Full Freeview on the Sudbury (Suffolk, England) transmitter
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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 18/09/2023 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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Monday, 19 December 2011
A
alan7:31 AM
JB38
I am sure the "umbrella" situation applies here. Bures lies in a valley and not on the same level as the mast.
The main 5 channels radiating 100KW are fine, so I see no reason for an inline attenuator.
We had this situation many years ago on the analogue system. One day all of the channels were hardly watchable. I reported this (cant recall to who, possibly the BBC) and to my amazement a van turned up within a few days and made some measurements at the end of my coax. He admitted they had been working on the mast.
A few days later the signals were back to 100% and I received a call to say they had re-aligned the aerial back to where it was before they started work.
I appreciate this is back in the analogue days but it does support your theory.
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S
Stephen3:59 PM
Just to update.
After trying everything I and Panasonic suggested without success I returned the unit to the supplier under warranty for a replacement. This arrived today and is now up and running perfectly with all channels showing and working.
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J
jb389:43 PM
alan: Thanks for that update / explanation, as I had a sneaking suspicion that there just had to be something out of the ordinary connected with your set up regarding reception, as on the face of it you are managing to get away with doing something that would have caused others at similar distances from the transmitter as yourself to suffer from total blocking of reception, this no matter how good the tuner in their equipment might be.
I will admit that the "umbrella" effect I mentioned does manifest itself much more so in situations where the radiated signal is from a vertically polarised aerial, (i.e: dead spots top and bottom) which of course does not apply in Sudbury's case, although being located under the level of the mast does have the effect of bringing you further into the shielding skirt.
That said though, I still feel that an element of tuner input desensitizing is very likely to be applying in your area, something which only a failure of the main multiplexes would reveal, as if desensitising was in evidence then the problem channels would immediately come up in strength, this why I mentioned about experimenting using a variable attenuator (albeit hit and miss) as it can simulate (crudely!) the effect of being further away from the transmitter.
If you felt inclined you could also try experimenting by tilting your aerial upwards or downwards which would alter the balance of the various signals received, however its quite a time consuming exercise as well as it not being the best of weather to be carrying this out.
Of course the actual tuners used in different brands of equipment can also play a bit part in what its possible to receive and so hard and fast rules cannot be adopted, as what can help in one situation wont necessarily apply in another where a different receiver is involved, as some have the tendency to burst into instability at the slightest provocation, this meaning an excessively strong signal.
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Saturday, 24 December 2011
M
Martin Game1:02 AM
Ipswich
I have tried repeatedly to use the automatic retume facility to obtain the Yesterday and ITV 4 programs. It was useful to read on your web site about the low power of the Sudbury transmitter for this group of programmes as an explanation. Living in at one of the highest points in Ipswich IP4 5NE I am now resigned to wait till they increases its power for this group of programmes.
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Martin's: mapM's Freeview map terrainM's terrain plot wavesM's frequency data M's Freeview Detailed Coverage
J
jb387:51 AM
Martin Game: Yes! as unfortunately that's the case with quite a number of people, one thing you could try though before giving up is rather than repeatedly using the auto-tune facility to capture channels try "manually" entering the Mux channel numbers involved, as sometimes a dedicated entry and scan can capture a channel that's passed by during an auto-tune.
What to do is scrub everything received by either carrying out a scan without the aerial being connected, or alternatively (and better) carry out a factory re-set, then in the tuning menu / manual tune area entering - then scanning - Mux Ch54, storing anything received (if!), then use the same procedure again but with Mux Ch63.
Should by any chance you receive anything, then use the "add channels" or whatever its called on your equipment to regain the remaining channels.
If you have access to an aerial amplifier then this procedure could also be tried whilst temporarily using it, but its a hit and miss operation, as you would also be amplifying the already powerful signals being received from the main BBC / ITV multiplexes.
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Tuesday, 27 December 2011
L
Lisa12:18 PM
After being asked to retune we have lost the music channels any advice anyone? I now have a very unhappy teenager.
Thanks
Lisa
Hadleigh
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Wednesday, 28 December 2011
Tim CO14
1:33 PM
Walton On The Naze
1:33 PM
Walton On The Naze
jb38: With reference to the last paragraph of your reply to Alan, the point about different tuners seems to have been proved. Having had no luck with my existing tuners trying (without success) to receive Ch63, I today installed a new Goodmans GDB18FVZS2 set-top box. Scanned for channels, and lo-and-behold, it found 112, including those on ArqB that had previously proved illusive! Compare that with the mere 64 channels the other tuners found.
OK, it means buying more equipment, but Goodmans STB's are cheap (priced as low as £25), and worth the expense if you get all the 'lost' channels back. Of course, there's no guarantee other people would get similar results, but it may be the best option for a lot of folks out there with similar problems.
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Tim's: mapT's Freeview map terrainT's terrain plot wavesT's frequency data T's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Saturday, 31 December 2011
M
Mr. J. Carrington10:12 AM
We have problems in Leicestershire,with the Waltham transmiter but not when it is raining.?.
We are unable to get a clear reception for ITV.(Only ITV is affected ) The picture sudenly 'breaks up'.
Any Suggestions?
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J
jb3812:51 PM
Tim CO14: Sorry for my delayed acknowledgement to your posting, however what you have mentioned highlights the difficulty in giving advice to anyone with Freeview problems, insomuch that the tuner fitted in the device (TV or box) they are using can be a contributory factor to the cause of their problems, that is coupled to many other factors.
The ironical aspect being that tuners that are inclined to be somewhat lacking in sensitivity generally perform better than sensitive types in situations where the signal strength is a bit over the top in strength, whereas the latter types mentioned score over the former when in weak signal areas.
What really causes problems with Freeview receivers is when they are used in situations where the powers that be have decided that its OK for a stations main multiplexes (e.g: Sudbury) to be operating with an ERP of 100Kw whilst another multiplex is only on 1.1Kw, as it takes an exceptionally good tuner to cope with that type of situation as its one that usually only communication receivers can deal with properly, this because of them having adjustable RF gain controls as well as in some cases variable RF input tuning, rather than in the case of Freeview equipment where both are not unexpectedly fixed, this obviously because of the equipment being very low priced compared to the semi-professional devices referred to.
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J
jb381:03 PM
Mr. J. Carrington: Leicestershire is obviously a very large area where many locations are somewhat screened by either valleys or forests, so you really have to indicate your location so that the reception possibilities as well as other factors can be assessed with the aid of the post code reception predictor, plus of course possible knowledge of the area.
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