Full Freeview on the Sandy Heath (Central Bedfordshire, England) transmitter
 | Google Streetview |  | Google map |  | Bing map |  | Google Earth |  | 52.130,-0.242 or 52°7'47"N 0°14'33"W |  | SG19 2NH |
The symbol shows the location of the Sandy Heath (Central Bedfordshire, England) transmitter which serves 920,000 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 Sandy Heath (Central Bedfordshire, England) mast?
Sandy Heath transmitter - Sandy Heath 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 Sandy Heath 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 Sandy Heath transmitter?
BBC Look East (West) 1.0m homes 3.7%
from Cambridge CB4 0WZ, 29km east-northeast (65°)
to BBC Cambridge region - 4 masts.
70% of BBC East (East) and BBC East (West) is shared output
ITV Anglia News 1.0m homes 3.7%
from Norwich NR1 3JG, 119km east-northeast (60°)
to ITV Anglia (West) region - 5 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 80% evening news is shared with Anglia (East)
How will the Sandy Heath (Central Bedfordshire, England) transmission frequencies change over time?
| 1965-80s | 1984-97 | 1997-98 | 1998-2011 | 2011-13 | 12 Feb 2020 | ||||
| VHF | A K T | K T | K T | W T | W T | ||||
| C6 | ITVwaves | ||||||||
| C21 | C4waves | C4waves | C4waves | +BBCB | BBCB | ||||
| C24 | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | D3+4 | D3+4 | ||||
| C27 | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBCA | BBCA | ||||
| C31 | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | ||||||
| C32 | com7 | ||||||||
| C33 | SDN | ||||||||
| C34 | com8 | ||||||||
| C35 | _local | ||||||||
| C36 | ArqA | ||||||||
| C39 | C5waves | C5waves | |||||||
| C43 | _local | ||||||||
| C48 | ArqB | ArqB | |||||||
| C51tv_off | SDN | ||||||||
| C52tv_off | ArqA | ||||||||
| 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 30 Mar 11 and 13 Apr 11.
How do the old analogue and currrent digital signal levels compare?
| Analogue 1-4 | 1000kW | |
| BBCA, D3+4, BBCB | (-7.4dB) 180kW | |
| SDN, ARQA, ARQB | (-7.7dB) 170kW | |
| com7 | (-13dB) 49.6kW | |
| com8 | (-13.1dB) 49.1kW | |
| Mux 1*, Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*, Mux C*, Mux D* | (-17dB) 20kW | |
| Analogue 5 | (-20dB) 10kW |
Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Sandy Heath transmitter area
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Sunday, 13 October 2013
N
NigelJ1:50 PM
Wisbech
Do not assume the technology covered in my last post is for the benefit of the consumer, it is all about extracting the maximum amount of money from the viewer. As I have pointed out before, 4G is an expensive, and pointless, one trick pony. The only virtue of high speed data download is to allow HD video to be viewed while mobile, it is not going to improve voice communication, in fact it may make it worse, as the system requires a higher density of base stations cells to operate. Ok for the city, not much good for the rural user who just want to make a voice call.
Similarly, I suspect the 4K plus TV services will be used as a conduit for the sale of premium rate, DRM protected, movie and sports content. This is evident by the added DRM protection included in the revamped BBC iPlayer.
By forcing users to view online content, advertisers will know exactly who is watching what and target their ads accordingly. This is a direct result of having more channels on digital TV, as this has reduced the size of the audience for each channel, thus reducing the cost effectiveness of mass broadcast advertising. So how is this relevant to FreeView? Well clearly its days are numbered, with vested interests keen to move consumers to internet TV and make them willing to pay for the infrastructure costs of doing so, at the same time freeing RF spectrum for yet more mobile comms and eliminating expensive TV transmitters.
So do not be surprised if the quality of FreeView services are not considered important. I may be a little paranoid, but poor quality may well be part of a bigger plan. I believe the government has yet to realise the downside, which is the loss of a fast, universally, communication medium with the viewing public.
By the way my ADSL download speed peaks at 12Mbs, no where near the 30Mbs, minimum required for this brave new world.
