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 04/11/2024 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)
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 withheldTuesday, 25 April 2023
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Richard Sutton3:01 PM
By the way, C29 has now changed to carrying just two programmes, 800 ITV1 and 803 Accessible TV Guide. ITVBe and E4+1 have both vanished overnight.
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Wednesday, 26 April 2023
C
Chris.SE1:20 AM
Richard Sutton:
I wouldn't call any particular choice of transmitter necessarily a mistake. Predictions are what they are, based on typical aerial heights of 10m, but obviously cannot take into account any local obstructions like trees or tall buildings etc. and what you get on the spot can be different.
Your neighbour would need a tall pole because the terrain gives a local obstruction on the line-of-sight to Lark Stoke. However it may still have been the only option because there maybe trees or buildings on the LoS to Ridge Hill or Sutton Coldfield making the signals from them far more unreliable, have a look and see what things look like. It would still be a weaker signal than an unobstructed signal from Ridge Hill.
Out of interest, check how your aerial points (use a compass on a smart phone?). It's 253 degrees for Ridge Hill, 8 degrees for Sutton Coldfield, 101 degrees for Lark Stoke (V) but often slight tweaking is needed for optimum signal.
Try and check the interference possibilities but in view of what you've seen today, I'm suspecting the trees could be the issue. Trees can affect a narrow band of frequencies, not just by obstructing a signal but producing multipath distortions, even polarisation changes! Whist DTV is generally very good at coping with multipath, sometimes just the wrong position/distance from trees can have a serious effect, but never the less it would be a good idea to try and ensure interference isn't a likely cause.
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Thursday, 4 May 2023
R
Richard Sutton7:30 AM
Just to update this thread, it's a windy day today and the large conifer is swaying from side to side and the usual 4 channels are fine at 100% quality but the dodgy channels, C24 and C25, are both jumping up and down by 50% every second. C24 jumps between 20% and 70% quality and C25 between 0% and 50%.
I still have no idea why frequencies below 489 MHz or above 506 MHz do not seem to be affected by the tree but it would seem that I'm stuck with it unless I start aerial spinning again to try and find a better transmitter.
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C
Chris.SE12:58 PM
Richard Sutton:
Have you checked out the potential interference situation from other sources? Depending on possible sources, that can affect only a small band of frequencies.
Did you tweak the gain to try and find a happy compromise with the Quality figures?
I'm not prepared to conclude it's the trees until you can rule out other possible sources of interference, whilst I do think it's likely. As I explained trees can cause multipath reflections which can occur in a narrow band of frequencies and may only cause an issue at certain distances away. Sometimes repositioning an aerial can resolve such things, on the other hand it could create different problems.
Who owns the trees? Can you not get them trimmed or chopped down?
Whilst the Freeview predictor shows Sutton Coldfield as the only other transmitter likely to give reliable signals on all multiplexes (compass bearing 8 degrees) it can't be relied upon 100% as the local terrain and obstructions can often make a big difference as you move around the postcode.
Malvern (vertically polarised) might be another possible option as 2nd best , almost due West.
You need to look at the visible line of sight locally in the directions I mentioned in a previous post.
If you decide to reposition the aerial you need a proper professional installer who has proper signal strength measuring equipment and a spectrum analyser, that won't be especially cheap but should be able to decide on the best possible transmitter at your specific aerial position.
Failing all that, you could consider Freesat. If your set already has a built-in satellite tuner all you'd need is a dish and LNB (& cable).
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Richard Sutton4:15 PM
I'm pretty sure that the problem is the tall conifer because the wind has now dropped away almost completely and C24 is now quality about 10% +/- 5% and C25 is 15% +/- 10% and are therefore much more stable than they were a few hours ago. Everything else in the house is the same as it was this morning but the previous wild 50% swings now seem to be more under control, presumably because the tree is now barely moving.
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Wednesday, 10 May 2023
R
Richard Sutton7:22 AM
Just to update this thread again, whilst everything in my home has remained exactly the same, the wind has varied from breezy to flat calm over the last few days but C25 has been the same reception as the strong stations with a signal strength of 95% and a quality of 100%. Reception is now perfect and this is totally the opposite end of the scale from when I started this thread a week or two ago.
C24 is still breaking up badly and seems to be unchanged signal-wise but I'm not so concerned about that channel.
I would therefore reassess my previous conclusion and suggest that the reception of C25 is not being affected by the conifer tree. As nothing has changed in my house, surely the change must either be something further away which I cannot see in the line of sight between my house and the transmitter or something to do with the transmitter itself.
