Full Freeview on the Sudbury (Suffolk, England) transmitter
 | Google Streetview |  | Google map |  | Bing map |  | Google Earth |  | 52.005,0.786 or 52°0'17"N 0°47'8"E |  | CO10 5NG |
The symbol shows the location of the Sudbury (Suffolk, England) transmitter which serves 440,000 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 Sudbury (Suffolk, England) mast?
Sudbury transmitter - Sudbury transmitter: Possible effect on TV reception week commencing 18/11/2024 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)
The Sudbury (Suffolk, England) mast is a public service broadcasting (PSB) transmitter, it does not provide these commercial (COM) channels: .
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 Freeview channels does the Sudbury 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)
The Sudbury (Suffolk, England) mast is a public service broadcasting (PSB) transmitter, it does not provide these commercial (COM) channels: .
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 Sudbury transmitter?
BBC Look East (East) 0.8m homes 3.2%
from Norwich NR2 1BH, 77km north-northeast (24°)
to BBC East region - 27 masts.
70% of BBC East (East) and BBC East (West) is shared output
ITV Anglia News 0.8m homes 3.2%
from NORWICH NR1 3JG, 78km north-northeast (24°)
to ITV Anglia (East) region - 26 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 80% evening news is shared with Anglia (West)
Are there any self-help relays?
| Felixstowe West | Transposer | 1000 homes +1000 or more homes due to expansion of affected area? | |
| Witham | Transposer | 14 km NE Chelmsford. | 118 homes |
How will the Sudbury (Suffolk, England) transmission frequencies change over time?
| 1984-97 | 1997-98 | 1998-2011 | 2011-13 | 1 Aug 2018 | |||||
| B E T | B E T | B E T | E T | K T | |||||
| C29 | SDN | ||||||||
| C31 | ArqA | ||||||||
| C35 | C5waves | C5waves | |||||||
| C37 | ArqB | ||||||||
| C41 | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | D3+4 | D3+4 | ||||
| C44 | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBCA | BBCA | ||||
| C47 | C4waves | C4waves | C4waves | BBCB | BBCB | ||||
| C51tv_off | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | ||||||
| C56tv_off | ArqB | ||||||||
| C58tv_off | SDN | ||||||||
| C60tv_off | -ArqA |
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 6 Jul 11 and 20 Jul 11.
How do the old analogue and currrent digital signal levels compare?
| Analogue 1-4 | 250kW | |
| SDN, ARQA, ARQB, BBCA, D3+4, BBCB | (-4dB) 100kW | |
| Analogue 5 | (-7dB) 50kW | |
| Mux 2* | (-14.9dB) 8.1kW | |
| Mux B* | (-15.2dB) 7.5kW | |
| Mux 1* | (-15.5dB) 7kW | |
| Mux A* | (-17dB) 5kW | |
| Mux C* | (-22.2dB) 1.5kW | |
| Mux D* | (-23.6dB) 1.1kW |
Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Sudbury transmitter area
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Tuesday, 13 November 2012
N
Nick9:42 AM
Aldeburgh
Thanks JB, but I thought we had more or less decided it WAS a transmitter problem.
I know aircraft cause signals to flutter, noticeable on fm, but my 0-90% is only for fractions of a second, only on C60, and happens at Aldeburgh and Hollesley, sufficiently far apart not to be suffering from the same object in the way. What did you think of my notion that the tx aerial might be facing a bit downhill, and therefore struggling to go far?
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Nick's: mapN's Freeview map terrainN's terrain plot wavesN's frequency data N's Freeview Detailed Coverage
R
Robert3:06 PM
Does anyone know if the effect of 4G transmissions will be a problem to us receiving signals from Sudbury?
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N
Nick9:20 PM
Aldeburgh
If it means they lose C60, hope so.
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Nick's: mapN's Freeview map terrainN's terrain plot wavesN's frequency data N's Freeview Detailed Coverage
J
jb3811:50 PM
Nick: You are placing too much emphasise on the way your aerial is facing, because when a signal is not being received on, or near to, line of sight then the reflective bursts of signal can be from any angle. (within reason!)
Most people who cares to experiment can see this sort of thing happening on most channels if they choose to enter a mux channel number from a station thats well out with their area into their receiving devices manual tuning menu, this in most devices allowing the tuner to act like a form of non db indicating signal meter, then if they observe the strength / quality indications for about 10 minutes or so they will no doubt see exactly what you do on mux Ch60 and caused by the same reasons.
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Thursday, 15 November 2012
N
Nick8:15 PM
Aldeburgh
Thank you, JB. At the risk of trying your patience further though, I am baffled why this only happens on c60, in two locations, when 58 is so strong.
