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 22/04/2024 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 withheldThursday, 20 April 2023
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Richard Sutton8:46 AM
My post from last night has now appeared so I'll continue with the results from this morning. I'm using a manual tune on the LG TV as it has a very good signal strength/quality display.
These are my current figures from Ridge Hill:
C21: Strength 100%, Quality 100%
C22: Strength 100%, Quality 100%
C24: Strength 90%, Quality 20%
C25: Strength 94%, Quality 35%
C27: Strength 100%, Quality 100%
C28: Strength 100%, Quality 100%
As before. the quality for C24 and C25 is terrible although my figures are averages as it jumps + or - 10% around the figures shown.
If I try C29, which is not my region as I'm sure that I'm West Midlands rather than Gloucestershire because the strong BBC channel, C28, shows up as BBC1 West Midlands, I get:
C29: Strength 100%, Quality 50% which also jumps around +/- 10% but is actually better that the alternative C25 but still poor.
I don't actually need C24, the channel which was originally bad, so that's not a big loss although I can't understand why four channels can be 100% / 100% whilst that one is always unwatchable.
However, the big problem for me now is C25 and C29 are both bad. I'll try using C29 to see what that is like as, even though it has always been a worse signal than C25 in the past, it seems that it now might be the better of the two. This assumes that C29 on Ridge Hill is actually broadcasting ITV4. It is according to the channel allocation table shown above but I'm not sure that is correct.
Richard
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Richard Sutton9:02 AM
OK, after more investigation using my TV settings, I can see that C29 on Ridge Hill is only broadcasting four programmes:
555 Accessible TV guide
800 ITV1
802 ITVBe
803 E4+1
The table above is obviously incorrect which means that, as things stand, I no longer have access to ITV4.
ITV1 on 800 is fine although keeps breaking up on 003 but, as I only ever watch it in HD on 103, that is of no use to me.
Richard
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Richard Sutton11:57 AM
Having spent a couple of hours changing cables and sockets and unplugging all devices which are not currently in use, none of which made any difference at all to reception on C24 and C25, I now suspect that the problem is caused by the high winds over the last few days and the trees between our house and the Ridge Hill antenna.
Is it possible that trees/leaves swaying in the wind could affect C24 and C25 so badly but not affect any of the other channels?
Richard
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C
Chris.SE2:16 PM
Richard Sutton:
Right, there's a number of things to mention. I don't like to give too much technical information in one go as it often just confuses people without any technical background and one doesn't always get the answers needed to try and get to the root of problems.
Firstly, retuning. Pointless. If you are correctly tuned, just because your signal has either disappeared or is pixellated or the Quality has dropped for whatever reason, Weather, Transmitter maintenance, trees, etc. then retuning is more likely just to clear the correct tuning, and then you end up having to repeat it when signals are back to normal (and you won't know exactly when that might be).
2nd. The PSB2/D3&4 mux on C29 (Ridge Hill West) only transmits ITV1 (West Country). The table above is wrong I'm afarid. The appearance of those other channels in the 800s may have come from a retune after recent TV channel swaps on the COM muxes or from another transmitter. If you go to Signal Test on your LG and select C29 & then scroll down once the transmitter information has appeared, you should only find ITV1 listed.
I suggest you do the following to start. Unplug the aerial and start an automatic retune BUT (to save time) as soon as it starts, select Skip and confirm. No channels will be found and memory should be cleared. Then do a Manual tune of all the UHF channels for Central (ie. not C29). When that's complete you can select C29 and it should put ITV1 West in the 800s.
As an aside, if you were to do an Automatic retune having cleared the channels, the set should prompt you for region, & on selecting England then Central, it should put any other channels it's found in the 800s. When you've finished retuning, you could use the Programme Manager to move ITV1 West from the 800s to say LCN 8 in the EPG for convenience if you ever wanted to watch ITV West Region News.
3rd. I did ask in one of my earlier initial responses "do you have a straight coupler similar to
Close "
The reason for this is I need you do do some tests without the amp/splitter in circuit (and powered off) so that we can check for interference and overload conditions before doing anything else.
Unplug the aerial input and your LG TV feed output and connect them with a coupler. Power OFF the amp splitter.
Check and post the Signals Strength and Quality figures of each Ridge Hill UHF channel multiplex including C29. You can then connect things back up and power On the amp/splitter again.
When you've done that, I'll suggest what to do next.
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Richard Sutton5:38 PM
Thanks Chris.
I do have an inline connector so will try the tests you have mentioned and report back
tomorrow.
