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 withheldMonday, 4 December 2023
Transmitter engineering
5:11 AM
5:11 AM
Ridge Hill transmitter - Ridge Hill transmitter: Possible effect on TV reception week commencing 04/12/2023 Pixelation or flickering on some or all channels [DUK]
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Transmitter engineering
5:11 AM
5:11 AM
Ridge Hill transmitter - Ridge Hill transmitter: Possible effect on TV reception week commencing 04/12/2023 Pixelation or flickering on some or all channels [DUK]
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Sunday, 10 December 2023
Transmitter engineering
5:53 AM
5:53 AM
RIDGE HILL transmitter - DAB: Slightly reduced power due to essential engineering from 5 Dec 11:52 until 5 Dec 14:40. . [BBC]
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Monday, 11 December 2023
Transmitter engineering
8:36 AM
8:36 AM
Ridge Hill transmitter - Ridge Hill transmitter: Possible effect on TV reception week commencing 11/12/2023 Pixelation or flickering on some or all channels [DUK]
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Friday, 22 December 2023
P
Peter Neville6:17 PM
Cheltenham
No HD reception on Freeview for approx a week... prior to that it was working well for some months, though has been patchy in the past. SD is working fine.
Location: GL54 5DZ - house number 5
Loft aerial - professionally installed
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Peter's: mapP's Freeview map terrainP's terrain plot wavesP's frequency data P's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Saturday, 23 December 2023
N
Nick 6:20 PM
You must have an aerial problem or something interfering.
I'm in stroud so not really in the normal coverage area but I've checked HD channels from Ridge hill.
100% signal strength and 100% quality so moving wrong with the transmitter
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C
Chris.SE8:05 PM
Peter Neville:
I'd meant to reply yesterday, but didn't have time. I couldn't find any reports of faults or Planned Engineering for Ridge Hill in the last five days, so no obvious transmitter issue.
Thanks Nick, that's useful to know that you haven't a problem, it'd mean me messing about with an aerial for me to do a check.
Peter, have you got any trees moderately close on the line-of-sight in the direction of the transmitter (almost due W for you)?
Or has there been an other external things that could upset the signal such as scaffolding very close by, nothing like solar panels installed, new flue pipes etc.?
All these sorts of things won't necessarily have a noticeable effect on several multiplexes, it could affect just one.
Do of course check that there's nothing in the loft that may have disturbed the aerial.
Have a look in your TV Tuning section and make sure you are correctly tuned to Ridge Hill's UHF channels especially C22 for the HD multiplex.
Also have look for the Signal Strength and Quality figures for each UHF channel and post the figures for each which may give some clue about what could be happening.
Have you altered anything in your setup recently, any new or changed equipment?
Check all your accessible coax connections for corrosion or water, and make sure everything is correctly plug in,
Again any problems of this sort won't necessarily have a noticeable effect on all multiplexes.
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Saturday, 30 December 2023
C
Charlie S10:06 AM
Pershore
Hello;
I am going to post a couple of questions on different pages of this excellent site; related to trying to figure out the cause of an intermittent loss of some terrestrial programmes by my mothers TV.
This question is related to observations from my own stuff, located about 3 miles away, that I am using as a comparison point / debug tool.
At WR10 3EW, external pole mounted antenna, horizontal, pointing approximately at 270 degrees.
Inside, a signal booster box (installed at the same time as the antenna) provides the signal to a new-ish PVR (meaning bought ~ 4 months ago, but physical design is maybe 5 years old ?? ) ; and an old TV (Panasonic TX-L32G10B) is connected to both the "RF loop output" and the HDMI output of the PVR.
I am aware that the TV tuner will not pick up the HD channels; that is OK.
The PVR is internet connected ( & iPlayer, Channel 4 players work as expected), and should be updating it's software automatically (but the system info menu says it is up-to-date at April/May '21); the TV has an ethernet port, but cannot/will not use the ethernet unless it is also connected to a satellite dish (which I do not have) ; any software updates in the TV will have had to have been done "OTA".
Both tuners find a set of programmes broadcast by the Ridge Hill transmitter ; I am a "bit surprised" that they are not picking up the Malvern transmitter, but I can discuss that with the aerial guy (I am happy to let him climb up and check aerial orientation etc).
According to Ridge Hill (including relays) | free and easy for 21 years we are in a "cyan" area; the signal info sections of both PVR and TV indicate > 70% RSSI for all programmes that I have checked and 100% quality ; the weather has to be "very bad" to affect reception.
What I cannot understand, and would appreciate any views from the forum here are why the PVR is not picking up some programmes (shown as preset number == ?LCN? below, not listed on PVR EPG, cannot be shown using the number directly), whilst they are shown/viewable on the Panasonic device when I select 'TV' (ie screen shows what it's own tuner can decode from the RF in, assuming there is no "software mix-up" of HDMI vs RF inputs in the TV).
Are there any other possible causes other than "PVR software bug" ? (eg could the PVR be getting the EPG information from the internet, vs the Panasonic that can only get the EPG from the broadcast data, so it could be an "EPG content issue") ?
Multiplex. PVR missing programme Panasonic tuner reaction
SDN 68, 277*, 286, 287 277 = blank screen, 286 = message re internet connection needed
ArqA 65** 65 plays as "That's Christmas"
ArqB 56, 61, 63 56 plays as "That's TV
BBCB 205 none expected
277* means PVR gives warning message about proceeding to view non-regulated internet content ; does the lack of a link for 277 (from Ridge Hill (County of Herefordshire, England) Full Freeview transmitter | free and easy for 21 years )">Ridge Hill (County of Herefordshire, England) Full Freeview transmitter | free and easy for 21 years to a page equivalent to eg Absolute Radio | free and easy for 21 years mean that the UK Radio Portal (and any other programme with no link) is an internet stream only service ?
65** means that "That's Christmas" should be showing, as confirmed by the "which channels from this transmitter" section of Ridge Hill (County of Herefordshire, England) Full Freeview transmitter | free and easy for 21 years ; and is shown on the Pansonic device ; BUT on the PVR, it is showing the "That's TV" programme that should be visible on preset # 56 (which is completely missing from the PVR).
thanks &
regards,
Charlie.
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Charlie's: mapC's Freeview map terrainC's terrain plot wavesC's frequency data C's Freeview Detailed Coverage
S
Steve Donaldson1:24 PM
Charlie S: Malvern's PSBs on 41, 44 and 47 are now co-channel with The Wrekin's COMs @ 10kW. At your location The Wrekin is about 70 degrees clockwise of Ridge Hill and you have or are not far off line-of-sight at 46 miles.
A few years ago TV transmitter channels were reorganised to clear the 700MHz band for use by mobile phone services. This meant clearing channels 49 to 60 of TV. As part of this programme, on 7th March 2018 Malvern's PSBs changed to 41, 44 and 47. The Wrekin did not change any time during the 700MHz Clearance.
Additionally, Oxford changed to the same six channels as Malvern uses, meaning the two are co-channel on all six channels, but you have a lot of terrain in the way.
As your aerial is horizontal, it may be picking up a higher level of interfering signal from The Wrekin than if it had been VP, and this is acting against successful reception of the Malvern PSB signals which are VP. The question is: can you receive Malvern's COMs on 29, 31 and 37?
Malvern is/was used in Worcester. To counter the problem of co-channel interference in the area as a result of the change, a new transmitter was installed at Elbury Park Reservoir. It is a single-frequency network (SFN) with Ridge Hill, meaning it uses the same six channels without each interfering with one another.
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