Full Freeview on the Sandy Heath (Central Bedfordshire, England) transmitter
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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 25/11/2024 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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Saturday, 26 May 2012
J
jb3810:32 AM
Lisa: To access the signal level etc of Pick TV (EPG11) you have to press "guide" and select "full guide" then highlight Pick TV EPG11 on the list, and if you then press the "info" button you will (or should!) see a number of different details concerning all aspects of that channel and including the quality, this info being taken from page 13 of your TV's user manual.
My main reason for wanting to know this information is, that once its known what signal level Pick is being received at you can then try exactly the same test on BBC or ITV1 and note if they are being picked up at a significantly higher level, as if they are then the easiest way to get over the problem is to purchase or borrow a signal booster to lift the overall signal levels being received, because and as aforementioned, I feel that the signal is there but is just under the reception threshold of your TV and that's why these channels are not seen, as I am located at 39 miles N/NW from Sandy and Ch48 and Ch51 are received at roughly the same level as CH52, albeit that I do appreciate that certain parts of Northampton can suffer from poor reception.
By the way you cannot tune in 11, as its purely an EPG (electronic programme guide) number and not an actual frequency.
Its fully understandable about you not wishing to knock any strangers door and I think that most people would feel the same, but its a pity that you don't know anyone with a simple Freeview set top box as for a test you could borrow that and couple it into your TV using a scart lead, as it would be almost guaranteed to have a more straightforward menu system making it easier to carry out a few tests over that used in the Samsung, Samsung's and LG's being nightmares to navigate through.
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M
Matt8:06 PM
jb38: Oh 21 is for HD stations, well in that case yeah i have all HD stations via my PHILIPS PVR box (although they sometimes cut to no signal or freeze on ocassion, but id say there ok 95% of the time)
As for the latest firmware i already have all of that,been on V 7.21 since the day it came out, downloaded it off the PHILIPS website.
Ive just been trying to concentrate on getting my non HD stations back!
P.s i can vouch for Lisa because it sounds like weve lost the same stations that we previosuly had before May 8th, Ive lost PICK TV,Dave etc etc. Quite a few people in my village ive spoken to have lost the same after May 8th.
Go switch that lil button back that you switched on May 8th then we will have all the stations back again. If you switch it back and then get problems at your end then you be the ones to spend the money to fix the problem, dont switch it over so we have to foot the bill! lol
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Sunday, 27 May 2012
L
Lisa12:10 AM
Hi jb38
thanks again for your latest post.
Unfortunately, both my parents and my brother who live locally have Sky so they do not have a Freeview set top box, which is why I am unable to try an alternative TV. :-(
I've followed your instructions re: trying to find the quality of Ch11 (I think you may have a slightly different version of the user manual, as I have finally found this information on page 11 in my booklet), and apart from the programme information all I could see regarding what I think was the "quality" was SL, AD in brackets at the end - once again, I don't know whether this is what you are looking for or not?
I have to say that something REALLY weird has happened tonight, and after doing my daily auto-store of channels (just on the off chance of getting some of my lost channels back), my stored programmes has now jumped back up from 116 to 170!! I have now got back More4 (14), Film4 (15), 4Music (18), VIVA (21) and ITV4 (24) all of which I had prior to 9th May but had since lost, but I am still missing ITV3, 5*, 5USA and QUEST. How weird is that ..... ? Perhaps they are doing something with the receiver at Sandy again?? Who knows ... or maybe I have only got these stations back temporarily and come tomorrow they will have magically disappeared again?
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J
jb388:47 AM
Lisa: What you have now found would somewhat back up what I had previously mentioned about me suspecting that these two channels are actually there but just under the reception threshold of your TV's tuner, and with the only reason for you capturing them on this occasion being one of pure luck due to atmospheric conditions being favourable, and so its imperative that you do "NOT" under any circumstances carry out any further retunes on your TV if you find that the channels have vanished again, as even although these channels are now locked in your tuners memory they would be instantly wiped off it again if the retune button is pressed.
The other point is, and without wishing to sound too pessimistic, but I fully expect that you will lose them again when conditions revert to normal, but when this happens its very likely that they can be easily recovered by using a booster of about 10db in line with the TV's aerial socket to lift the signal slightly, as its either that or have your aerial changed to a wideband one "if" its not already one that's been fitted, of course needless to say that if it is then the booster is the only way around your problem.
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J
jb3810:25 AM
Lisa: If I could explain in simple terms the reason for your problem.
Its like you looking up at a short range of hills where on the left hand side of them you see a nice even slope all the way down to the ground level, whereas on the right hand side of them a slope is seen to come down so far then it suddenly drops to the ground, i.e: a cliff edge.
