Freeview Light on the Seaham (County Durham, England) transmitter

Brian Butterworth first published this on 1st May 2004 at 08:20 - UK Free TV

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54.830,-1.376 or 54°49'47"N 1°22'33"W

SR7 8LB

The symbol shows the location of the Seaham (County Durham, England) transmitter which serves 6,700 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.

This transmitter has no current reported problems

The BBC and Digital UK report there are no faults or engineering work on the Seaham (County Durham, England) transmitter.

Choose from three options: ■ List by multiplex ■ List by channel number ■ List by channel name

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Which Freeview channels does the Seaham 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.

Mux	H/V	Frequency	Height	Mode	Watts
PSB1 BBCA	V max	C41 (634.0MHz)	150m	DTG-	100W
	1 BBC One (SD) North East and Cumbria, 2 BBC Two England, 9 BBC Four, 23 BBC Three, 201 CBBC, 202 CBeebies, 231 BBC News, 232 BBC Parliament, plus 16 others
PSB2 D3+4	V max	C44 (658.0MHz)	150m	DTG-	100W
	3 ITV 1 (SD) (Tyne Tees), 4 Channel 4 (SD) North ads, 5 Channel 5, 6 ITV 2, 10 ITV3, 13 E4, 14 Film4, 15 Channel 4 +1 North ads, 18 More4, 26 ITV4, 28 ITVBe, 30 E4 +1, 35 ITV1 +1 (Tyne Tees), 71 That's TV 3,
PSB3 BBCB	V max	C47 (682.0MHz)	150m	DTG-	100W
	46 5SELECT, 57 U&Eden, 101 BBC One HD North East and Cumbria, 102 BBC Two HD England, 103 ITV 1 HD (ITV Granada), 104 Channel 4 HD North ads, 105 Channel 5 HD, 106 BBC Four HD, 107 BBC Three HD, 203 CBBC HD, 204 CBeebies HD, plus 1 others 66 TBN UK,

H/V: aerial position (horizontal or vertical)

Are you trying to watch these 43 Freeview channels?

The Seaham (County Durham, England) mast is a public service broadcasting (PSB) transmitter, it does not provide these commercial (COM) channels: 4seven, 5Action, 5STAR, 5USA, Al Jazeera English, Blaze, Blaze +1, Challenge, Channel 5 +1, DMAX, E4 Extra, Film4 +1, Food Network, FRANCE 24 (in English), GREAT! action, GREAT! movies, GREAT! player, GREAT! romance, HGTV, HobbyMaker, ITV2 +1, ITV3 +1, ITV4 +1, ITVBe +1, YAAAS!, Legend, PBS America, POP UP, Quest +1, Quest Red, Really, Sky Mix, Sky News, Talking Pictures TV, That's Melody, That's TV 2, Together TV, TRUE CRIME, TRUE CRIME XTRA, U&Dave, U&Yesterday, U&Drama 1, U&W.

If you want to watch these channels, your aerial must point to one of the 80 Full service Freeview transmitters. For more information see the will there ever be more services on the Freeview Light transmitters? page.

Which BBC and ITV regional news can I watch from the Seaham transmitter?

BBC Look North (Newcastle) 1.6m homes 6.0%
from Newcastle NE99 2NE, 22km northwest (315°)
to BBC North East and Cumbria region - 70 masts.

ITV Tyne Tees News 1.4m homes 5.4%
from Gateshead NE11 9SZ, 24km northwest (308°)
to ITV Tyne Tees region - 47 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 50% evening news is shared with Border

How will the Seaham (County Durham, England) transmission frequencies change over time?

	1984-97	1997-98	1998-2012	2012-13	13 Nov 2019
	B E T	B E T	B E T	B E K T	B E K T
C41	ITV_waves	ITV_waves	ITV_waves	BBCB	BBCA
C44	BBC2_waves	BBC2_waves	BBC2_waves	BBCA	D3+4
C47	C4_waves	C4_waves	C4_waves	D3+4	BBCB
C51_{tv_off}	BBC1_waves	BBC1_waves	BBC1_waves

_{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 12 Sep 12 and 26 Sep 12.

How do the old analogue and currrent digital signal levels compare?

BBCA, D3+4, BBCB	100W
Analogue 1-4	(-2.3dB) 59W

Local transmitter maps

Seaham Freeview Pontop Pike TV region BBC North East and Cumbria Tyne Tees

Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Pontop Pike transmitter area

Jan 1959-Feb 2004	Tyne Tees Television
Feb 2004-Dec 2014	ITV plc

Feb 1983-Dec 1992	TV-am•
Jan 1993-Sep 2010	GMTV•
Sep 2010-Dec 2014	ITV Daybreak•

• Breakfast ◊ Weekends ♦ Friday night and weekends † Weekdays only. Seaham was not an original Channel 3 VHF 405-line mast: the historical information shown is the details of the company responsible for the transmitter when it began transmitting Channel 3.

