Full Freeview on the Lancaster (Lancashire, England) transmitter
 | Google Streetview |  | Google map |  | Bing map |  | Google Earth |  | 54.089,-2.781 or 54°5'21"N 2°46'52"W |  | LA5 8AF |
The symbol shows the location of the Lancaster (Lancashire, England) transmitter which serves 52,000 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 Lancaster (Lancashire, England) mast?
Lancaster transmitter - Lancaster transmitter: Possible effect on TV reception week commencing 02/12/2024 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 Lancaster (Lancashire, 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 Lancaster 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 Lancaster (Lancashire, 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 Lancaster transmitter?
BBC North West Tonight 3.1m homes 11.8%
from Salford M50 2QH, 76km south-southeast (155°)
to BBC North West region - 92 masts.
ITV Granada Reports 3.1m homes 11.6%
from Salford M50 2EQ, 75km south-southeast (155°)
to ITV Granada region - 80 masts.
Are there any self-help relays?
| Abbeystead | Active deflector | 10 km SE Lancaster | 30 homes School |
How will the Lancaster (Lancashire, England) transmission frequencies change over time?
| 1984-97 | 1997-98 | 1998-2009 | 2009-13 | 30 Mar 2018 | |||||
| A K T | A K T | A K T | A K T | A K T | |||||
| C21 | C4waves | C4waves | C4waves | +BBCB | BBCB | ||||
| C22 | +ArqB | ArqB | |||||||
| C24 | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | -D3+4 | D3+4 | ||||
| C25 | +SDN | SDN | |||||||
| C27 | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | -BBCA | BBCA | ||||
| C28 | +ArqA | ArqA | |||||||
| C30 | _local | _local | |||||||
| C31 | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBC1waves |
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 Nov 09 and 2 Dec 09.
How do the old analogue and currrent digital signal levels compare?
| Analogue 1-4 | 10kW | |
| SDN, ARQA, ARQB, BBCA, D3+4, BBCB | (-7dB) 2kW | |
| Mux 1*, Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*, Mux C*, Mux D* | (-17dB) 200W |
Local transmitter maps
Lancaster Freeview Lancaster DAB Lancaster AM/FM Winter Hill TV region BBC North West GranadaWhich companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Winter Hill transmitter area
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Is the transmitter output the same in all directions?
Radiation patterns withheldSaturday, 2 February 2013
J
Jonathan Snowden10:16 PM
Carnforth
Thanks JB38 - we are lucky to have one of the few lines of sight in Arnside to the Kellett transmitter. My installation was put in about four years ago, with a high gain aerial and amplifier, and even in the days of the transmitter only being 200W, I could receive all of the freeview channels. My boxes can see a signal on channel 25, which like the others registers a good to very good carrier signal. However, UNLIKE the others, channel 25 now registers no signal QUALITY at all. This is very strange, as the others are all showing a good to very good signal AND signal quality. The four HD channels bring in rock steady reception on my £19 Tesco HD Box (no frills here) so I am still scratching my head a bit. None of the wiring has been changed, all other boxes are working as they did, but they ALL register the same problem with channel 25. By the way - do you know what this placeholder is doing for Dave ja vu on 791?
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Jonathan's: mapJ's Freeview map terrainJ's terrain plot wavesJ's frequency data J's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Jonathan Snowden: There is a predication for "poor" of Caldbeck's PSB1 which also broadcasts on C25. Could this be the culprit?
Caldbeck is in exactly the opposite direction as Lancaster so you need an aerial with a good reflector (if it's a yagi).
The high-gain aerial should be a Group A one as wideband yagis drop off on Group A channels and hence have less directivity:
Gain (curves), Again
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Sunday, 3 February 2013
J
jb389:28 AM
Jonathan Snowden: Well should you be fortunate enough to be located in a favourable position to receive Freeview from Lancaster then some other factor must be applying, and so what Dave Lindsay has mentioned just might be a possible factor as Caldbeck is indeed at a 180 degree bearing from Lancaster, and in many cases the level of reception from the rear of an aerial is found to be only slightly down to that of when the aerial is pointing directly at the transmitter.
That said though, if Caldbeck's predicted coverage map is blown up there are no traces whatsoever of the signal from that source even as high up as Keswick let alone anywhere remotely in your area, however the possibility always applies that if Caldbeck's Ch25 is involved then its maybe purely through signal reflection such as from a hillside etc due to the seasonal changes in the terrain, and although Caldbeck radiates in the horizontal polarity compared to Lancaster's vertical when dealing with a reflected signal this factor does not to a certain extent hold the same importance.
This is really type of situation where people with loft aerial's have a decided advantage, as should they be able to access their loft they can leave the TV or box on the signal checking screen and slowly turn the aerial around 360 degrees whilst observing the quality indicator and noting the angle that gives the best quality, as quality always has priority over strength.
