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 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)
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, 2 January 2024
C
Chris.SE8:11 PM
nick horrex:
No, each mux doesn't have its own aerial ;)
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Wednesday, 3 January 2024
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nick horrex12:12 AM
Chris
oh, thanks. how come shoving 100Kw from one mux channel into another channel does not go bang!?
If there are ten thousand people watching a tv channel and that number suddenly increases to a million, do they each get a lower signal? This may be simplistic but with wi fi if too many are on one router the signal gets dire.
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S
StevensOnln110:38 AM
nick horrex: The different multiplexes are fed into a combiner, with the output from that going to the antennas.
The number of people watching makes no difference to the transmitter power output. WiFi involves two way transmissions from one base station to multiple clients, with each device being allocated a time slot to transmit it's data. DTT transmitters broadcast a continuous stream of data, there is no return transmission or time division taking place to degrade the signal.
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Sunday, 7 January 2024
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nick horrex7:38 AM
thanks, Steve.
Can you think of why I may be having signal quality problems with the mux on channel 37 and why I have to align the aerial precisely for this channel? If I don't, the quality plummets to 30% and I lose the signal completely, whilst the strength remains quite high. The other channels allow moving the aerial several degrees either side..
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C
Chris.SE4:58 PM
nick horrex:
Have you contacted Restore TV for the filter yet?
Until you fit one, the answer to such questions may be complete guesswork, I've already mentioned the possible effects of strong signals on the front ends of any amps or receivers.
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Wednesday, 10 January 2024
J
John Snowden10:17 AM
Steve Donaldson: Hi, just a quick question using the Sudbury mast. Over the last couple of months we have experienced blocking on BBC 1, 2, Itv channels where the sound is there but the picture comes and goes, his is on the normal channels however if I use HD channels then he signal seems a lot stronger? I have adjusted the Ariel many times to gain the best signal but still get the same results, one other thing this happened and I found that if the Ariel is not exactly on point to get a signal it gets nothing, before it gave varied tolerance it now seems weaker signal and poor reception.
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C
Chris.SE1:05 PM
John Snowden:
Sudbury has been on Planned Engineering on and off for several weeks now, and is listed again this week as per the post before yours. This would most likely be the reason for you seeing lower signal strengths periodically on some of the multiplexes.
As you haven't given a full postcode, we can't advise on the compass bearing your aerial should be pointing (on the assumption that you haven't got any very local obstructions such as very tall buildings on the line-of-sight).
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Sunday, 14 January 2024
N
nick horrex12:06 AM
Chris SE,
thanks. No I have not. I do not see how a filter designed for a different frequency would help. In fact I fear if anything it may attenuate the channel I want. I can also think of no logical reason that for this channel the aerial must be precisely aligned or why the QUALITY plummets to 30%, ie channel says 'no signal' when it is not.
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C
Chris.SE2:53 AM
nick horrex:
The Filter will NOT block the channel you want. It is designed to block all frequencies above C48.
You have failed to understand that a strong unwanted signal that is not DTT DVB can cause undesirable, sometimes unpredictable problems. I will try and explain again (for the last time).
1) When such signals are present, possibly causing some overload of a receiver as well, there can be what might loosely be called intermodulation products that can result in interference to a variety of frequencies, and may only have an immediately noticeable effect on some, in your case it appears that the most noticeable seems to be C37
2) Such strong signals can also cause desensitisation of a receiver/amp resulting in the reduction in strength of the wanted signals so decreasing the signal to noise ratio and that eventually stops wanted signals from being decoded, initially resulting in pixellation and then complete loss as the decoder sees nothing but what it thinks is noise. This is precisely what the reduction in your Quality figures is telling you.
3) We've discussed CCI now on several occasions and in the presence of the above results are going to be almost unpredictable.
A short while ago I did a casual search and considering your location and the direction of your aerial for Sudbury, it seems Oxford is pretty much on the same line-of-sight, it also uses C37. I haven't done an in depth analysis of the terrain between you and Oxford as it's a complex procure over such a distance apart from which without your precise location (which I doubt you'd want to give on an open forum rather than a general postcode), there may be pockets where there could be gaps in ridges of any hills on the line-of sight perhaps allowing a stronger signal than one might expect and some aerial positions may see that, and conversely some positions may block it, which could be what you have with your "precise" aerial alignment. A further example might be you see a problem and a neighbour may not, apart from which the effect on signals travelling close to such terrain get even more unpredictable
I've seen too many cases now where the effects of strong mobile signals have produced interference on much lower channels rather than just the expected C48. People have got the Free Filter and it's resolved the problems.
The Filter is FREE. You can insert it and in the same way you can remove it. There is no compulsion to leave it in place if it doesn't have the desired effect or conversely has any undesirable effects.
There is nothing stopping you from trying a free filter apart from your b.mindedness when it may be such a simple solution rather than all this continued pontification about so many unknowns and unpredictables.
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nick horrex7:13 PM
Chris SE
Thanks for your long detailed explanation. I will scroll back and see how to get the filter. Can it go behind the set?
Does your explanation have any bearing on why I have to align the aerial so precisely, on this channel only, lest the quality instantly drop from 70 odd down to 30? [no signal.]
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