Because C24 is still the same as it was, I must presume that the latter is the case and that some adjustment has been made to the C25 transmitter but not the C24 transmitter. Hopefully, the same changes will be made to C24 eventually.
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Friday, 12 May 2023
C
Chris.SE3:47 AM
Richard Sutton:
I'm afraid that your assumptions and conclusions are flawed.
There's been no Planned Engineering listed for Ridge Hill in recent weeks and there's been no listed faults that I've found in this period. Therefore there would be no reason why the D3&4 multiplex would not have been transmitted correctly.
Apart from which, if there had been an unreported fault, lots more people would be complaining AND you've had this issue for a very lengthy period.
Also as previously mentioned, all 6 multiplexes are transmitted from the same antenna, albeit the PSBs are 20kW and the COMs 10kW, this makes little difference to coverage until you start getting into fringe areas.
Your location has line-of-sight to the Ridge Hill transmitter, so anything further away from you that you cannot see will have a negligible effect on received signals.
You haven't commented whether you have tweaked the amp/splitter gain down as suggested to try and optimise the Quality across the multiplexes.
If you have simply put everything back as it was, then I expect little to change over time.
You also seem to have ignored checking for any possible sources of interference that may be especially affecting C24.
Does the amp/splitter have an unused VHF input at all? If so, try putting a shorting coax plug in it to see whether that has any effect.
Assuming at the end of the day, interference is not the cause, as I previously explained, trees can cause multipath reflections which can affect a (very) narrow band of frequencies and may only cause an issue at certain distances away. So the combination of the distance of the tree from your aerial and it's physical nature might result in primarily C24 being affected.
As for alternatives, did you look at the possible line-of-sight issues for Sutton Coldfield, Malvern or Lark Stoke from your aerial location? Any large trees in the way?
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Richard Sutton8:52 AM
Oh well, after a few days of working at 100% quality, for the last two days it has degraded back to around 15% +/- 15% and is unwatchable again.
I have set the gain as best I can in the loft and dispensed with the lounge booster. The house does not change from day to day so I cannot see how anything in the house can be causing such massive variations in strength on one channel. It can be 100% for several days running throughout the entire period and then continuously unusable for another couple of weeks. There is nothing in the house that is switched off for several days and then switched on for several days.
When you say, "You also seem to have ignored checking for any possible sources of interference that may be especially affecting C24", I keep saying that the house is the same every day. I don't understand how I am supposed to check for interference? Nothing at all is changing in the house and there is only me here but the C25 quality is 100% one day and 10% the next so I don't understand how anything in the house could be causing this?
The booster has one input which is connected to the roof aerial.
I live in a rural setting so there are trees in all directions but the conifer is the only one that is so close that I can see that it is in the direction of the transmitter. There are no transmitters which are literally "line of sight". Even if I had a telescope and could get as high as my aerial, I do not believe that I would actually see any antenna as we are surrounded by low hills and there is no transmitter on any of those particular hills. As you would expect, Evesham is in the Vale of Evesham and all the transmitter antennas are mounted on hills which are beyond those which actually surround the vale.
The only way I could check this is to ask the installer to return. He has been here three times over the last 25 years since the house was built and each time he has spun the aerial around and checked the reception with a meter. For the first few years we thought that Sutton Coldfield was the best but there were some stations I could not watch so he spun it around to Ridge Hill which was better on some but worse on others. It's always a compromise of what I am prepared to see and what I'm prepared to miss.
Unfortunately, whilst Evesham town itself now has cable internet, we do not as none of the firms will lay a special cable just for a handful of remote homes despite dozens of requests so our internet is awful. BT say that we will have cable by 2025 so maybe I just have to wait until then before abandoning VHF.
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S
StevensOnln110:16 AM
Richard Sutton: Rather than waiting for faster broadband to be available, have you considered getting Freesat? As long as you have a clear view of the sky to the south you should have no problem with reception and it is just a one-off cost for the box and having a dish/cabling installed (there is no ongoing subscription payment) and you get almost all the same channels that are available on Freeview (plus a few others).
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Richard Sutton10:37 AM
Hi Steve.
I have been trying to avoid satellite as I installed it myself in my two homes before this one when it was the only way to get some channels. I think it was call BSB in those days. It shouldn't be necessary these days so I'm reluctant to start drilling holes in walls to feed cables through as I did previously.
One further thought I've come up with is that there are high voltage pylons also running across my line to the transmitter and, although they are much further away than the conifer tree, I reckon one one the pylons is probably directly in the aerial - tree - pylon - Breedon Hill - transmitter line.
Could a pylon affect certain channels and do the loads on the cables vary such that some days there would be virtually no interference?
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