Of course if you are receiving Ch25 at roughly the same signal strength levels as Lancaster's other muxes then its maybe just the case that the signal quality is being corrupted by something more local, this being where it always saves a lot of time by simply making an enquiry elsewhere (but not too far away) to find out what the situation is at the other location, "if" that is the household at that location is also able to receive Freeview from Lancaster, and should it be able to but with the same Ch25 problem as your own then there really isn't anything that can be done about the situation as its outwith your control.
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Jonathan Snowden: If you have another aerial pointing at Kendal transmitter, so as to give you the 'right' BBC and ITV regions, and you have the feed combined with that of the one pointing at Lancaster, then use a diplexer rather than an unfiltered splitter in reverse.
The diplexer prevents the Kendal aerial providing any signal on Lancaster's channels and vice versa.
Clearly, if you have an unfiltered splitter to combine them, then this could perhaps be the source of difficulty picking up C25.
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J
jb381:28 PM
Dave Lindsay / (Jonathan Snowden): Although the diplexer idea might well result in being able to view the correct ITV regional programmes for the Arnside area but though it would not make any difference to the situation concerning Ch25, and with this being basically because that "if" Caldbeck's Ch25 is the source of the problem by being picked up on the rear of the Lancaster facing aerial then nothing that can be done is likely to change this situation except by "possibly" trying an alternative aerial position, the highlighting on possibly being because success is by no means certain and with my opinion being that in this situation it wont be.
Jonathan Snowden: Regarding the issue of possible reception from Caldbeck, which I have to say was obviously thought about when the frequencies to use were being decided upon hence why both Caldbeck and Lancaster have offsets of either + or - on their frequencies and due to the fact of five of Caldbeck's frequencies clashing with Lancaster's, although its only two that are of any concern and namely Ch25 and Ch28 as the others (Ch27 / Ch24 / Ch22) are aimed at the Scottish region.
However you can easily test if anything is actually being received from Caldbeck by once again using the manual tuning menu on one of your various devices (pref one with quality indication) and entering Calbeck's Ch26 (ArqA) to see if anything is being indicated as well as what level, then change the channel to Caldbecks Ch29 (ArqB) and likewise noting what's seen, giving an update on results.
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J
Jonathan Snowden1:42 PM
Carnforth
Thanks everyone - that will give me a lot to go on. I'm not sure about Caldbeck, as I can't seem to register any of its other MUXs, so I don't think it is the problem. Different boxes in the house have regularly been foxed by transmissions from the Isle of Man, and one decided to display the listings details for two local Manchester freeview channels a while back (Channel M? I think?). We do have sky in three rooms, so it's not like I can't watch the missing freeview channels at all, just a pain that they were working perfectly and then vanished. Never mind. As for the "correct" region, I simply do not understand why ITV didn't put Granada right up the West Coast to the Borders when it had the chance - we are after all in the North WEST. Living so close to Lancaster, I'm not remotely interested in goings on in Newcastle. All this technology, and they don't care enough to sort things out. Another reason to point the aerial at Lancaster is that we woollybacks in the sticks do actually buy products advertised on TV, therefore half a freeview with the news from the other side of the country is NOT good enough! Thanks again for all your comments. I will go through them all again and see what I can find out about the sudden death of Ch25.
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Jonathan's: mapJ's Freeview map terrainJ's terrain plot wavesJ's frequency data J's Freeview Detailed Coverage
J
jb388:00 PM
Jonathan Snowden: Yes, as I would be interested in your findings as I do not really feel that you are receiving anything from Caldbeck but still check as was mentioned, one little point though, now that you have mentioned that you also have Sky TV make sure that the boxes RF modulator is not set on Ch25 as that would wipe out reception, its always best to keep these modulators up in the 63+ range of channels.
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Monday, 4 February 2013
J
jb388:07 AM
Jonathan Snowden: Regarding my reference to the Sky box, if you are using this in the standard way of feeding the normal aerial into it and then distributing its RF modulators output along with the Freeview signal to the other rooms in your house, then try taking the box out of the equation altogether by linking the aerial input and output coax's together, this followed by carrying out a Ch25 manual tune test.
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Tuesday, 5 February 2013
J
Jonathan Snowden2:04 PM
Carnforth
The tv aerial does not go through the sky box at all. It splits at the aerial, with one feed to TVs at the back of the house, and the other to TVs at the front. It goes through a TELEVES amplifier when it enters the house. Without this, no signal is received at all. In the last couple of days Channel 25 has started to show a SIGNAL quality of "VERY GOOD" when you first tune it, but by the time you press the button to scan for freeview channels, it has returned to "NONE". The carrier quality remains at good to very good, and seems very stable. Busy couple of weeks coming up, so I don't know how much messing about with freeview I will have the chance to do.
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Jonathan's: mapJ's Freeview map terrainJ's terrain plot wavesJ's frequency data J's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Monday, 15 April 2013
D
David Banks8:41 PM
Cannot get anything related to BBC at all since 10th April - this is with an indoor arial. Before 10th April I had no problems at all
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