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 25/09/2023 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 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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Thursday, 24 March 2016
J
jb3811:37 PM
seb: Unfortunately you have moved into an area notorious for bad reception, both main stations that are receivable, namely Sandy (Anglia) and Sutton Coldfield (Central) predicting reception as only being good(?) on the main PSB (BBC / ITV) channels, reception of all COM channels indicated as "poor" from Sandy and "variable" from Sutton Coldfield.
To be perfectly honest about it there is nothing you can do, as the reception problem is caused by the signal path from Sandy experiencing a complete line-of-sight obstruction from approximately 11 miles prior to your location.
I would advise thinking along the lines of Freesat, as its about the only option you have to enable you to enjoy trouble free reception.
By the way, the line-of-sight obstructions referred to can be seen by opening the undermentioned link.
Terrain between ( m a.g.l.) and (antenna m a.g.l.) - Optimising UK DTT Freeview and Radio aerial location
Terrain between ( m a.g.l.) and (antenna m a.g.l.) - Optimising UK DTT Freeview and Radio aerial location
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Friday, 25 March 2016
M
Mrs Smith7:22 PM
Hello I'm sebs neighbor I'm new here . I have the same problem and I understand the freesat idea would be great but unfortunately we cannot afford that and alot of people don't have 200 to spend on freesat my husband works full time and I'm a full time mum and it's frankly nearly impossible to pay the bills and feed my children .
So would it be possible for a new full service mast to be built in Northamptonshire I've looked at the map and I have friends who live in the green area and still have terrible service.
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Saturday, 26 March 2016
J
Jason 12:35 PM
Hi . I have an indoor aerial its a good expensive one I'm able to get . Ch21 . Ch24. CH27 CH 52 AT 85% . 69% S .
but CH32 is only 51% q . 55 S , and Ch34 is 58q .56s . Ch48 is 75q and 69s .
What I'm asking is . Is this an acceptable signal strength . When light switches are pushed it breaks up a bit but other than that it seems fine my dad said that it has to be 100% q on all of the channels to be able to watch them .
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K
KMJ,Derby5:45 PM
Jason: more accurate advice could be given if you had given indication of your location, preferably with a postcode or that of a nearby shop in order to ascertain what signals are predicted to be available to you. Whilst 100% signal quality is desirable there are many instances where local reflections or low level signals from a distant transmitter cause a slight reduction in signal quality whilst perfectly acceptable reception is obtained. COM7 reception could be affected by signals from Emley Moor towards Grantham, or Hannington towards Luton, for example. Slight repositioning of the aerial might make a considerable difference to the signal quality (and strength) being obtained. Note that even with 100% quality there could still be interference from light switches due to their close proximity when using indoor or loft mounted aerials. Most tuners will be happy with a signal strength between 70% and 90%, a signal which is too strong can be as bad as one which is too weak, bearing in mind too that the calibration of signal strength indicators is somewhat arbitrary.
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Sunday, 27 March 2016
R
Roy Mackenzie8:35 AM
Hi I have an Echostar 610r working fine for approx 3 weeks (ebay refurb) when suddenly zero length recordings have appeared on HD CH54 multiplex other HD channels appear to record ok same for SD.
Tried Factory reset alternate power supply/aerial ect...even your reset procedure failed.
The failed recordings are there in total but will play back up to 2X speed only any faster moves to end of recording,don't think it's an AR fault have tried switching auto in recording to manual no different.
Just waiting for any clues before i change the HDD.
Thanks.
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J
jb3810:48 AM
Roy Mackenzie: The problem as reported, could well be down to a defective hard drive. However, if you haven't already done so? I would try reformatting the hard drive, this in the manual for your model being referred to as "re-initialise hard disk". (page39)
It would though be of assistance to have knowledge of your location, as C54 is not one of the Mux channels used by Sandy Heath, your posting having been made under the heading of same.
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J
Jason 5:22 PM
Nn4 area camp hill . I also have a pre Viterbi max . 10.90e-5 . I don't understand what that means but post viterbi is 0 but when things switch on etc it goes into numbers for a 20 secs .
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J
jb3811:07 PM
Jason : Viterbi is a method of error correction used in digital transmission. This in some devices being indicated as BER (bit error rate), although in most Freeview (or Freesat) devices simply indicated as "quality".
'Pre Viterbi' relates to the errors detected on the incoming bit stream, with "post" being the amount of errors after the Viterbi correction algorithm has been applied, so the ideal situation is to have "post" indicating zero.
The 5s values will be the Viterbi measurements averaged over 5 seconds.
Interference from switching on / off household electrical appliances nearly always results in fluctuations in quality, especially so in less than perfect aerial systems, particularly aerials of the indoor (same room) variety.
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Monday, 28 March 2016
J
Jason 4:53 AM
Thank you for replying . So would you say I have a good signal .
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J
jb389:18 AM
Jason: Re signal. Not necessarily so where the strength of the signal is concerned. The following two statements (copied and pasted in) from KMJ,Derby's previous reply being very applicable.
> Slight repositioning of the aerial might make a considerable difference to the signal quality (and strength) being obtained.< (strength being the key word)
> Note that even with 100% quality there could still be interference from light switches due to their close proximity when using indoor or loft mounted aerials.<
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