Is the transmitter output the same in all directions?

D

Dave
9:46 AM

Dave Lindsay: How do I know where I am picking up from??? I think I am picking up from although I cannot find anything saying this, just guessing as Seaham puts out PSB's and this is what I am receiving.
I am unsure where others are receiving but most people have etc. I have pointed my in the same direction as theirs (which I know is rough direction of relay) and this is what I get. On the coverage map, is not green over my house, does this mean I will not receive from there?

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Dave's 3 posts GB flag

Dave Lindsay

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

11:06 AM

Dave: Receivers usually give the UHF number tuned to on the strength screen:

PSB1 (BBC One) | S= | B= | P=
PSB2 (ITV1) | S= | B= | P=
PSB3 (BBC One HD) | S= | B= | P=
COM4 (ITV3) | B= | P=
COM5 (Pick TV) | B= | P=
COM6 (Film4) | B= | P=

S=, B= and P=

Seaham uses vertical polarisation, and Bilsdale and Pontop Pike are horizontally polarised:

Aerials, TV Aerial and Digital Aerial

do not show areas where signals can or cannot be received; they could never be anywhere near accurate due to there being so many variables. What they show is where the signal is projected as being at or above a particular level at a particular height above ground. So where the ground is lower, hence the signal isn't as strong at the survey height above it. In any case, unless you can move your house then you have to work with what you have.

Manual tuning may be useful with some receivers being better at it than others so it might be worth looking at all the boxes and TVs you have to see which might be most helpful. Usually selecting a UHF channel but *not* pressing the button to will allow the to be used as a signal meter; once the button to scan/tune is pressed this ability is lost.

The COM from Bilsdale and Pontop Pike aren't as strong as their respective PSBs, so some fringe viewers will be left PSB-only or have intermittant COMs. For that reason, I suggest that you focus on trying to receive the PSBs from one of the full- first. (If your receiver isn't a HD one then PSB3 won't apply.)

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Dave Lindsay

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

11:09 AM

Dave: If you have no joy getting the full service with the in the then mounting it outside might work as obviously the reduces the level of the with it not being that great in the first place.

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Dave Lindsay's 5,724 posts GB flag

D

Dave
2:00 PM

Dave Lindsay: Checked with a friend a few streets away. (few yrs old) mounted on chimney, receives same as me, PSB only. No COM channels. Tried manual searches again on both sets only thing that comes up with signals is 41,44,47. on anything else.
Have retried my aerial in all kinds of directions but to no avail.
Think I might have to live with PSB only

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Dave Lindsay

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

2:22 PM

Dave: The main free-to-air service is . The most notable absences over full are probably Dave, Quest and Yesterday.

See here for a comparison:

Compare TV Freeview/Freesat | ukfree.tv - 10 years of independent, free digital TV advice

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Dave Lindsay's 5,724 posts GB flag

P

Paul
9:24 PM
Seaham

Hi, lost all today here in SR7. Ran through reset procedure and now have around ten /Dutch channels instead?! Checked all connections, tried different set top box etc. Think I'm receiving from , but possibly Billsdale. How can I check?

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Paul's 2 posts GB flag

Paul's: P's Freeview map P's terrain plot P's frequency data P's Freeview Detailed Coverage

P

Paul
8:05 AM
Seaham

to the above, all restored this morning. Strange. Unreported issue or ?

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Paul's 2 posts GB flag

Paul's: P's Freeview map P's terrain plot P's frequency data P's Freeview Detailed Coverage

A

Alan Thompson
10:18 PM

Why have most in disappeared?

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C

Chris.SE

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

11:24 PM

Alan Thompson:

It's current weather conditions! There's some significant "Tropospheric Ducting" affecting parts of your area at this time. Do NOT retune.

These conditions cause signals from distant transmitters in Europe or the UK to travel further and result in to your wanted signals. This doesn't always affect all multiplexes at the same time and may not affect all viewers. It can last seconds, minutes or for longer. There is little you can do except wait until conditions improve - or try watching online etc.

If you did retune when you had badly pixellated pictures or (never advised if you were correctly tuned) this usually just clears your correct tuning. You'll then have to retune again which you may have to try several times as you won't know when signals will be normal.

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A

Alan Thompson
12:22 AM

New is now live to replace burnt out transmitter, same problems. Today no since teatime and everytime there is high pressure we lose , currently none available on . Apparently (SR7) is in a shadow area and you'd have thought when a new transmitter was installed it would eradicate those shadow areas but maybe we aren't important enough to put it right.

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