Full Freeview on the Pontop Pike (County Durham, England) transmitter

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

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54.868,-1.771 or 54°52'5"N 1°46'15"W

DH9 9AT

The symbol shows the location of the Pontop Pike (County Durham, England) transmitter which serves 700,000 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.

This transmitter has no current reported problems

The BBC and Digital UK report there are no faults or engineering work on the Pontop Pike (County Durham, England) transmitter.

Choose from three options: ■ List by multiplex ■ List by channel number ■ List by channel name

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Which Freeview channels does the Pontop Pike 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	C39 (618.0MHz)	447m	DTG-	100,000W
	1 BBC One (SD) North East and Cumbria, 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	C42 (642.0MHz)	447m	DTG-	100,000W
	3 ITV 1 (SD) (Tyne Tees), 4 Channel 4 (SD) North ads, 5 Channel 5, 6 ITV 2, 10 ITV3, 13 E4, 14 Film4, 15 Channel 4 +1 North ads, 18 More4, 26 ITV4, 28 ITVBe, 30 E4 +1, 35 ITV1 +1 (Tyne Tees), 71 That’s 60s,
PSB3 BBCB	H max	C45 (666.0MHz)	447m	DTG-	100,000W
	46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD North East and Cumbria, 102 BBC Two HD England, 103 ITV 1 HD (ITV Granada), 104 Channel 4 HD North 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 -3dB	C32 (562.0MHz)	447m	DTG-8	50,000W
	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 -3dB	C34 (578.0MHz)	447m	DTG-8	50,000W
	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 -3dB	C35 (586.0MHz)	447m	DTG-8	50,000W
	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
LNE	H -13dB	C33 (570.0MHz)	447m	DTG-12	5,000W
	from 22nd September 2014: 7 Made in Tyne and Wear,

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 Pontop Pike transmitter?

BBC Look North (Newcastle) 1.6m homes 6.0%
from Newcastle NE99 2NE, 15km northeast (42°)
to BBC North East and Cumbria region - 70 masts.

ITV Tyne Tees News 1.4m homes 5.4%
from Gateshead NE11 9SZ, 12km north-northeast (29°)
to ITV Tyne Tees region - 47 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 50% evening news is shared with Border

Are there any self-help relays?

Kieldor Dam	Active deflector		6 homes Holiday complex
Low Haber	Active deflector	West Allen Dale, 18 kn SW Hexham	caravan site
North Hartlepool	Transposer		84 homes

How will the Pontop Pike (County Durham, England) transmission frequencies change over time?

	1950s-80s	1984-97	1997-98	1998-2012	2012-13	13 Nov 2019
	VHF	C/D E	C/D E	C/D E	C/D E T	W T
C5	BBCtv_waves
C32						SDN
C33						com7
C34						com8
C35						ArqB
C39						BBCA
C42						D3+4
C45						BBCB
C49_{tv_off}					BBCB
C50_{tv_off}					SDN
C54_{tv_off}		C4_waves	C4_waves	C4_waves	D3+4
C55_{tv_off}					ArqB	com7_{tv_off}
C56_{tv_off}						LNE
C58_{tv_off}		BBC1_waves	BBC1_waves	BBC1_waves	BBCA
C59_{tv_off}					ArqA
C61		ITV_waves	ITV_waves	ITV_waves
C64		BBC2_waves	BBC2_waves	BBC2_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 12 Sep 12 and 26 Sep 12.

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

Analogue 1-4	500kW
BBCA, D3+4, BBCB	(-7dB) 100kW
SDN, ARQA, ARQB	(-10dB) 50kW
com8	(-11.6dB) 34.6kW
com7	(-11.7dB) 33.8kW
Mux 1, Mux 2, Mux A, Mux B, Mux C, Mux D	(-17dB) 10kW
LNE	(-20dB) 5kW

Local transmitter maps

Pontop Pike Freeview Pontop Pike TV region BBC North East and Cumbria Tyne Tees

Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Pontop Pike transmitter area

Jan 1959-Feb 2004	Tyne Tees Television
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. Pontop Pike 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?

M

Mr Brian JE Teasdale
10:38 AM

Why is Sony 49 unavailable from ?

