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.
This transmitter has no current reported problems
The BBC and Digital UK report there are no faults or engineering work on the Sudbury (Suffolk, England) transmitter._______
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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Thursday, 19 April 2012
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Norm De Plume7:23 PM
Stowmarket
Tim - thanks for the date correction, I had thought it was June but in my haste I read the wrong date at the top of the page. At least the update works in James's favour :)
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Norm's: mapN's Freeview map terrainN's terrain plot wavesN's frequency data N's Freeview Detailed Coverage
James Elliston: Try manually tuning to C28 for ArqB from Crystal Palace; you may be able to pick it up off the back of your aerial and it might give you some degree of service until 27th June.
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Nick11:52 PM
How do I align my aerial in Aldeburgh to get the Sudbury transmitter? I believe whichever way I turn it, a meter will log on to Aldeburgh instead.
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Nick11:57 PM
Why does a non hd freeview box not show the channels used for hd, albeit not in HD?
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Friday, 20 April 2012
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Nick12:00 AM
In Aldeburgh I would like to align my aerial to Sudbury to get more channels, but understand the meter would simply log me on to Aldeburgh because of its strength. How do I align to Sudbury please? It was easy with analogue, just turned for the best picture.
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Norm De Plume6:13 AM
Stowmarket
@Nick - signal meters don't 'log on' and turning the aerial to point to Sudbury should be sufficient.
You will need to to rotate your aerial so that the wire elements are horizontal because Aldeburgh is a repeater a Sudbury is a master transmitter.
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Norm's: mapN's Freeview map terrainN's terrain plot wavesN's frequency data N's Freeview Detailed Coverage
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Mike Dimmick11:36 AM
Nick: "Why does a non hd freeview box not show the channels used for hd, albeit not in HD?"
Because the HD signals are transmitted with a new modulation standard, DVB-T2. A regular DVB-T box simply cannot understand the data stream that's transmitted, it just sees it as very loud noise.
"How do I align to Sudbury please?"
Cheap meters simply show a raw signal strength across the entire UHF band. These are basically useless. You'd be better off selecting the manual tuning screen on a Freeview box, telling it to tune in a known frequency (e.g. C44) and watching the strength meter on the tuning screen. That assumes the box shows the strength/quality on a specific channel before actually tuning it.
Proper meters allow you to select the channel to monitor. Professional equipment does a full decode and recode of the signal, comparing the actual received signal and the ideal to get a quantity known as the Modulation Error Ratio. The aerial should be positioned to get the best MER. However, equipment that does this is quite expensive: the Promax TV Hunter, which is fairly basic, is over £400.
Unfortunately most Freeview boxes have a pointless quality meter, showing the number of uncorrectable errors. You need to know how many errors are being corrected and optimize for the fewest errors, as this will give the most chance of reliable reception in adverse weather conditions.
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Mike Dimmick11:41 AM
Nick: Unless you changed the aerial for a wideband at some point in the past, you should do so now. An aerial erected for Aldeburgh would be a Group A aerial, designed for C21-C37, whereas Sudbury requires a Group E or wideband designed for at least C35-C68. A wideband is recommended to ensure that you can still pick up the COMs in the future: it's looking like they will have to move again to release even more spectrum for mobile phones.
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Nick5:57 PM
Thank you Mike for very full answers. I think I will have to do it the hard way, with someone on the ground, and hope for the best.
The aerial is home-made. One of my hobbies, and tested on analogue when I could see the difference as I added directors. I don't like wideband as they tail off so much at either end, and with Sudbury in the mid band, I prefer an aerial for that group, and hope for the best with channels outside it. In essence it is an old J Beam, with the square slot dipole and reflector, but modified now with 2 extra sets of directors, tribeam
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russ grooms8:54 PM
We have just switched over in North Kent and I cannot pick any signal up. I've tried a different box, switched the booster in and out and I'm using a brand new wide bad aerial which I've been waving around like a ship in a storm and still nothing. I've called the set-top box makers, Digital TV helpline and tuned manually to 5 differnet frequencies and still nothing. Basically, it f**ked. All I'm being told is to spend more money, either on new equipment or getting an 'expert' round to help me. Can anyone help???
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