible effect on TV reception week commencing 04/11/2024 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 Crystal Palace 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
C23 (490.0MHz)324mDTG-200,000W
Channel icons
1 BBC One (SD) London, 2 BBC Two England, 9 BBC Four, 23 BBC Three, 201 CBBC, 202 CBeebies, 231 BBC News, 232 BBC Parliament, plus 16 others

PSB2
D3+4
 H max
C26 (514.0MHz)324mDTG-200,000W
Channel icons
3 ITV 1 (SD) (London), 4 Channel 4 (SD) London ads, 5 Channel 5, 6 ITV 2, 10 ITV3, 13 E4, 14 Film4, 15 Channel 4 +1 London ads, 18 More4, 26 ITV4, 28 ITVBe, 30 E4 +1, 35 ITV1 +1 (London), 71 That’s 60s,

PSB3
BBCB
 H max
C30- (545.8MHz)324mDTG-200,000W
Channel icons
46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD London, 102 BBC Two HD England, 103 ITV 1 HD (ITV London), 104 Channel 4 HD London ads, 105 Channel 5 HD, 106 BBC Four HD, 107 BBC Three HD, 204 CBBC HD, 205 CBeebies HD, plus 1 others

COM4
SDN
 H max
C25 (506.0MHz)314mDTG-8200,000W
Channel icons
20 U&Drama, 21 5USA, 29 ITV2 +1, 32 5STAR, 33 5Action, 38 Channel 5 +1, 41 Legend, 42 GREAT! action, 57 U&Dave ja vu, 58 ITV3 +1, 59 ITV4 +1, 64 Blaze, 67 TRUE CRIME, 68 TRUE CRIME XTRA, 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 Sky +1, plus 29 others

COM5
ArqA
 H max
C22 (482.0MHz)321mDTG-8200,000W
Channel icons
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, 74 &UYesterday +1, 76 That's TV 2 MCR, 233 Sky News, plus 13 others

COM6
ArqB
 H max
C28- (529.8MHz)321mDTG-8200,000W
Channel icons
12 Quest, 25 U&W, 27 U&Yesterday, 34 GREAT! movies, 39 DMAX, 44 HGTV, 52 GREAT! christmas, 56 That's TV (UK), 63 GREAT! romance mix, 73 HobbyMaker, 75 That's 90s, 82 Talking Pictures TV, 84 PBS America, 235 Al Jazeera Eng, plus 18 others

LW
 H -10dB
C35 (586.0MHz)324mDTG-1220,000W
Channel icons
from 31st March 2014: 8 LONDON LIVE,

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 Crystal Palace transmitter?

regional news image
BBC London 4.9m homes 18.4%
from London W1A 1AA, 12km north-northwest (335°)
to BBC London region - 55 masts.
regional news image
ITV London News 4.9m homes 18.4%
from London WC1X 8XZ, 11km north-northwest (345°)
to ITV London region - 55 masts.

Are there any self-help relays?

Charlton AthleticTransposerRedeveloped north stand Charlton Athletic Football Club130 homes
DeptfordTransposersouth-east London100 homes
GreenfordTransposer12 km N Heathrow Airport203 homes
HendonTransposerGraham Park estate50 homes
White CityTransposer9 km W central London80 homes

How will the Crystal Palace (Greater London, England) transmission frequencies change over time?

1950s-80s1984-971997-981998-20122012-1321 Mar 2018
VHFA K TA K TA K TA K TW T
C1BBCtvwaves
C22ArqAArqA
C23ITVwavesITVwavesITVwavesBBCABBCA
C25SDNSDN
C26BBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBC1wavesD3+4D3+4
C28-ArqBArqB
C29LW
C30C4wavesC4wavesC4waves-BBCBBBCB
C33BBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBC2wavescom7
C35com8
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 4 Apr 12 and 18 Apr 12.

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

Analogue 1-4 1000kW
SDN, ARQA, ARQB, BBCA, D3+4, BBCB(-7dB) 200kW
com7(-13.7dB) 43.1kW
com8(-14dB) 39.8kW
Mux 1*, Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*, Mux C*, Mux D*, LW(-17dB) 20kW

Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Crystal Palace transmitter area

Sep 1955-Jul 1968Associated-Rediffusion†
Sep 1955-Jul 1968Associated TeleVision◊
Jul 1968-Dec 1992Thames†
Jul 1968-Feb 2004London Weekend Television♦
Jan 1993-Feb 2004Carlton†
Feb 2004-Dec 2014ITV plc♦
Feb 2004-Dec 2014ITV plc†
Feb 1983-Dec 1992TV-am•
Jan 1993-Sep 2010GMTV•
Sep 2010-Dec 2014ITV Daybreak•
• Breakfast ◊ Weekends ♦ Friday night and weekends † Weekdays only. Crystal Palace 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
Saturday, 28 July 2012
M
Mark Fletcher
sentiment_satisfiedGold

12:31 AM
Halifax

Terry Carter.Colchester,CO5 8BL.
Having checked with the BBC Reception Test via your postcode given,there are no problems with any of the possible transmissions in your locality.
I would look up inversion effect as a likely cause !

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Mark Fletcher's 673 posts GB flag
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M
Mark Fletcher
sentiment_satisfiedGold

12:35 AM
Halifax

Terry Carter.Colchester.What i forgot to add are you receiving from Crystal Palace or either from Sudbury or Dover main transmitters ?
What local news bulletins do you normally receive on BBC1/ITV1 channels ?