Richard
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Friday, 21 April 2023
R
Richard Sutton9:54 AM
I've not yet done the further tests or made any changes, Chris, but today's update is that the wind has now dropped completely and C25 is back to its full glory of Strength 100%, Quality 90% and ITV 4 is therefore fully restored.
C29, the alternative ITV1 mux, is now at Strength 100%, Quality 30% which is where it normally is unless the wind is blowing. At this Quality level it is unwatchable as is usually the case.
C24, which I'm not so bothered about, is now at Strength 90%, as usual, but Quality is absolutely zero and does not register at all even when watching it for 30 minutes.
My tentative conclusion is that the very tall conifer a 100m from my house, when stationary because there is no wind, totally blocks C24 such that absolutely no signal is received by my aerial which is a high gain one on a high pole above my chimney stack. When the tree is swaying, some signal on C24 manages to get past it although, on average, it is always unwatchable.
When the tree is stationary, C25 is received satisfactorily but when it is swaying in the breeze it blocks the C25 signal intermittently such that the average signal is unwatchable and worse than its alternate, C29.
However, the converse is true with C29. When the tree is stable the C29 signal is blocked such that it is unwatchable but when the tree is swaying then the average signal strength goes up such that C29 actually becomes more watchable than C25.
The above does suggest that the actually channel transmitters on the Ridge Hill antenna are physically located in different places on the structure and that their positions/heights relative to the line of sight of the tree are causing the differences. Either that or it is something more complex related to different frequencies, albeit ones that are very close together, being affected very differently by either still or swaying branches and leaves.
Does any of this make any sense?
Richard
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G
Graham Seward10:20 AM
Richard Sutton:
Sorry to drop in - I've just been reading your comments regarding channel 29. I think you will find that channel 29 is no longer transmitted from Ridge Hill - I suspect you are picking a signal up from the Malvern tx which has mux SDN on channel 29.
According to the Freeview channel checker Ridge Hill transmits
Ch 28 BBCA
Ch 25 D3&4
Ch 22+ BBCB
Ch 21+ SDN
Ch 24 ARQA
Ch 27 ARQB
Hope this helps
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Richard Sutton11:31 AM
Graham Seward:
Thanks Graham. In that case, I'll stop worrying about C29.
I've just checked again as there's still no wind and C24, which I should receive, is still zero quality and C25, which I need is now down to 60% quality but still watchable.
I've had these problems ever since I bought this house. I've tried different aerials and tried Sutton Coldfield but it has always been impossible to receive the all channels I'm supposed to receive.
I visited a TV retailer in 1998 which was in the Evesham town centre to buy a TV when we moved here in 1998 and all the display TV's were showing DVD content. There was a sign above the TVs which said something like "None of our TVs are able to show live TV content as there is no TV signal in this area". At the time I thought this must be nonsense, but 25 years of experience have shown me otherwise.
Richard
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C
Chris.SE12:11 PM
Graham Seward:
C29 IS still transmitted from Ridge Hill your remark is wrong.
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C
Chris.SE12:45 PM
Richard Sutton:
As mentioned before C29 IS transmitting. I personally don't have an aerial pointing at Ridge Hill at the moment, I may see what I can do over the weekend BUT it was received in Worcester on 21/04/2023 at 01:31:12 and as has been said before only ITV1 (West) is on the multiplex. The Freeview Channel Checker will not include C29 if someone's location is not predicted to receive it!
I have already explained how to check your C29 multiplex on your LG. Please do so.
Quote "When the tree is stationary, C25 is received satisfactorily but when it is swaying in the breeze it blocks the C25 signal intermittently such that the average signal is unwatchable and worse than its alternate, C29.
However, the converse is true with C29. When the tree is stable the C29 signal is blocked such that it is unwatchable but when the tree is swaying then the average signal strength goes up such that C29 actually becomes more watchable than C25."
I've explained about the tests required without the amp/splitter in place and how to tune your TV correctly to get all the TV channels in the correct LCNs. Please do these tests, they are far more important than any speculation/guesswork about trees, the weather, co-channel interference or anything else!
Whilst trees can have an effect, this assumption is pure guesswork at present and whilst the effects of trees CAN be frequency dependent, that fact that you are seeing no effect of the other UHF channels leads me to conclude that the trees are unlikely to be the PRIMARY issue.
The main multiplexes on virtually all main transmitters are usually on the same antenna, however it is likely that C29 is on separate antenna beamed appropriately.
Whilst Malvern is co-channel on C29 with SDN, it is Vertical polarisation and very low power, it's possible that signals might occasionally have some effect on Ridge Hill C29, it's likely to be very small, and in any event is not your main region, just an added bonus if you are interested in the West Region News.
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