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Full Freeview on the Mendip (Somerset, England) transmitter

first published this on - UK Free TV
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The symbol shows the location of the Mendip (Somerset, England) transmitter which serves 720,000 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 Mendip (Somerset, England) mast?

Mendip transmitter - Mendip 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 Mendip 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
C32 (562.0MHz)591mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
1 BBC One (SD) West, 2 BBC Two England, 9 BBC Four, 23 BBC Three, 201 CBBC, 202 CBeebies, 231 BBC News, 232 BBC Parliament, plus 17 others

PSB2
D3+4
 H max
C34 (578.0MHz)591mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
3 ITV 1 (SD) (West), 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 (West),

PSB3
BBCB
 H max
C35 (586.0MHz)591mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD West, 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

COM4
SDN
 H max
C48 (690.0MHz)591mDTG-8100,000W
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 max
C33 (570.0MHz)591mDTG-8100,000W
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 max
C36 (594.0MHz)591mDTG-8100,000W
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

LBS
 H -10dB
C30 (546.0MHz)591mDTG-1210,000W
Channel icons
from 22nd September 2014: 7 Made in Bristol,

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 Mendip transmitter?

regional news image
BBC Points West 0.9m homes 3.4%
from Bristol BS8 2LR, 25km north (3°)
to BBC West region - 60 masts.
regional news image
ITV West Country News (East) 0.9m homes 3.4%
from Bristol BS4 3HG, 23km north (11°)
to ITV West region - 61 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 50% evening news is shared with West Country (West)

Are there any self-help relays?

CheddarTransposer15 km E Weston-super-Mare1674 homes
LuccombeActive deflector6 km w Minehead38 homes

How will the Mendip (Somerset, England) transmission frequencies change over time?

1984-971997-981998-20102010-132013-182013-1727 Feb 2018
C/D EEEC/D EC/D E TW TW T
C30_local
C32BBCA
C33com7com7
C34D3+4
C35com8com8
C36ArqB
C37C5wavesC5waves
C48SDNSDNSDNSDN
C49tv_off BBCABBCA
C51tv_offLBSLBS
C52tv_offArqBArqBArqB
C54tv_offC4wavesC4wavesC4wavesD3+4D3+4D3+4
C55tv_offcom7tv_off
C56tv_offArqAArqAArqACOM8tv_off
C58tv_offBBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBCBBBCBBBCB
C61ITVwavesITVwavesITVwavesBBCA
C64BBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBC2waves

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 24 Mar 10 and 7 Apr 10.

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

Analogue 1-4 500kW
Analogue 5(-6dB) 126kW
SDN, ARQA, ARQB, BBCA, D3+4, BBCB(-7dB) 100kW
com7(-8.4dB) 72.4kW
com8(-8.6dB) 69.1kW
Mux 1*, Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*, Mux C*, Mux D*, LBS(-17dB) 10kW

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

Jan 1958-Jul 1968Television Wales and the West
Jul 1968-Feb 2004Harlech Television
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. Mendip 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
Sunday, 30 October 2011
P
paul
11:54 AM

Forgot to say in my last post, the TV in the kitchen which is running of a rubbish indoor Ariel with a booster picks up com 5 & 6 fine yet the outdoor aerial has rubbish reception 99% of the time since the last retune!

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paul's 7 posts GB flag
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

12:44 PM

paul: What you have reported can indicate the possibility of two different reasons for your problem. The first being that if you can accurately associate windy days with signal fluctuations, then the signal you are receiving is likely to be travelling over (or through) an area with trees, something which nearly always causes erratic reception, this of course is assuming that its not your outdoor aerial that is swaying about.

The second point is if you reside in an area whereby signals can be received from two sources, as if so then the two TV's might not have been tuned to the same transmitter, this being quite a commonly experienced problem for some, not being able to check on the chances of this happening without knowledge of your post code.

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jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
Monday, 31 October 2011
J
John
12:57 PM

This isn't a problem as such (despite the recent messing around the channels I can still get a good signal from Mendip!) but I need a new freeview box. Tesco are selling a Dion box with the new Channel zero service on it and I was wondering firstly whether that service is actually active from Mendip (it appears to be on Channel 306 but my current equipment just shows a blank screen). Secondly, has anyone got any good or bad feedback on Dion boxes. Any advice gratefully received - thanks.

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John's 1 post EU flag
Briantist
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

1:48 PM

John: Channel Zero appears on, would you believe, Channel Zero. You press "0" to get to it.

(I actually have a beta version of Channel Zero that has the BBC iPlayer on it too).

You need to be able to receive Channel 306, but this only works overnight to feed the box with services, you don't watch it directly.

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Briantist's 38,915 posts GB flag
Wednesday, 2 November 2011
P
Paul
11:33 AM

@jb38, both tv's are recieving their signal from mendip & while the tree comment is valid, both ariels are pointing at the same trees, although at different heights obvisouly as the indoor ariel in the kitchen is near ground level, yet it picks up the signal just fine, you would have thought it would be the other way round with the outdoor aerial getting the perfect reception.

