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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.

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.

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), 71 That’s 60s,

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 U&Drama, 21 5USA, 29 ITV2 +1, 32 5STAR, 33 5Action, 38 Channel 5 +1, 41 Legend, 42 GREAT! action, 57 U&Dave ja vu, 58 ITV3 +1, 59 ITV4 +1, 64 Blaze, 67 TRUE CRIME, 68 TRUE CRIME XTRA, 81 Blaze +1, 83 Together TV, 91 WildEarth, 93 ITVBe +1, 209 Ketchup TV, 210 Ketchup Too, 211 YAAAS!, 251 Al Jazeera English, 255 FRANCE 24 (in English), 265 Rok Sky +1, plus 29 others

COM5
ArqA
 H max
C31- (553.8MHz)228mDTG-8100,000W
Channel icons
11 Sky Mix, 17 Really, 19 U&Dave, 31 E4 Extra, 36 Sky Arts, 40 Quest Red, 43 Food Network, 47 Film4 +1, 48 Challenge, 49 4seven, 60 U&Drama +1, 65 That's TV 2, 70 Quest +1, 74 &UYesterday +1, 76 That's TV 2 MCR, 233 Sky News, plus 13 others

COM6
ArqB
 H max
C37 (602.0MHz)228mDTG-8100,000W
Channel icons
12 Quest, 25 U&W, 27 U&Yesterday, 34 GREAT! movies, 39 DMAX, 44 HGTV, 52 GREAT! christmas, 56 That's TV (UK), 63 GREAT! romance mix, 73 HobbyMaker, 75 That's 90s, 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
Sunday, 10 June 2012
A
An Irate Freeview viewer
3:29 PM
Braintree

Dave Lindsay: Thank you. Unlike A D Wood I've experienced this since the last retune was required some 7 months ago, not the last day or so.

Shame I can't get a partial refund on my TV tax for loss of service or some other financial recompense if I do end up having to buy further expensive equipment/services like Sky, simply to receive a handful of channels I was in receipt of prior to the last required retune and prior to the switchover.

The situation is a shambles, and that's being polite about it.

link to this comment
An Irate Freeview viewer's 3 posts GB flag
An's: mapA's Freeview map terrainA's terrain plot wavesA's frequency data A's Freeview Detailed Coverage
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

4:44 PM

An Irate Freeview viewer: I presume that you do realise that you are not officially predicted as being able to receive these two channels? namely Ch54 & Ch63, and although you might well have managed to receive them before it should however be appreciated that this was only really through good luck and not through entitlement, but unfortunately this good luck having been spoiled because of the massive differential in power between the main muxes and the two commercials, as the main muxes will most likely be desensitizing your tuner thereby making it difficult for it to pick up the very much weaker signals being received from these two commercials, something thats affected quite a number of viewers in the Sudbury coverage area, even a number who unlike yourself, are actually predicted to receive it.

By the way, the three commercial channels of SDN / ArqA / ArqB are not connected in any way whatsoever with the TV licence, it only being linked with the PSB muxes, these three commercials being purely for profit purposes and likewise not being required in the legal sense to ensure they can be received by any licence holder.

link to this comment
jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
A
An Irate Freeview viewer
5:47 PM
Braintree

Not predicted? How so. The maps here say I should have full Freeview coverage under the Sudbury transmitter, and that I would also think is supported by people up the road from me having the channels I do not.

But regardless of whether I was "predicted" to or not the idea of the digital switchover I believed was to bring more TV to more people not reduce what they can receive.

To be as polite as possible - I despise people who pretty much stand up for the shambles for many that is the digital switchover by way of making excuses and pointing out things like "they're not covered by the TV tax".

link to this comment
An Irate Freeview viewer's 3 posts GB flag
An's: mapA's Freeview map terrainA's terrain plot wavesA's frequency data A's Freeview Detailed Coverage
H
Heinz
7:05 PM

I'm sure, in 17 days time, you'll be a happy bunny and not An Irate Freeview viewer.

link to this comment
Heinz's 9 posts GB flag
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

9:31 PM

An Irate Freeview viewer: Copy and paste the link provided below into your browser and you can see that the two muxes in question are missing.

As an engineer myself I disapproved of this having been done right from the start, and had voiced my opinion that it might well be OK as far as the transmitting side of the equation was concerned but certainly not if consideration was given to the problems that this differential in power is very likely to cause with reception, basically because of the average domestic tuner not being able to cope with this type of situation, although some brands do much more than others, Humax and Panasonic being amongst the better types.