I have a very good aerial, high mast, high location, and even used to get the former mux on c63 sometimes, which was only at 3kw.
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Nick's: mapN's Freeview map terrainN's terrain plot wavesN's frequency data N's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Friday, 16 November 2012
T
Tony8:35 PM
Saffron Walden
All very peculiar. Still having problems with all channels apart from C58, which should be worse coverage as it, is a lower level transmitter than the rest. The remaining channels are completely unwatchable at 6pm but by 8-9pm things improve with only occasional/ partial pixelation. Havent checked the situation in the day yet.
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Tony's: mapT's Freeview map terrainT's terrain plot wavesT's frequency data T's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Saturday, 17 November 2012
J
jb389:17 PM
Tony: Although you may have already done this, but on a previous posting I see that you mention your aerial is pointing towards Sudbury, this making me wonder if have you have double checked to ensure that all of these channels that you report as being unviewable at times are actually being received from Sudbury and not Sandy? as Sandy is only about 4 degrees out from being a perfect rear pick up on your aerial, and according to the reception predictor Sandy is not that terribly different from Sudbury for reception, neither seen as being exactly sparkling at your location.
Sudbury : (@ 97degrees / 21 miles) 44 - 41 - 47(HD) - 58 - 60 - 56.
Sandy : (@ 281 degrees / 25 miles) 27 - 24 - 21(HD) - 51 - 52 - 48.
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Sunday, 18 November 2012
T
Tony9:47 AM
Saffron Walden
JB38: Thanks for the suggestion. Indeed I am able to pick up Sandy and sometimes the reception is better than Sudbury, when the aerial was originally installed (about 10 years ago) we had the choice of either transmitter as the reception was near identical. I am going to swing the aerial to Sandy today to see if I get any great improvement. If this fails I will try a new aerial (ATVs XB22WB) possibly on a longer pole. The main issue is the fact that we did have perfect reception until the recent round of engineering works.
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Tony's: mapT's Freeview map terrainT's terrain plot wavesT's frequency data T's Freeview Detailed Coverage
J
jb386:46 PM
Tony: I think your suggestion of trying a test with the aerial facing Sandy is a good idea, although I would be most interested to know what the difference in levels are when the aerial is actually facing the Sandy transmitters, as on quite a number of aerials the difference is not quite so great as might be expected, therefore maybe you could carry out a quick signal check on a few mux channels immediately before proceeding with the task of swinging the aerial around, and then a similar test on the same muxes when completed, and which as far as accuracy is concerned should really be made not more than an hour or so from the previous test.
As far as aerials are concerned, I wouldn't be over influenced by what's seen on these aerial gain curve charts, and the reason I say this is, that although these charts are indeed handy for reference purposes it should always be kept in mind that what's seen indicated is the result of that obtained when the aerial is tested under perfect conditions over an area about the size of two football fields, and with the signal source being located at the other end of the field and usually from a single element radiator fed by a highly stable variable sweep oscillator that gives a constant output level over the entire band, not exactly similar to what happens in reality where the signals received are from six different distant transmitters and which in many cases are usually in non line-of-sight locations, meaning signals are frequently received at differing levels.
Its really up to yourself what you do and the aerial you mentioned would probably be OK, but with digital reception I would always look along the lines of using a Log 40 or similar in conjunction with a 15db (min) amplifier, as in many situations this can generally provide a more consistent level of signal that's less prone to glitching over what's obtained from larger and highly directional larger pieces of metalwork.
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Monday, 19 November 2012
T
Tony6:44 PM
Saffron Walden
JB38: Thanks for your suggestions. I dont have any test equipment so the signal strength & quality readings are taken from the Panasonic Viera TV (recently purchased) sliding scales 1-10. I normally show strength 10 on all Sudbury channels. Quality of 2 and above I am able to view without problems. Pointed the aerial to Sandy midday Sunday picked up all OK. Sudburys C58 appeared stronger than Sandys C51 with power down slightly to 8 quality about 4. Switched on again at about 6 all back to quality 1 apart from C58. Swung the aerial back to Sudbury & retuned, signal strength 10, quality 1 (pixelated) on all apart from C58 quality 3 (OK) & C24 (Sandy) strength 8, quality 3 (OK). By about 9 pm the rest cleared up with quality of 3-6. I have noticed when things clear up C47 HD will normally show strength 10, quality 1 but picture is fine. Also the reason I am thinking of a new aerial is that the present one is a B group (yellow end cap) possibly an Antiference DX8 (looks the same but cant be sure as I havent hauled it down yet) with masthead amp.
| link to this comment |
Tony's: mapT's Freeview map terrainT's terrain plot wavesT's frequency data T's Freeview Detailed Coverage
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