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Full Freeview on the Sudbury (Suffolk, England) transmitter

first published this on - UK Free TV
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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 25/03/2024 Pixelation or flickering on some or all channels Digital tick


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

MuxH/VFrequencyHeightModeWatts
PSB1
BBCA
 H max
C44 (658.0MHz)229mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
1 BBC One (SD) East, 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
 H max
C41 (634.0MHz)229mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
3 ITV 1 (SD) (Anglia (East micro region)), 4 Channel 4 (SD) South ads, 5 Channel 5, 6 ITV 2, 10 ITV3, 13 E4, 14 Film4, 15 Channel 4 +1 South ads, 18 More4, 26 ITV4, 28 ITVBe, 30 E4 +1, 35 ITV1 +1 (Anglia east),

PSB3
BBCB
 H max
C47 (682.0MHz)229mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD East, 102 BBC Two HD England, 103 ITV 1 HD (ITV Meridian Southampton), 104 Channel 4 HD South ads, 105 Channel 5 HD, 106 BBC Four HD, 107 BBC Three HD, 204 CBBC HD, 205 CBeebies HD, plus 1 others

COM4
SDN
 H max
C29 (538.0MHz)186mDTG-100,000W
Channel icons
20 Drama, 21 5USA, 29 ITV2 +1, 32 5STAR, 33 5Action, 38 Channel 5 +1, 41 Legend, 42 GREAT! action, 57 Dave ja vu, 58 ITVBe +1, 59 ITV3 +1, 64 Blaze, 67 TRUE CRIME, 68 TRUE CRIME XTRA, 78 TCC, 81 Blaze +1, 83 Together TV, 89 ITV4 +1, 91 WildEarth, 209 Ketchup TV, 210 Ketchup Too, 211 YAAAS!, 267 Al Jazeera English, plus 30 others

COM5
ArqA
 H max
C31- (553.8MHz)228mDTG-8100,000W
Channel icons
11 Sky Mix, 17 Really, 19 Dave, 31 E4 Extra, 36 Sky Arts, 40 Quest Red, 43 Food Network, 47 Film4 +1, 48 Challenge, 49 4seven, 60 Drama +1, 65 That's TV 2, 70 Quest +1, 74 Yesterday +1, 75 That's 90s, 233 Sky News, plus 11 others

COM6
ArqB
 H max
C37 (602.0MHz)228mDTG-8100,000W
Channel icons
12 Quest, 25 W, 27 Yesterday, 34 GREAT! movies, 39 DMAX, 44 HGTV, 52 GREAT! romance, 56 That's TV (UK), 61 GREAT! movies extra, 63 GREAT! romance mix, 71 That’s 60s, 73 HobbyMaker, 82 Talking Pictures TV, 84 PBS America, 235 Al Jazeera Eng, plus 18 others

DTG-8 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?

regional news image
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
regional news image
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 WestTransposer1000 homes +1000 or more homes due to expansion of affected area?
WithamTransposer14 km NE Chelmsford.118 homes

How will the Sudbury (Suffolk, England) transmission frequencies change over time?

1984-971997-981998-20112011-131 Aug 2018
B E TB E TB E TE TK T
C29SDN
C31ArqA
C35C5wavesC5waves
C37ArqB
C41ITVwavesITVwavesITVwavesD3+4D3+4
C44BBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBC2wavesBBCABBCA
C47C4wavesC4wavesC4wavesBBCBBBCB
C51tv_offBBC1wavesBBC1wavesBBC1waves
C56tv_offArqB
C58tv_offSDN
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

Oct 1959-Feb 2004Anglia Television
Feb 2004-Dec 2014ITV plc
Feb 1983-Dec 1992TV-am•
Jan 1993-Sep 2010GMTV•
Sep 2010-Dec 2014ITV Daybreak•
• Breakfast ◊ Weekends ♦ Friday night and weekends † Weekdays only. Sudbury 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.

Comments
Monday, 27 June 2011
Transmitter engineering
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

10:36 AM

SUDBURY transmitter - Over the next week Sudbury main transmitter: TV (analogue) working normally, TV (digital) Liable to interruption, Radio (analogue) working normally, Radio (digital) working normally. [DUK]

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Transmitter engineering's 149,822 posts xx flag
D
David
4:13 PM

I live in Kesgrave (postcode IP5 2FS) and receive all Freeview channels from Sudbury with only occasional glitches.
I entered my postcode into "My Settings" and was very surprised to see that my "local" transmitter defaulted to Aldeburgh.
Nearly every aerial around here does point to Sudbury (just the odd one or two to Tacolneston) and absolutely none to Aldeburgh.
My mother in law lives in Ipswich (IP1)on high ground with a very good signal from Sudbury and yet her details also seem to default to Aldeburgh.
Is this anomaly simply because Aldeburgh (which only transmits an analogue signal at the moment) is the closest transmitter to us?
I'm not being picky but this does seem a bit odd to me!
(52.0619,1.2484) 

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David's 1 post GB flag
Transmitter engineering
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

9:40 PM

SUDBURY transmitter - Analogue BBC TWO Weak Signal from 19:29 today [BBC] Over the next week Sudbury main transmitter: TV (analogue) working normally, TV (digital) Liable to interruption, Radio (analogue) working normally, Radio (digital) working normally. [DUK]

