Full Freeview on the Ridge Hill (County of Herefordshire, England) transmitter
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The symbol shows the location of the Ridge Hill (County of Herefordshire, England) transmitter which serves 270,000 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 Ridge Hill (County of Herefordshire, England) mast?
Ridge Hill transmitter - Ridge Hill transmitter: Possible effect on TV reception week commencing 27/11/2023 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)
Which Freeview channels does the Ridge Hill 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)
Which BBC and ITV regional news can I watch from the Ridge Hill transmitter?
BBC Midlands Today 2.9m homes 10.9%
from Birmingham B1 1RF, 69km northeast (39°)
to BBC West Midlands region - 66 masts.
ITV Central News 2.9m homes 10.9%
from Birmingham B1 2JT, 69km northeast (39°)
to ITV Central (West) region - 65 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 80% evening news is shared with Central (East)
Are there any self-help relays?
| Whitton | Transposer | 35 km NW Hereford | 40 homes |
How will the Ridge Hill (County of Herefordshire, England) transmission frequencies change over time?
| 1968-80s | 1984-97 | 1997-98 | 1998-2011 | 2011-13 | 1 Mar 2018 | ||||
| VHF | A K T | A K T | A K T | W T | W T | ||||
| C6 | ITVwaves | ||||||||
| C21 | +SDN | SDN | |||||||
| C22 | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | +BBCB | BBCB | ||||
| C24 | ArqA | ArqA | |||||||
| C25 | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | D3+4 | D3+4 | ||||
| C27 | ArqB | ArqB | |||||||
| C28 | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBCA | BBCA | ||||
| C29 | D3+4 | ||||||||
| C30 | _local | ||||||||
| C32 | C4waves | C4waves | C4waves | com7 | |||||
| C34 | com8 | ||||||||
| C35 | C5waves | C5waves | |||||||
| C51tv_off | _local | _local | |||||||
| C55tv_off | com7tv_off | ||||||||
| C56tv_off | COM8tv_off |
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 6 Apr 11 and 20 Apr 11.
How do the old analogue and currrent digital signal levels compare?
| Analogue 1-5 | 100kW | |
| BBCA, D3+4, PSB2 iw, BBCB | (-7dB) 20kW | |
| com7 | (-9.8dB) 10.5kW | |
| SDN, ARQA, ARQB | (-10dB) 10kW | |
| com8 | (-10.1dB) 9.8kW | |
| Mux 1*, Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*, Mux C*, Mux D* | (-17dB) 2kW |
Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Ridge Hill transmitter area
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Is the transmitter output the same in all directions?
Radiation patterns withheldWednesday, 12 January 2011
M
Mike5:43 PM
Cheltenham
I live in Cheltenham and at present seem only able to get ITV Central evening news rather than ITV West. I checked for the Ridgehill ITV HTV transmitter and that seems even after April 20 to offer a weak transmission.
How after April 20 will Cheltenham viewers be able to see ITV West?
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Mike's: mapM's Freeview map terrainM's terrain plot wavesM's frequency data M's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Thursday, 13 January 2011
Mike: ITV West will be carried on a separate multiplex on C29 at Ridge Hill. Ridge Hill (HTV West) digital switchover date | ukfree.tv - independent free digital TV advice .
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C
Chris Jefferies1:35 PM
If you live in North Gloucestershire and are fed up with seeing no local news from BBC Midlands then please complain to the BBC at gloucestershire@bbc.co.uk. For several years this area has been covered by both ITV West and BBC West but only ITV West will be transmitted from Ridge Hill after DSO in April. If enough people complain perhaps the BBC will do something!
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T
Tony Wells10:26 PM
I live in Cheltenham with my antenna pointing towards Ridge Hill and I can't get ITV or Channel Four channels had this problem since yesterday (12/01/11).
BBC works okay but the signal is weak with a lot of interference.
Any reports of any problems..?
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Friday, 14 January 2011
Tony Wells: No, there are no problems reported. Please can you see Freeview reception has changed? | ukfree.tv - independent free digital TV advice .
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Saturday, 15 January 2011
DaveCheltenham
9:06 AM
Blakeney
9:06 AM
Blakeney
Tony - I had the same problem about 3 weeks ago on the same multiplex; it lasted about 2 days. Looked for any Tx problems but none reported so put it down to some fairly local interference. I live in the Old Bath Road area.
Regards
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DaveCheltenham's: mapD's Freeview map terrainD's terrain plot wavesD's frequency data D's Freeview Detailed Coverage
B
Bagpuss6:12 PM
Seems to be a widespread issue on MUX2 (ITV1, C4 et al), Ridge Hill transmitter, mostly daytime/early evening and then settles down. Loss of quality, not strength - 2 decoders here fail to pull anything, the third works but with intermittent pixellation.
It's not an issue on anyone's particular installation since it spreads across Worcestershire (where I am) into Gloucestershire (where the poster above is) and affects other people I know. No work is reported that I can see, but there's clearly something afoot... I presume DSO-related but simply not being mentioned?
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Monday, 17 January 2011
DaveCheltenham
9:20 AM
Blakeney
9:20 AM
Blakeney
Briantist - I have been reliant on Ridge Hill for 21 years now and used to be one of the feedbacks to the control centre at Emily Moor for ITV and Evesham for BBC. The performance record over the years for analogue has been appalling with one fault, (black line flashing) on ITV lasting for 18 months. After a lot of complaints, they eventually traced it to one of the 2 microwave links between Bristol and Ridge Hill; the other hop being from Abingdon to Bristol. Part of the problem was the central monitoring equipment did not show the subtle/intermittent faults.
Channel 4 also had problems with sound hum and this was eventually traced to on one of the receivers, as it relayed Sutton Coldfield. This lasted for about 3 months. The BBC reserve receivers were pointing to Mendip so at a time of high pressure, the local midlands news could flip over to BBC West from Bristol.
The other thing about analogue Ridge Hill was that changeover to the reserve transmitter gave about a 30 second break. My neighbour who worked for EMI was part of the design and build team for the original UHF aerials at Ridge Hill but that is another story.
Early digital transmissions from Ridge Hill did not go well. They started at 5kW for the BBC but later reduced to 2kW much to the anger of viewers who could not receive the transmissions at the reduced power or had to upgrade their aerial.
As from the 6th/20th April with the new transmitters, let's hope all the problems are in the past; we shall see.
Regards
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DaveCheltenham's: mapD's Freeview map terrainD's terrain plot wavesD's frequency data D's Freeview Detailed Coverage
DaveCheltenham: I'm sure everything will be fine by 20th April.
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