Full Freeview on the Heathfield (East Sussex, England) transmitter
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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 04/11/2024 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)
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 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.
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 | |||||
| C49tv_off | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | D3+4 | D3+4 | D3+4 | |||
| C52tv_off | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBCA | BBCA | BBCA | |||
| C64 | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | ||||||
| C67 | 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 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 |
Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Heathfield transmitter area
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Is the transmitter output the same in all directions?
Radiation patterns withheldTuesday, 7 June 2016
N
Neil P4:14 PM
On out HD Tv for the last 2 days we are unable to watch ITV or ITV+1.
We can watch it through Freeview and on an alternative TV upstairs.
Has there been any disruption on those 2 channels last 2 days?
Thanks
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R
Richard Cooper4:55 PM
Norwich
Neil P: Hi NThere has been general disruption to Freeview or DTT reception since Sunday night owing to high atmospheric pressure causing co-channel interference (CCI) to the extent that some viewers cannot view any channels at all! The main thing to do is to wait until the current high pressure area over the UK subsides or moves away. The worst thing you can do under these conditions is a full retune because your tv receiver will forget all of the channels and frequencies stored in it. Everything should be back to normal in a few days. Richard, Norwich.
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Richard's: mapR's Freeview map terrainR's terrain plot wavesR's frequency data R's Freeview Detailed Coverage
K
KMJ,Derby6:11 PM
Neil P: if you are still receiving the services on a TV upstairs it suggests that the HD receiver is either tuned to a different transmitter for reception of ITV and ITV+ or, if a different aerial is in use, the aerial on the upstairs TV is positioned more favourably for reception of the PSB2 multiplex. Is the HD receiver also failing to receive Channel 4, C5, ITV2 etc? If these services are still present and correct check the 800s of the channel list for working variants of ITV and ITV+ as there are occasions when after viewers have selected a particular choice of region in the tuning menu, the tuner stores services for that region in LCN positions in the channel list when it identifies a regional variation but stores national services on a 'first example found in the scan' or 'strongest signal available' basis.
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Saturday, 11 June 2016
Mark A
10:42 AM
10:42 AM
BBC local radio stations added on 9/06/2016
BBC Radio Sussex EPG 720 (PSB1/BBCA)
BBC Radio London EPG 721
BBC Radio Surrey EPG 722
BBC Radio Essex EPG 734
(Posted originally on one of Heathfields relays page, so applies to Heathfield and all of its relays)
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Richard Cooper10:56 AM
Norwich
Mark A: Hi, Mark. It may be of interest to some viewers of this ukfree.tv site that the BBC have recently announced that other regions in addition to your region will be getting more BBC Local radio via Freeview from Tuesday, here in the East we got ours n Monday the 6th. Here's the link:
BBC - Launching BBC Local Radio stations onto Freeview - Help Receiving TV and Radio
Regards, Richard, Norwich.
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Richard's: mapR's Freeview map terrainR's terrain plot wavesR's frequency data R's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Richard Cooper: We've been looking forward to this for over 2 years. Better later than never - Are we going to get BBC local radio on Freeview in England?
However, there need to be some database and code changes to implement the overlaps in terms of coverage and LCNs. I hope to have them done by this weekend.
Thanks for the link..
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Wednesday, 6 July 2016
A
Alan Goss8:54 PM
I have 3 TV's in the house (different makes), working off a common amplifier with the aerial directed to Heathfield. It has worked fine for a number of years. Yesterday evening (5/7/16) only BBC was working properly, all other channels pixelated and broken with squeaks and noises on all TV's. I assumed it was a temporary problem. It was the same this evening so I checked the amplifier, which appeared OK, and tried retuning the sets. This appears to have generally cured the pixellation (although there is still odd random events) but I now do not have HD reception on any TV. They report 'no programme' when changing to HD channels. Has the signal from Heathfield changed?
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Thursday, 7 July 2016
M
MikeB12:23 AM
Alan Goss: Why would the signal have changed? There might be low power for work, but there is no sign of it. Check your signal strength - its almost certainly too low because of a problem with your aerial system.
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Richard Cooper8:41 AM
Norwich
Alan Goss: Hi, Alan. A visual banner supporting the caption, 'no programme' means exactly the same as 'no signal'; i.e. a signal strength below that required for the electronics inside to decode into a renderable picture and uninterrupted audio. In other words, your tvs are suffering from the 'digital cliff' effect. The only explanation other than issues with the tvs themselves is that the tvs are simply not being fed a sufficiently strong signal from your aerial via your distribution amplifier and so you need to check: condition, orientation and polarisation of the aerial on your roof or chimney pot, condition of the aerial cabling from the aerial to the distribution amplifier and the connections, whether the distribution amplifier is still actually working properly, the leads and connections between the outputs of the distribution amplifier and your three television sets. If you take the distribution amplifier out of the equation, not only must you unplug it from the mains, but you must also disconnect it from the aerial and provide direct feeds from the aerial to the three tvs via a three-way splitter. Remember that a non-functioning distribution amplifier acts as a signal 'attenuator', diminishing the signal instead of amplifying it! Richard, Norwich.
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Richard's: mapR's Freeview map terrainR's terrain plot wavesR's frequency data R's Freeview Detailed Coverage
MikeP
1:32 PM
1:32 PM
Alan Goss:
Further to that said by Richard and MikeB, another factor to consider is whether you have too much signals. That tends rto give the same effect as too little. However, as you are getting the same effect on three different makes of TV, therefore having three different tuner sensitivities, it may not be relevant. The only way to check is, as suggested by MikeB, to check the signal strength reported by the three TV sets.
Ideally, for SD reception the strength should be between 60% and 80% or so. For HD reception, it varies between makes but generally you need at least 60% and not more than 85% - though it does depend on the set.
When you make your signal strength checks note down the values for each of the available multiplexes as shown on all three sets. They may well vary a bit as the software used differs. Then let us know what values you've recorded. That may help give us more clues as to the cause.
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