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N
NigelJ2:02 PM
Wisbech
Wish these posts had an edit feature, I never seem to get my posts right in one take, missed the word watched after universally.
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M
MikeB6:00 PM
Birmingham
Nigel J: I think you've just undermined your own arguement when you point out your broadband speed - and of course in much of the country its much less. Many of my customers are barely above dialup, and one gentleman today is going to be using a dish for internet access, because landline/fibre access is so poor. BT has been hauled over the coals for its poor rollout of rural broadband, something which government was paying it to do.
In fact 4G is a pretty good bet for many rural people to have better download speeds, and of course 5G is being mooted.
4K is possible to stream in somewhere like Korea, where 100mb is standard, but not for a while in the UK (nice though 4K is). However, Korean broadcasters have been experimenting with 4K - but broadcasting it, not streaming.
The reality of such technology changes is long-term, and seldom has anything to do with revenue, tax or anything else. If 'vested interests' wanted to move us all to internet tv and makes us pay the costs of it, they are doing a very poor job. The leader in making content available on the net is the ...BBC! And looking at current figures, most TV is watched live, not recorded, never mind streamed - thats going to change, but old habits die hard (think that we've been able to timeshift since the first VCR's).
If you'd looked at the mosts recent report from Ofcom, you would have seen a move to have MPEG 4 tuners (t2) as standard by about 2018. Since this format is one we all find in any modern TV, and you would expect no format change to occur for about a decade after that, there seems to be no plans to do away with RF transmissions for about 15 years, at the least.
The bottom line is that RF is still a pretty good way of getting most people to watch TV, and without a massive upgrade in broadband access, no other system is really viable.
' I may be a little paranoid, but poor quality may well be part of a bigger plan' - I think your worrying when you do not need to. Quality will be the result of pressue to give us good prgrammes, and the resources to deliver them.
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Wednesday, 16 October 2013
M
MikeG8:50 AM
Sorry Nigel, I'm with MikeB on this one. And if terrestrial digital TV lasts for another 15 years that'll do me.
Look how many older people left Sky because of their high prices when digital TV came out, because it is free once you have the equipment.
The young with plenty of money may go for subscription services but I doubt the elderly will.
Mike.
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V
Val Muggeridge12:20 PM
Bedford
Our Freeview reception which used to work perfectly now breaks up every day. Some channels are fine, sky etc but others BBC1, 2,3&4, ITV etc and many others lose the picture. It just keeps breaking up. It happens on both the tv with the freeview box and also on the main tv which has freeview within it.
Have tried rescanning, taking out leads and aerial but nothing seems to help. We receive from the Sandy, Beds transmitter which says there are no current problems.
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Thursday, 31 October 2013
L
Laurence Howell7:00 PM
Rushden
We have no BBC channels, ITV picture freezing and sound clicking. No signal on Ch21 and Ch27. Ch24 very poor. BBC has always been poor, but it has been like this for over a week.
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Saturday, 2 November 2013
H
Henry Bishop9:41 AM
The signal is breaking up on channels 51 & 52 at NN3. Is this due to the engineering work or could a 4G transmitter have either have been turned on or is being tested?
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lisa2:22 PM
We have had no channels or signal for a week now! V Fed up having to retune all of the time too. No option now but to use satellite instead.
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J
joyce5:36 PM
Leighton Buzzard
i live in flats with communial arial been here about 8 weeks since here twice had no signal at all for freeview,once for a week and only get very few freeview channels dont get channels like Real and Challenge which i did before only very basic channels,itv + 1 etc my reception is from Camebridge,the arial person said its because of where i,m situated yet sky still get all channels here my post code is lu74rz house number 69.
thank you.
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joyce:
sky reception is from a satellite out in space which is completely different to freeview which reception is from a transmitter.
sky reception relies on ZERO obstacles in the way between the dish and satellite so should always work correctly.
Freeview reception can sometimes have obstacles such as trees and buildings giving some locations issues.
That aside, an aerial should only be installed if it can achieve perfect reception.
If there are problems with the communal reception then the original installer should put any issues right.
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