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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Saturday, 8 January 2022
C
Chris.SE3:12 PM
Aytch:
No problem, I didn't expect you to rush, in your own time. Yes, I noted the need for Arctic-wear when putting some Xmas decorations away :)
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Saturday, 15 January 2022
R
RBZ54163:22 PM
Is there an upgrade program to enable this transmitter for Com7/8 do you know?
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C
Chris.SE3:48 PM
RBZ5416:
COMs 7/8 were always only ever temporary HD multiplexes and COM7 is now only currently broadcast from 25 main transmitters. COM8 closed in June 2020 primarily for commercial reasons influenced by the pandemic, and COM7 is scheduled to close at the end of June 2022 under the terms of the current OFCOM licence.
There's been no announcements about what will happen to any of the channels on COM7. There's lots of speculation but no facts!
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Tuesday, 3 May 2022
C
Chris.SE6:51 PM
Denis Wicking:
Sudbury is on Planned Engineering with "Pixelation or flickering on some or all channels".
If you are far enough away from the transmitter that might result in no signal.
If you happened to retune when you had bad pixellation or no signal, it will most likely have just cleared the correct tuning.
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Wednesday, 4 May 2022
D
Denis Wicking7:39 AM
Chris.SE: Thanks for the update - I haven't retuned - just zero signal/zero strength on C37. I'll wait a week for restored service - at least it is only C37
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C
Chris.SE2:54 PM
Denis Wicking:
Have you tried a manual retune just on C37? Sometimes auto-retunes will miss weaker signals.
Whilst it is possible, it would be unusual for a single mux to be on low power/or off-air for any lengthy period. Also check all your coax connections, sometimes a bad connection can seriously affect just one mux due to standing waves resulting from the bad connection.
It could be that you are unfortunate to be in one of those locations where a given mux has poorer reception due to the terrain and possible interference from other transmitters.
If you give a full postcode we could look at your predicted reception.
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Saturday, 7 May 2022
R
Rex Watson10:06 AM
How many channels does the Sudbury transmitter broadcast?
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C
Chris.SE1:30 PM
Rex Watson:
The Sudbury transmitter transmits all 6 main multiplexes, so if your receive them all, you should get 122 channels BUT that includes 33 radio channels, and 6 HD channels (a TV/box with an HD/T2 tuner being required for them) and one IP delivered channel (the "Accessible" TV guide for which a smart TV with HbbTV connected to the internet is needed, the latter also needed to fully display LCN100 rather than plain text).
A reminder of what they are -
The 6 main multiplexes are on UHF channels C44, C41, C47, C29, C31, C37 that's in multiplex order -
PSBs1/BBCA, PSB2/D3&4, PSB3/BBCB HD, COM4/SDN, COM5/ArqA, COM6/ArqB
A "K" Groups aerial (T or wideband should do) would best to receive them all. If your aerial has not been changed since the analogue days it may be Group B and you might struggle with C29 & C31.
What you can receive will depend upon location, you may not be able to get all 6 multiplexes dependent on terrain, a full postcode would be needed to confirm you predicted reception.
The Sudbury transmitter has been listed for Planned Engineering for a few weeks now, so you may have experienced a loss of reception at various times and IF you tried retuning during those times or if you had badly pixellated pictures, it may have just cleared your correct tuning.
It is never advised to retune when you have no signal or badly pixellated pictures.
IF you did so and have lost channels you need to repeat a retune until you get the channels back. Arqiva have not advised if the engineering work has been completed.
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Monday, 23 May 2022
R
Rex Watson3:48 PM
I live in Shalford, Essex. My freeview antenna is pointed at Sudbury. When I do a channel search with my VU Duo 4k se receiver, it finds 145 channels. As Sudbury only broadcasts 122, I suppose that some of these (TalkSport, for example) must be on other masts which are in other directions. I am surprised that this happens, as my antenna is only a very small one, and is only 10 feet from the ground. On completing the channel search, my receiver sorts them into alphabetical order, and in the process discards 46 of them. I am thus left with 99 I can actually view, though only half a dozen or so of those offer material which interests me. I would particularly like to watch FreeSports, which is not on the Sudbury mast, of course, and wonder what prospect there is of doing so if I invest on a more expensive antenna.
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