However, as commented by Heinz your difficulty should be rectified on the 27th.

Postcode Checker - Trade View

link to this comment
jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
Wednesday, 13 June 2012
H
Harrumph
12:32 AM
Stowmarket

It's gobsmacking, all this effort that's going into sorting out Freeview and I just couldn't be bothered reading the posts immediately above mine in case they give any useful information. It's not like 21 pages of information might be relevant or anything! For crying out loud, I have to post now or I might notice that the answers are even on the same page!!!!

Indeed, why the heck would the engineers bother to increase the power on two muxes and move them to better channels that are easier to receive, putting them on a par with the BBC channels when they could just leave them the same as they are now and let people whinge.

For goodness sake people, if you're going to complain, spend 10 minutes, look around you and you never know, you might actually learn something (God forbid!!!) But I guess you'll just moan about the fact that it'll never work because it's the English thing to do to moan moan moan.

Roll on the 27th June when all the muxes are transmitting on the same power!

link to this comment
Harrumph's 4 posts GB flag
Harrumph's: mapH's Freeview map terrainH's terrain plot wavesH's frequency data H's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Saturday, 23 June 2012
T
Trevor Wright
10:10 AM

An Irate Freeview Viewer:
I live in Rayne (CM77 6) not that far from you and had a good 40-year-old Group B aerial until six weeks back when I finally switched to a five-element Wideband aerial (Blake DMX5 I think) with a channel 21-39 (I think) Antiference filter to remove any London reception, installed by Witham Aerials & Satellite (witsat.co.uk). Previously I could not get a reliable ITV4 (same issued with BTCC) but realised that an aerial change was the only option. I also had the old style of aerial downlead instead of the WF100 satellite style downcable now used. I now have a neat small aerial (awful-looking 10-element Blake DMX10's or similar were previously fitted), new downcable, and get all the channels without problem, even though channel 63 is down at 30% signal strength according to my Humax PVR. So, if you have an old aerial and old downcable the an aerial update is the only answer. Yes, it's annoying we are forced into this by the digital switchover, but it's something we all have to live with.
I can thoroughly recommend Witham Aerial & Satellite. He's an ex-Marconi chap like me and a professional installer, not like some of the cowboy installers.

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Trevor Wright's 2 posts GB flag
Dave Lindsay
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

11:27 AM

Trevor Wright: The Commercial channels are on low power from Sudbury. Since last November there have been many reports through this website of people unable pick-up C63.

The changes due to happen this Wednesday will see all of Sudbury's Commercial multiplexes going to full power (finally!). As you know, this is around a year since Sudbury switched, but it has been in this "temporary" low power state.

For this reason I suggest that no changes be made until then, when an assessment of reception of the final-state signals can be made.

The three Commercial multiplexes will use 56, 58 and 60 which are above the former analogue Group B channels, and so may be outside the officially-designed range of many aerials, but because digital reception is all about getting sufficient level above the threshold, then this "may" work fine when the signals go up to full power.

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Dave Lindsay's 5,724 posts GB flag
M
Mazbar
sentiment_satisfiedGold

11:59 AM

dave having a low power transmitter is not allways a bad thing. When a transmitter goes on high power it can mask a problem i go to lots of houses that only have very mild problems only to find water pouring out of the coax from breaks or broken caps. So informing people to wait till it is high power is not allways the right answer if the coax comes direct from the aerial people should allways look for rust, a milky white aroumd the plug or just water, this allways needs atention straigth away. One last thing please stop advising people to check there aerial some stupid people will think it is fine to clamber over there roof puting themself at risk a little bit of knowledge is a dangerious thing.

link to this comment
Mazbar's 384 posts GB flag
Sunday, 24 June 2012
Dave Lindsay
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

12:47 AM

Mazbar: Of course water getting into a cable needs sorting, irrespective of any other factor that may be affecting reception.

I don't recall advising anyone to check their aerial. The nearest I have gone to this is advising people using Rowridge that switching their aerial to vertical may help. Granted, a qualification that this should be done by a professional or at least someone proficient in going up on to the roof safely may be wise.

As you say, there are some who are not suitably qualified in going on the roof and unable to appreciate that, as a result, they should not go on the roof.

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Dave Lindsay's 5,724 posts GB flag
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