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 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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Monday, 2 July 2012
M
Mark Fletcher12:26 AM
Halifax
Graham Peters.Unless you leave a full postcod eor nearby location as such,we cannot be of useful assistance to you !
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Mark's: mapM's Freeview map terrainM's terrain plot wavesM's frequency data M's Freeview Detailed Coverage
M
Mark Fletcher12:27 AM
Halifax
Correction to above post.Should have stated postcode or,apologises all round.
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Mark's: mapM's Freeview map terrainM's terrain plot wavesM's frequency data M's Freeview Detailed Coverage
M
Mark Fletcher12:30 AM
Halifax
Nick.All multiplexes from Sudbury are now broadcasting on 100kw apiece.
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Mark's: mapM's Freeview map terrainM's terrain plot wavesM's frequency data M's Freeview Detailed Coverage
M
Mark Fletcher12:44 AM
Halifax
Nick:Then again if you prefer to receive the full package from the main Dover main transmitter instead of Sudbury go for it.
On the minus side though you will have to put up with BBC1 South East and ITV1 Meridian South East news bulletins if you commit to Dover.
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Mark's: mapM's Freeview map terrainM's terrain plot wavesM's frequency data M's Freeview Detailed Coverage
B
Ben1:12 AM
Clacton-on-sea
Mark, thanks for your advice, appreciated. Two weeks ago and for the last few years I could get Dave, ITV4, Yesterday, Quest, etc. Sometimes these channels got a bit sketchy when we had high pressure but were always found on a scan, then they disappeared last week. No signal at all. They all came back after the Sudbury upgrade on Wednesday, then vanished again a few days later.
So that's why I suspect something has changed and it's not at my end; I have a decent aerial, checked all the hardware, rescanned, and I'm getting 90% or 100% signal quality on CH44, CH41 - all BBC stations, Anglia, ITV2, More4, E4, etc. Signal strength is only about 40% but it works fine.
What I can't get my head around is why Sudbury is giving me no issues with these channels and the rest have gone tits up! Back in the day, we just used to thump the telly when the picture went wonky...
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Ben's: mapB's Freeview map terrainB's terrain plot wavesB's frequency data B's Freeview Detailed Coverage
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Nick9:02 AM
Thanks Mark,
I was actually talking about two different locations, Aldeburgh can't get Dover, but can 10 miles south, so it is not my solution.
I am quite pleased to see Ben has similar problems.
I guess if Sudbury plays up, I had better try Tacolneston, but so difficult to align the aerial to Sud or Tac when the Aldeburgh 'light' tx wants to log itself on.
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Nick: I wonder if there is a notch in the Sudbury COMs antenna in your direction. Hence you aren't getting the full benefit of the 100kW. I think this because you said that you could get the 14kW signals occasionally.
Thus, maybe the strength of those signals is significantly weaker than the PSBs and this is contributing to desensitise your receiver which is in turn making it insensitive to the COMs.
With this in mind, I wonder if you need to boost the strength of the COMs only. A spectrum analyser would obviously show you instantly if they are there, but weaker than the PSBs.
Before trying what I've outlined below, you could perhaps try attenuating the signal to see whether the strength of the COMs increases, even if not enough to put it above the threshold to give you a picture.
This may or may not work as you will obviously be reducing all signals and not just the PSBs.
Or: If you were to use a Group C/D bandpass filter, this would remove all but C/D channels and hence remove the PSBs. You could then experiment by seeing what can be picked up. Then try amplifying it.
Obviously, as KMJ,Derby says, the siting of the aerial may be a factor. With little or no signal it is difficult to know whether the aerial is being aimed in the right direction. Remember that the PSBs are a Single Frequency Network with Rouncefall, so going by those signals may be a red herring.
If you successfully get the COMs from Sudbury, having amplified them (and them only), then you need to diplex the output of the amplifier with another feed containing the PSBs, either from Sudbury or Aldeburgh. Your former analogue Group B aerial may be of use here if you decide to receive PSBs from Sudbury.
Bear in mind that in the future, additional COMs may come on the air using channels between 31 and 37 and likely as not using the same or similar quasi-national network. So you may have to change again if you want to pick them up. How you do it now may affect how easy any future change might be.
A diplexer which splits at C51 will allow you to have the output of the amplifier (whose input is filtered to allow C/D only) *and* either Sudbury or Aldeburgh PSBs (which needn't be filtered) going to your receiver.
I assume that the C/D filter on the input of the amplifier might be needed to prevent any nasty effects by boosting the PSBs (even though they will be subsequently filtered by the diplexer.
As I might have said before, I'm not a professional and am just putting my thoughts forward based on what I understand. I would appreciate comments by the professionals on what I've proposed and how likely they think this might be an effective solution.
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The message at the top of this page does say that Sudbury is "liable to interruption" which does suggest that engineering work is ongoing. Maybe it will be worth waiting to see if reception of the COMs is possible on completion before adjusting your aerial arrangement.
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Nick5:27 PM
Thanks Dave,
I think perhaps I will hang on a bit and see what happens. Yes, I used to get ITV 3 fine on 14kw, now gone, and occasionally Challenge and Pick on 3kw, now also gone. I think they must be playing about with the xmitter. I noted a viewer in Clacton was only getting the muxes on ch 41 and 44, which is all I get now. I have tried my box at two locations in Aldeburgh with good aerials, same result. I reckon if people have to go through all the contortions you suggest to get all channels, those who devised this system should be strung up! Thanks for all your info.
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Hi I have a touring caravan park at post code IP123RQ and we have always had a limited TV transmission but since going digital last autumn and now this season all we seem to get is complaints that the picture quality is bad or non exsistant I know the old fixed round caravan aerials were not good but the more modern triangular or the directional aerials should work since going digital I have spent so much time with people trying to get a decent picture but the only way seems to be with a satellite dish, why ?? is the transmitter not putting out a full signal??
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