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Mr Brian JE Teasdale's 1 post GB flag

S

StevensOnln1

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

11:09 AM

Mr Brian JE Teasdale: Sony and Sony Movies Classic are both carried on the , which is only available in areas with a local TV on Freeview channel 7 or 8. There is a local mux broadcast from , however I believe it is directional towards Newcasle and may not provide a strong in other directions.

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StevensOnln1's 3,680 posts GB flag

I

Ian Carrick
12:06 PM

Hi,

Configuring something called TVHeadEnd linked to an HDHomeRun for the transponders. Wondering if you can with some settings. So these are my transponders which I believe are correct:

1=618000
2=642000,
3=666000
4=562000
5=578000
6=586000
7=746000
8=754000
9=570000

What I think I need for each of these is the settings below (a to h). In brackets I have listed out the choices I have, separated by commas.

a. Bandwidth (10Mhz, 8Mhz, 7Mhz, 6Mhz, 5Mhz or 1.712Mhz)
b. Constellation (QAM/AUTO, QPSK, QAM/16, QAM/64, QAM/256)
c. Transmission (32k, 16k, 8k, 2k, 1k)
d. Guard Interval (1/32, 1/16, 1/8, 1/4, 1/128, 19/128, 19/256)
e. Hierarchy (NONE, 1, 2, 4)
. FEC High (1/2, 2/3, 3/4, 3/5, 4/5, 5/6, 7/8)
g. FEC Low (1/2, 2/3, 3/4, 3/5, 4/5, 5/6, 7/8)
h. PLP ID (free text defaults to -1)

Any help with some of the above (realise that some of those settings might not make sense) is hugely appreciated, you helped me out a while ago to get those transponders correct for DVBLink. Cheers.

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Ian Carrick's 2 posts GB flag

C

Chris.SE

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

12:52 PM

Ian Carrick:

The frequencies you've listed are correct BUT no:8 754000kHz (COM8) is no longer being transmitted, it was closed at the end of June 2020 for commercial reasons.
If you see my post on Monday, 9 November 2020 (at the top of p111 here) you'll see all the correct UHF listed for . If you hover over each of the C numbers it gives the .
Bandwidth is always 8MHz.

For the rest of the information, rather than me laboriously listing them, you'll probably be best putting your postcode in the box at Platform management | Freeview and then hover your mouse over the relevant channel numbers and it give you the transmission modes and powers.

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Chris.SE's 4,394 posts GB flag

C

Chris.SE

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

12:55 PM

Ian Carrick:

Just to add, the transmission modes and powers are listed at the top of the page but I haven't double checked that all the information is correct and up-to-date as some information on pages on this site has not been fully updated/corrected.

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Chris.SE's 4,394 posts GB flag

P

P Hanlon
5:47 PM

No transmission in Crook, Co since 13.15 and no news about the problem so we are completely in the dark.

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P Hanlon's 1 post GB flag

J

Judith Boad
6:15 PM
Washington

We have no tv at all and neither do my two neighbours I am aware that the is on fire but according to maps we are with the transmitter at Washington Tyne and Wear NE37 1NT

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Judith Boad's 1 post US flag

Judith's: J's Freeview map J's terrain plot J's frequency data J's Freeview Detailed Coverage

S

StevensOnln1

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

6:36 PM

Judith Boad: Althought is closer, is the best predicted for your postcode, so if you look at your you will probably find that it is pointing approximately South-East towards Bilsdale, hence the loss of , rather than roughly towards Pontop Pike.

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StevensOnln1's 3,680 posts GB flag

T

Tracey Iceton
12:52 PM

Hi if I point my at instead of might I be able to get a TV while the Bilsdale is out of action? Our postcode is TS21 and our aerial is in the . I had some service this morning by manually tuning to 33 which I think is Pontop Pike but it has disappeared now! Any advice really appreciated.

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Tracey Iceton's 7 posts GB flag

T

Tracey Iceton
1:06 PM

And sorry for posting three times, my iPad had a technical issues'!

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Tracey Iceton's 7 posts GB flag

Page 42

Please post a question, answer or commentIf you have Freeview reception problems before posting a question your must first do this Freeview reset procedure then see: Freeview reception has changed, Single frequency interference, and Freeview intermittent interference.

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