Actually I think this tree thing is just an excuse aerial fitters use, the fact that the indoor aerial is pointing at alot more trees than the outdoor one yet it has an excellent signal on all muxes from mendip.

The poor recpetion on the outdoor aerial is now happening whether it's windy, or not, it's just poor 99% of the time now, will just have to wait til the end of march when it should return to normal

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Paul's 7 posts GB flag
Thursday, 3 November 2011
J
Jeff Eastmond
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

12:39 PM
Clevedon

@John (31/10) - I have a dual-scart Dion box from Tesco on a small TV in a bedroom - quality is fair, scanning both auto and manual good - I don't think the quality is good enough for a large Full HD FS TV, but YMMV - only downside I've found is you can't switch off the automatic search for software update and more often than not this hangs and you have to reboot the unit...

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Jeff Eastmond's 36 posts GB flag
Jeff's: mapJ's Freeview map terrainJ's terrain plot wavesJ's frequency data J's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Thursday, 10 November 2011
D
Dave
6:58 AM
Bath

Hi Paul
In Bath where I operate its often the way, locations like Westfield pk south is a typical example looking into trees and a hill which on the other side looks across to the mendips, If you go chimney hight or even add another 12ft to it your wasting your time due to season changes.
If you walk along that road and see 14 element 12db forward gain aerials, back end mounted directly into a stub mount with 15db masthead amplifier,they are mounted half way up between the top and bottom front windows, some to the left others just above garage doors, houses without visable aerials are mounted in roof spaces with aerials just tucked under the eves, When doing the field checks for location your playing with inches both in hight and width, none todate that I have done above gutter level, once done correctly theres no comeback.
Most systems I installed along there are run into a balanced TV distribution systems using TX100LSF throughout.
The reason why I dont use larger higher gain aerials like the Quad 11 in those circumstances is because they would look just horrible in such a lovely lacation.

I would guess in your situation that your downstairs Aerial is working ok due to either you found a hole within the trees or your getting a good reliable reflection from the lower part of the trees or vally depending on your situation.
I wouldnt blame to much the company that Installed your roof Aerial it was proberly down to lack of experience in your particular location.
You have to bare in mind I only operate in Bath and have done so for the last 40years so of course I have advantage over the rest.
And may I add it doesnt depend on wether they have been on these few week courses and having the couple of logos stamped on there vans to portray being experts. alot of these so called experts need experience on the field with riggers that have been on the go along time and know the pit falls.
You know analog reception is oviously a different theory to digital,(we all know that even joe public)
I can honestly say that since digital reception life on the Aerial side of things has got easer.
For instances we have know more ghosting problems which in the past was a night mare in and around are city Hence the grid type aerial pictured above, we used thousands of them, infact still got one on my house even today works fine.
We also found doubleing up stright 18s and adjusting the distance between them worked in ghosty locations that had also lack of signal.
Far as the Balun, theres nothing new about that if hunting for that extra mile of signal we used to make them out of 2 cut lenths of coax, alot of the yagi types had them fitted anyway.
Meter wise we used a coverted portable TV added amlifier which was driven stright from the agc circuit, still use it to this day to set up security cameras.
No good really just having a bought meter because couldnt detect ghosting.

These days with Digital in most cases

If you have line of site and can use the meter which is by know means rocket science, just get good signal to noise ratio and keep your Bit error rates min and of course that much lacking in some common sense thingy lol
If you cant get terestrial then you got freesat, how more easer can it ever get
its happy days for everyone.
Food for thought:
I served 5 years apprentice in the Radio TV trade plus umpteen manufacture courses and even with those skills stick me in a fringe signal location say in swindon with a Aerial installer of 40 years under his belt with that location he would leave me standing know doubt.

Regards



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Dave's 1 post GB flag
Dave's: mapD's Freeview map terrainD's terrain plot wavesD's frequency data D's Freeview Detailed Coverage
M
Mike
10:25 AM

Why have all my channels become mixed up? This happened a month ago. I get bbc1 to about itv2 and then I loose the channels due to no signal from itv2 (inclusive)on. I then have to go to 800 and something to get quest which used to be on 38. My BBC1 is now Midlands and to get West I also have to go to 810. I retuned using a Bristol postcode and it is still the same. The upstairs tv which is on the same aerial is fine. Sorry about some vagueness in the accuracy of the numbers, but I became so fed up that I have switched over to freesat for the time being. Also when is com 5 and com 6 power going to increase? Thank you.

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Mike's 3 posts GB flag
Friday, 11 November 2011
P
Paul
12:09 AM

Hi Dave,

All this about trees effecting signal etc, those trees have always been there, there still there now but as I type this I have perfect reception on com 5 & 6 again, i really have no clue why it's fine one day then lousy for the next few, prior to the last retune at the end of september I never had any problems with reception & again, those trees were always there!

Ah well, I have my sky box anyway to watch the channels when they're unviewable on freeview but I hope once the next change happens at the end of march that perhaps my freeview reception will go back to what it was before the september changes.

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Paul's 7 posts GB flag
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