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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Wednesday, 22 December 2021
R
Rita Norman8:58 PM
Bury St. Edmunds
Ip28 8AF.
I and my neighbours have been having no signal or pixelating since at least 6.30 this morning 22.12.21
It's all stations, it sometimes comes on for a few minutes then goes off again.
My Ariel is on my roof and has been working fine until today!!!!
Help would be much appreciated!!!! Thank you
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Rita's: ...
P
paul j8:58 PM
paul j :
there don't seem to be any troposphere problems Tropospheric Ducting Forecast for VHF & UHF Radio & TV
explaining poor reception
Have reverted to using ITV hub and other internet based 'apps'
(ukfree.tv comment section itself seem to generate errors from multiple browesers - hence my earlier duplicate postings)
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P
paul j9:29 PM
paul j:
A suggestion high pressure is to blame V
Updates and alerts | Freeview
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Thursday, 23 December 2021
C
Chris.SE3:41 AM
paul j:
Alan Browning 5 yuba:
Hazel Rogers:
Rita Norman:
On the contrary paul, there has been moderate Temperature Inversion/Tropospheric Ducting affecting large parts of the UK for several days, it sometimes accompanies high pressure.
Do NOT retune, it will more likely remove your correct tuning.
These conditions are predicted to ease late on Wednesday by the end of the night
Despite the incorrect spelling, this link does work - simple technical explanation
https://www.bbc.co.uk/rec….jpg
Essentially it results in interfering signals from other transmitters in the UK or Europe reaching you and so your wanted signals are disrupted. It won't necessarily affect all multiplexes or necessarily at the same time if more than one. It can last for seconds, minutes, sometimes hours or longer.
The BBC have had a warning on their Works and Warnings page for a few days, and Freeview had added one on Wednesday (better late than never!) but at the time it was then mainly affecting the S & SE.
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P
paul j11:12 AM
Chris.SE:
OK is there a better web-site than the one I linked , which will show ducting forecast ?
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C
Chris.SE9:55 PM
paul j:
Hi paul. Do remember they are all general propagation predictions and it doesn't mean that one WILL be affected, sometimes just bands II & III may be affected and not IV & V, sometimes the other way around, sometime all or none!
dxinfocentre is one of the ones I refer to, also Europe | Tropospheric Propagation Forecast
It's worth keeping an eye on Problems with Freeview reception? | Help receiving TV and radio as the BBC sometimes put a Works and Warnings note up (there's been one but it will usually disappear when conditions change).
I do look at Updates and alerts | Freeview for other things but they're often unreliable for this sort of thing (always after the event, so to speak, as with some other things they put there!).
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Friday, 31 December 2021
G
Gary9:41 PM
St. Neots
Experiencing intermittent pixelation on channels this evening. Not as as bad as the problem we had on the 23rd December.
PE19 5UE
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Gary's: mapG's Freeview map terrainG's terrain plot wavesG's frequency data G's Freeview Detailed Coverage
C
Chris.SE10:34 PM
Gary:
It's Temperature Inversion/Tropospheric Ducting again I'm afraid. See my previous posts before yours if you want more detail. It's unlikely to clear completely until some time tomorrow and then it could still be a bit intermittent for a few days.
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Monday, 17 January 2022
C
Chris.SE1:52 PM
Kim Rahbek:
It's likely to a combination of factors. Unfortunately weather conditions again - see the post before yours, applicable again and it's reference to an earlier post if you'd like more detail of this type of problem.
Sandy Heath has also been listed for Planned Engineering this week, so some of that may disrupt reception.
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Wednesday, 19 January 2022
Do you ,know when the planned engineering work on or near the transmitter Sandy Heath,Milton Keynes is complete? Channels keep coming and going for us, and have done for weeks! Thank you.
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