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Transmitter engineering's 149,822 posts xx flag
Transmitter engineering
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

9:40 PM

SUDBURY transmitter - Analogue BBC TWO Weak Signal from 19:29 today [BBC] Over the next week Sudbury main transmitter: TV (analogue) working normally, TV (digital) Liable to interruption, Radio (analogue) working normally, Radio (digital) working normally. [DUK]

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Transmitter engineering's 149,822 posts xx flag
Tuesday, 28 June 2011
Transmitter engineering
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

4:30 AM

SUDBURY transmitter - Analogue BBC TWO Weak Signal from 19:29 yesterday to 22:47 yesterday [BBC] Over the next week Sudbury main transmitter: TV (analogue) working normally, TV (digital) Liable to interruption, Radio (analogue) working normally, Radio (digital) working normally. [DUK]

link to this comment
Transmitter engineering's 149,822 posts xx flag
Transmitter engineering
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

4:30 AM

SUDBURY transmitter - Analogue BBC TWO Weak Signal from 19:29 yesterday to 22:47 yesterday [BBC] Over the next week Sudbury main transmitter: TV (analogue) working normally, TV (digital) Liable to interruption, Radio (analogue) working normally, Radio (digital) working normally. [DUK]

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Transmitter engineering's 149,822 posts xx flag
P
Peter Stonebridge
11:52 AM
Ipswich

IP1 6RL, Chimney aerial installed around 4 years ago in readiness for C/O.
Have 4 year old Panasonic flat screen TV with Analogue plus DVB facilities. Occasional lockups on ITV, ch 4 and 5 on DVB. BBC seems fine. Have always used Teletext on analogue because it seems quicker, but now running on DVB in preperation for start of C/O next Wed, have noticed that quite often it is not possible to get T/Text. Is this a function of signal strength, will it improve after the C/O? The alternative of course is to use a digital box and leave TV selected to analogue on the basis that there is a fault on TV digital T/T decoder. I'm guessing that it would be cheaper to adopt the digi box method rather than pay a repair agent with all the problems of actually transporting a 32" flat screen TV to his workshop.

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Peter Stonebridge's 1 post GB flag
Peter's: mapP's Freeview map terrainP's terrain plot wavesP's frequency data P's Freeview Detailed Coverage
N
nick
sentiment_satisfiedGold

12:20 PM

David, they don't seem to get everything right, even at my location, north of Felixtowe, east coast, they quote Aldeburgh whereas Sudbury is equal strength. Perhaps they forget that on analogue Sudbury dishes out 250kw but Aldeburgh only 10.

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nick's 425 posts GB flag
M
Mike Dimmick
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

1:18 PM

David: This site's predictions are unreliable, because it doesn't have knowledge of all the transmitters' radiation patterns, and doesn't have detailed terrain information. Use Digital UK's postcode checker, which is based on the BBC's 50 years of knowledge of how UHF signals travel across terrain, and computes interference from every other transmitter in the country.

It looks like you have clear line of sight to both Sudbury and Aldeburgh, so I'm guessing that the poor projected result for Aldeburgh is either down to the radiation pattern, or due to interference from Crystal Palace, which uses the same frequencies. From November until April, Aldeburgh BBC A will clash with ITV1 from Crystal Palace, while the other two multiplexes clash with low-power multiplexes at CP (though 'low power' at CP means 20 kW). After CP's switchover in April, they will clash with two high-power multiplexes.

You should get a solid PSB service from Sudbury after switchover, but the three commercial multiplexes (A/SDN, C/ArqA, D/ArqB above) will stay on their current channels with little change in power until after Bluebell Hill switches over next June. The prediction, from 20 July, for SDN is variable while no prediction is offered for ArqA and ArqB. After the channel change on 27 June 2012, the prediction for SDN and ArqA is good, but ArqB remains variable. A reception change is shown in 2013 which will drop the COM muxes to variable - this may reflect switchovers on the continent, which I believe DUK always show in 2013, whenever they really happen.

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Mike Dimmick's 2,486 posts GB flag
M
Mike Dimmick
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

2:15 PM

Peter Stonebridge: There is no standard way to access digital text and not all channels carry it. For BBC channels, press the red button on the remote. For ITV1, C4 and C5, press TEXT.

Your TV may show some indication that text or interactive applications are available on the channel. My Humax box shows an 'MHEG' indicator.

Subtitles are always accessed using the dedicated subtitles button on the remote.

Poor signal quality could lead to the MHEG data for the text service not all being decodable, though I would expect you to get some picture and sound break-up as well. If quality is right at the top of the so-called 'cliff edge' you can get poor picture quality without actual break-up, and there might be problems with MHEG at this quality level as well, but it's a very narrow range at which this happens.

DUK predict that your reception of the BBC mux is currently variable. It should improve to 'good' next week.

Do be aware that it is possible to have too much signal as well as too little, and users of Sudbury will be particularly likely to end up having too much signal as the post-switchover digital power is only reduced slightly from analogue, while much larger than pre-switchover digital levels.

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Mike Dimmick's 2,486 posts GB flag
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