Full Freeview on the Heathfield (East Sussex, England) transmitter

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

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50.976,0.229 or 50°58'34"N 0°13'45"E

TN21 0UG

The symbol shows the location of the Heathfield (East Sussex, England) transmitter which serves 170,000 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 Heathfield (East Sussex, England) mast?

Heathfield transmitter - Heathfield transmitter: Possible effect on TV reception week commencing 11/12/2023 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 Heathfield 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	C41 (634.0MHz)	298m	DTG-	20,000W
	1 BBC One (SD) South East, 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	C44 (658.0MHz)	298m	DTG-	20,000W
	3 ITV 1 (SD) (Meridian (East micro region)), 4 Channel 4 (SD) South ads, 5 Channel 5, 6 ITV 2, 10 ITV3, 13 E4, 14 Film4, 15 Channel 4 +1 South ads, 18 More4, 26 ITV4, 28 ITVBe, 30 E4 +1, 35 ITV1 +1 (Meridian south coast),
PSB3 BBCB	H max	C47 (682.0MHz)	298m	DTG-	20,000W
	46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD South East, 102 BBC Two HD England, 103 ITV 1 HD (ITV Meridian Southampton), 104 Channel 4 HD South ads, 105 Channel 5 HD, 106 BBC Four HD, 107 BBC Three HD, 204 CBBC HD, 205 CBeebies HD, plus 1 others 66 TBN UK,
COM4 SDN	H max	C40 (626.0MHz)	298m	DTG-8	20,000W
	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, 89 ITV4 +1, 91 WildEarth, 209 Ketchup TV, 210 Ketchup Too, 211 YAAAS!, 267 Al Jazeera English, plus 35 others
COM5 ArqA	H max	C43 (650.0MHz)	300m	DTG-8	20,000W
	Smithsonian Channel, 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 Christmas, 70 Quest +1, 74 Yesterday +1, 75 That's 90s, 233 Sky News, plus 11 others
COM6 ArqB	H max	C46 (674.0MHz)	300m	DTG-8	20,000W
	Quest Red +1, Classic Hits, 12 Quest, 25 W, 27 Yesterday, 34 GREAT! movies, 39 DMAX, 44 HGTV, 52 GREAT! christmas, 56 That's TV (UK), 61 GREAT! movies extra, 63 GREAT! christmas mix, 71 That’s 60s, 73 HobbyMaker, 82 Talking Pictures TV, 83 Together TV, 84 PBS America, 235 Al Jazeera Eng, plus 20 others

DTG-8 64QAM 8K 3/4 27.1Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2
H/V: aerial position (horizontal or vertical)

The Heathfield (East Sussex, England) mast is a public service broadcasting (PSB) transmitter, it does not provide these commercial (COM) channels: .

If you want to watch these channels, your aerial must point to one of the 80 Full service Freeview transmitters. For more information see the will there ever be more services on the Freeview Light transmitters? page.

Which BBC and ITV regional news can I watch from the Heathfield transmitter?

BBC South East Today 0.8m homes 3.2%
from Tunbridge Wells TN1 1QQ, 17km north (6°)
to BBC South East region - 45 masts.

ITV Meridian News 0.7m homes 2.7%
from Maidstone ME14 5NZ, 41km north-northeast (31°)
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 Heathfield (East Sussex, England) transmission frequencies change over time?

	1984-97	1997-98	1998-2012	2012-13	2013-18	2013-17	19 Jul 2018
	C/D E	C/D E	C/D E	W T	W T	W T	K T
C29				_local	_local	_local	_local
C40							SDN
C41				ArqB	ArqB	ArqB	BBCA
C42				SDN	SDN	SDN
C43							ArqA
C44				ArqA	ArqA	ArqA	D3+4
C46							ArqB
C47				BBCB	BBCB	BBCB	BBCB
C49_{tv_off}	BBC1_waves	BBC1_waves	BBC1_waves	D3+4	D3+4	D3+4
C52_{tv_off}	BBC2_waves	BBC2_waves	BBC2_waves	BBCA	BBCA	BBCA
C64	ITV_waves	ITV_waves	ITV_waves
C67	C4_waves	C4_waves	C4_waves

_{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 30 May 12 and 13 Jun 12.

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

Analogue 1-4	100kW
SDN, ARQA, ARQB, BBCA, D3+4, BBCB	(-7dB) 20kW
Mux 1, Mux 2	(-18dB) 1.6kW
Mux A, Mux B, Mux C, Mux D	(-20dB) 1000W

Local transmitter maps

HEATHFIELD Freeview HEATHFIELD DAB Heathfield TV region BBC South East Meridian (East micro region)

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

Aug 1958-Jan 1992	Southern Television
Jan 1982-Dec 1992	Television South (TVS)
Jan 1993-Feb 2004	Meridian
Feb 2004-Dec 2014	ITV 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. Heathfield 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.

Is the transmitter output the same in all directions?

Radiation patterns withheld

K

kevin john hicks
1:37 PM
Maidstone

Hi there. Please could you tell me if the TV was off air today around 10am today thursday 11/10/2018 as myself and my neighbours TVs had no pictures for a long time and our aerials and TVs are tuned to heathfield transmitter. We live at 7 Waterside Mews Maidstone ME18 5AB Thank You.

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kevin john hicks's 4 posts US flag

kevin's: K's Freeview map K's terrain plot K's frequency data K's Freeview Detailed Coverage

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StevensOnln1

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

4:50 PM

kevin john hicks: The for your postcode suggests that it's more likely you would be using either or rather than . There are no recent faults or work showing for any of those transmitters.

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StevensOnln1's 3,570 posts US flag

T

Tom peters
11:30 AM

We are tuned to and it was down for a fews hours both yesterday and today. Usual we get 10 for strength and 10 for signal condition and during these blackouts they were both 0. It's been happening a fair bit recently affecting our whole area.

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Tom peters's 1 post US flag

S

StevensOnln1

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

2:26 PM

Tom peters: If the had been down for several hours there would be many more people complaining, but since only one other person has posted in the last few days it's almost certainly something at your end. If you are getting a strength of 10 out of 10 then your tuner may well be being overloaded and unable to cope with any slight increase in received signal strength due to the weather conditions etc. Try using an attenuator to reduce the signal strength a bit. Another possibility is that some source of local electrical is wiping out the wanted signals when the item causing the interference is switched on.

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StevensOnln1's 3,570 posts US flag

Transmitter engineering