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Full Freeview on the Mendip (Somerset, England) transmitter

first published this on - UK Free TV
sa_streetviewGoogle Streetviewsa_gmapsGoogle mapsa_bingBing mapsa_gearthGoogle Earthsa_gps51.237,-2.626 or 51°14'12"N 2°37'33"Wsa_postcodeBA5 3LB

 

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 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 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), 71 That’s 60s,

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 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
C33 (570.0MHz)591mDTG-8100,000W
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
C36 (594.0MHz)591mDTG-8100,000W
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

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
Tuesday, 2 April 2013
Dave Lindsay
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

10:08 PM

Peter: You are yet another person reporting issues with PSB1 (BBC) and COM4 (SDN).

Was SDN fine before the change?

Bizman: If you are right, then I wonder could the issue be being exacerbated by the two channels being adjacent?

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Dave Lindsay's 5,724 posts GB flag
S
Sue B
11:16 PM
Wells

Since 'retuning' our TV on 27th April, we have lost BBC 'Points West' and gained 'Spotlight', which is of absolutely no interest!

Have manual tuned C58 and the other BBC channel. C58 didn't exist and other Mendip related channel signals were very poor.

I'm pretty certain that we live south west of the Mendip transmitter. Aerial is in roof space - we can't change it's direction.

Would appreciate advice (although am not hopeful after reading all these comments!).

It's a total mess IMHO!

link to this comment
Sue B's 2 posts GB flag
Sue's: mapS's Freeview map terrainS's terrain plot wavesS's frequency data S's Freeview Detailed Coverage
S
Sue B
11:20 PM
Wells

Oh, by the way, there are numerous reports of lost channel signals in your comments section. However, your website states that there isn't a problem with the Mendip transmitter coverage ... which there obviously is!

Why is this the case?

link to this comment
Sue B's 2 posts GB flag
Sue's: mapS's Freeview map terrainS's terrain plot wavesS's frequency data S's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Dave Lindsay
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

11:37 PM

Sue B: This website is "independent" of broadcasters, as it states in the titlebar of every page.

The message at the top does NOT say that there are no faults; it says that there are no REPORTED faults. This is still the case.

If you are receiving Spotlight then you cannot be tuned to Mendip, for BBC One, at least. You are probably tuned to Stockland Hill on C26. Unplug your aerial for the first 50% of the scan and it should miss out scanning of Stockland's channels.

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Dave Lindsay's 5,724 posts GB flag
Wednesday, 3 April 2013
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

12:04 AM

Bizman: Although I fully appreciate what you are meaning, but though I very much doubt if a "boost free" signal being received from Mendip @ 26 miles away would be capable of overloading a tuner no matter what level might be indicated on a TV or boxes strength / quality scale, unless that is the levels were being viewed on a Humax devices indicator as these are much more in line with reality rather than the grossly enhanced indications seen on some equipment, such as for example Panasonic TV's albeit that these are fitted with top tuners.


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jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
J
John Crabb
12:31 AM
Chard

The general complaint on these posts is the loss of BBC channels. It was my experience too. Logically, it was bound to be these channels that would have problems as they are the only ones that are now being transmitted at a different frequency; everything else has stayed the same I believe.

Despite the large number of unhappy people conributing to this site, the fact seems to be that the vast majority have survived the retuning without any problems. This suggests that the problem is not with the transmitter. I think the problems arise because the new frequency that we are all now trying to retune to is causing issues with our particular receiver set up. The fact that everything was fine before does not indicate that our receiver is blameless, it just shows that it managed to receive C61 but has problems with C49.

This means that we have to try ways of coaxing our receiver arrangements to behave properly on the new frequency. Once you start fiddling with seemingly trivial things you can be surprised by the results. In my case I ended up replacing the aerial lead that passes between my HDD recorder and my TV with a shorter one that I made up. This took me from zero C49 to quality 90%.

The article on "single channel interference" on this site is well worth reading carefully.

link to this comment
John Crabb's 10 posts GB flag
John's: mapJ's Freeview map terrainJ's terrain plot wavesJ's frequency data J's Freeview Detailed Coverage
C
Colin
5:53 PM

On the West Somerset coast we can have a problem when retuning because Wenvoe is line of sight across the Bristol Channel.This means that even though the aerial is pointing at Mendip sometimes we pickup the Welsh channels.

However I was very pleased that this time the retunes that I did were successful and BBC West is received.

So I must agree with John Crabb and suspect that the problems are at the receiving end and not at the transmitter.

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Colin's 20 posts GB flag
Michael Perry
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

6:34 PM

We are north east of Mendip, sitting on a hill above Calne, Wiltshire. All was well until Wednesday 27th March 2013. Now no BBC services at all but all others OK. BBCA multiplex has n=moved from Ch61 to Ch49 but that shouldn't make much difference after a retune. Humax retuned perfectly and all programmes available, but Hauppauge Nova-T stick in laptop has no BBC services at all. They don't know why.

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Michael Perry's 3,056 posts GB flag
Dave Lindsay
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

6:38 PM

Michael Perry: The only thing I can say is that you are not alone!

Out of interest, do you know if your reception of C48 (COM4: ITV3 etc) degraded when the change happened? Some people have difficulty with this now when they didn't before.

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Dave Lindsay's 5,724 posts GB flag
Michael Perry
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

6:40 PM

To John Crabb
There is still a multiplex at Ch 48 on Mendip so if that is being received well then Ch49 should be as well. The problem you appear to have had is due to reflections within the cable that happened to resonate close to 698 MHz so shortening/lengthening the coaxial cable would change the resonance and possibly solve the problem. A well known phenomenon but us 'old' TV service men.

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Michael Perry's 3,056 posts GB flag
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