Analogue TV reception corresponds to the left hand side of the range, with speckle free reception being obtained to about a third of the way down before a grainy / speckly aspect is noticed to be creeping into the background of the picture from that position downwards, this grainy effect increasing to the point where the picture is actually in the background of the speckles.
Digital television on the other hand gives exactly the same quality of reception from the top of the hill all the way down until it reaches a point where it starts encroaching on a section near to the edge of the cliff referred to, reception in this section usually suffering from intermittent picture freezing and general pixelation being noticed, but though if it passes this point then the signal disappears completely over the edge of the cliff resulting in a blank screen, your missing channels not necessarily having fallen completely over but hanging under the cliff edge, and with the only way to "pull" them up again being to boost the level of the signal that's received and hence why I mentioned the aerial amplifier.
By the way, these channels stored in your TV's memory are "never" lost unless you retune the TV, or alternatively if the set develops a fault of a nature that requires it to be reset, although some older sets with limited memory capacity can also lose channels stored it the number picked up during a rescan exceeds the capacity of the tuners memory store, this always showing up if a TV or box is switched off immediately after a retune as the new channels will have gone, this being why its always best to retune after having reset a device.
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M
Matt10:35 AM
jb38: Last night ALL my stations went down for around 4 hours. We were watching BBC-HD when it suddenly went 'no signal' every single station HD and non HD went totaly down for around 4 hours, its getting worse since May 8th!
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J
jb3811:03 AM
Matt: Well as soon as anything like that happens always carry out a signal strength / quality check on that channel and note the indications seen, as if zero strength and quality is indicated then the transmitter is down, but in most cases its always that the signal has dropped under the reception threshold of the TV or box in use because the signal wasn't running at a high enough level above the threshold in the first place, and of course the level is mainly determined by the receiving device, this being why some people finds that one device will work whereas another wont on the same aerial system.
You should really carry out a check when everything is working OK and make a note of the indications seen, keeping them away for reference purposes, then use this info to compare with the levels seen when the signal drops out, your Philips box being an excellent device for tests.
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C
Colin12:16 PM
Used to get ITV3 good quality on chanel 10 (tv)
Did auto retune and no longer get itv3 or very bad signal that keeps breaking up.
Did manual retune and found Itv3 was only available on block (not sure of correct word) 29.
Again picture was very poor and kept breaking up.
Any suggestions on what needs to be done?
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Colin: UHF channel 29 (equivalent to frequency) means that you're receiving the signal from the Waltham-on-the-Wolds transmitter, near Melton Mowbray.
For Sandy Heath, you may need a wideband aerial. This would replace the "traditional" aerial type (Group A) used in the days of four-channel analogue.
If you are receiving Pick TV on C52 and Yesterday on C48, then this suggests that your aerial is fine. (You found that ITV3 is on C29, so carry out the same procedure to find out what channels Pick TV and Yesterday are coming in on.)
The objective, therefore, is to get ITV3 tuned to C51, which is that used by Sandy Heath.
If your receiver has manual tuning, then this may be the way around the problem.
You may be able to run the automatic tuning scan with the aerial unplugged so as to "blank" the memory, so that no channels are stored. Then manually add the five (or six) groups of programme channels (known as multiplexes).
For Sandy Heath they are 27, 24, 21(HD), 51, 52, 48. These correspond to BBC One, ITV1, BBC One HD, ITV3, Pick TV and Yesterday, respectively.
As a matter of good practice, I suggest that, having tuned, you check that these are all correct so that you know that it is tuned fully to Sandy Heath.
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L
Lisa1:27 PM
Thanks very much jb38 for explaining things in simplistic terms for me - I have to admit I'm not that technically minded and am totally baffled by a lot of the jargon on these pages as it is. ;-)
Well, I was right to assume that the 5 channels that I got back last night would have disappeared again today - they have done and I either get a message on screen saying "weak or no signal" or "service not available". I have also lost Yesterday (12) as well, although I now understand that they are not 'lost' as such, just that the signal to my TV is not strong enough to pick them up at the moment - as you said, I guess I was just very lucky last night.
In all honesty, I have absolutely no idea what kind of aerial I have on my roof or whether it is a wideband one, but as your diagnosis suggests that a booster/amplifier may help with signal strength, I will probably see if I can get one reasonably cheaply and give it a go. Watch this space, I will keep you posted/updated as to any progress I may make when I get a booster.
Thank you so much once again for all your time, kind help, input and suggestions - it is much appreciated.
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