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Mark Fletcher's 673 posts GB flag
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Tuesday, 31 July 2012
M
Michael
12:03 AM
London

Michael: Awful again today. The recorder had decided Crystal Palace was too weak. Even after manually retuning everything in sight, the BBC channels (from Crystal Palace) are poor and Sky News isn't there at all this evening. The digital TV is fine so it must come down to the tuner of the recorder ...

... except this had been fine for some years before the digital switchover and for a couple of months afterwards.

Now, we were sold the digital switchover on the basis that the digital signal would be better once analog was out of the way. Quite clearly at the moment it is worse than pre-switchover. Yet this site says there are no problems (at least on BBC) at Crystal Palace. Have we all been sold a pup? If I have to replace equipment that worked perfectly well pre-changeover because someone somewhere decides to weaken the signal for a couple of weeks when they feel like it, who do I sue?

Well, OK, not sue perhaps (and I'm not going to panic buy) but someone must be responsible for this mess. Are they even aware there is a problem, and who do we contatc to complain about what to my mind is a breach of trust on the digital switchover?

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Michael's 14 posts GB flag
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J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

8:22 AM

Michael: Even although you have reported the digital TV (also Freeview?) as being fine this could simply be because of it having a more sensitive tuner coupled to it also having slightly better circuitry, (e.g: Panasonic TV's / Humax if a box) or alternatively that its aerial feed might be supplying it with a slightly higher level of signal, this totally dependant on whatever method you use feed the aerial into both devices and that both devices are definitely tuned to the same transmitter.

As far as Digital TV is concerned, its inevitable that if a TV system is changed from one like analogue than can produce a picture of sorts right down to an almost zero signal with one than "has" to have a certain level of signal before anything can be heard or seen, that the latter is bound not to cope with serious fluctuations in signal levels caused by seasonal atmospheric changes and such likes which can allow signals to be received from far off places that can clash with local transmissions, this being something that has always happened albeit that analogue can cope with this in a much better way.

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jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
C
Chris
12:11 PM
London

One last query, security is security but Olympic games would you know if there would be any external interference of any kind that would disrupt the freeview signal that would be attributed to extra pressure on let's say bandwith due to the Olympics. In other words would you be informed of any external factors that would block my London signal that is not entirely due to the transmitters.

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Chris's 2 posts GB flag
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Wednesday, 1 August 2012
M
Michael
12:12 AM
London

Michael: Chris's point had also occurred to me. I know red button services have been amended but if the standard signal has been degraded, that's been kept quiet. I can't think of anything more likely to hack off Londoners than making it difficult for loads of us to view what our extra council tax is paying for (yes, I know general taxation funds a lot of it too).

Yes, the digital TV is Freeview too. I have moved that to the location of the HD recorder and it performs fine .. unless of course I feed it the signal from the HD recorder! Similarly, I moved our stone age Freeview box upstairs to the location of the digital TV. Didn't change its performance.

I think the difference has to be the quality of the tuner. The digital TV seems able to cope with lower signal quality and - perhaps just as importantly - substantial variation in signal quality that we are experiencing. Typically, the signal strength is solid at 70-75% but the quality is either down at 30-40% or constantly shifting sharply within the range 10 to 70%. The exception is when the box decides it fancies Heathfield or Bluebell Hill for BBC and/or ITV, when signal strength also drops to 40-50%.

One last point is that some of the similar complaints from people in other parts of London have come when our signal is OK.

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Michael's 14 posts GB flag
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Saturday, 4 August 2012
T
Thomas
10:31 AM

Overnight we have lost all channels associated with multiplex A & D. I am at a complete loss for what to do as this a large chunk of Freeview now gone. Any advice greatly appreciated. We have until this happened always had great reception.

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Thomas's 1 post GB flag
M
Michael
11:40 PM
London

Michael: We have usually ended up deleting all channels on our HDD recorder (by retuning with the aerial disconnected) and then manual tuning the five multiplexes we are supposed to get from Crystal Palace. This usually gets back the BBC and ITV muxes but does not improve the other three - however deleting everything first does semms to prevent channels being numbered 800+.

It looks as if the Crystal Palace signal is weak at 8am when our HDD recorder auto retunes, so you may have to pick your time.

Even so, tonight's Olympic joy was slightly diluted by watching pixellated atheletes, even on the BBC signal from Crystal Palace. I expect they will get well pixellated in the next few hours though...

A first yesterday was to find one of the muxes claiming to be 698KHz, which appears to be "Waltham" - is that Walthamstow North? Previous "wrong""ansmitters have been Bluebell Hill and Heathfield.

I want to know whom I should be complaining to. The whole thing seems to be secretive and accountable to nobody.

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Michael's 14 posts GB flag
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Wednesday, 8 August 2012
D
Dave Taylor
1:19 PM

David Taylor:
Hi Guys,
When Freeview Digital was first started I
purchased a box but got "no signal" message
(see original posts)
After full switch over all worked ok, except I had to buy two new TV's.
My house is in a dead spot and analogue
reception was never very good.
Yesterday I turned on TV and we were back to
the state we were in before, with no signal
messages and frozen picture etc.
Nothing has changed with my aerial etc.
Have they reduced the signal strength?

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Dave Taylor's 12 posts GB flag
Dave Lindsay
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

2:37 PM

Dave Taylor: I have read back your postings.

I have observed that the White Oak Leisure Centre could be in the (or under the) signal path at 850m away (just over half a mile). I mention this because it appears to have a large metalic content.

This terrain plot shows that you could have line-of-sight, assuming no obstructions:


Terrain between ( m a.g.l.) and (antenna m a.g.l.) - Optimising UK DTT Freeview and Radio aerial location


Perhaps the poor reception at your location is caused reflections that are acting to reduce the quality or signal strength.

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Dave Lindsay's 5,724 posts GB flag
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