Full Freeview on the Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham, England) transmitter
 | Google Streetview |  | Google map |  | Bing map |  | Google Earth |  | 52.600,-1.835 or 52°36'1"N 1°50'5"W |  | B75 5JJ |
The symbol shows the location of the Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham, England) transmitter which serves 1,870,000 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 Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham, England) mast?
Sutton Coldfield transmitter - Sutton Coldfield transmitter: Possible effect on TV reception week commencing 27/11/2023 Pixelation or flickering on some or all channels 
_______
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
DTG-12 QSPK 8K 3/4 8.0Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2
H/V: aerial position (horizontal or vertical)
Which Freeview channels does the Sutton Coldfield 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
DTG-12 QSPK 8K 3/4 8.0Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2
H/V: aerial position (horizontal or vertical)
Which BBC and ITV regional news can I watch from the Sutton Coldfield transmitter?
BBC Midlands Today 2.9m homes 10.9%
from Birmingham B1 1RF, 15km south-southwest (200°)
to BBC West Midlands region - 66 masts.
ITV Central News 2.9m homes 10.9%
from Birmingham B1 2JT, 15km south-southwest (201°)
to ITV Central (West) region - 65 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 80% evening news is shared with Central (East)
Are there any self-help relays?
| Burton (shobnall) | Transposer | 1 km W Burton-on-Trent | 60 homes |
| Coalville | Transposer | 18 km NW Leicester | 600 homes |
| Solihull | Transposer | Land Rover building | 400 homes |
How will the Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham, England) transmission frequencies change over time?
| 1950s-80s | 1984-97 | 1997-98 | 1998-2011 | 2011-13 | 7 Mar 2018 | ||||
| VHF | B E T | B E T | B E T | B E K T | W T | ||||
| C4 | BBCtvwaves | ||||||||
| C33 | com7 | ||||||||
| C35 | com8 | ||||||||
| C36 | LOCAL2 | ||||||||
| C39 | +ArqB | ArqB | |||||||
| C40 | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | +BBCB | BBCB | ||||
| C42 | SDN | SDN | |||||||
| C43 | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | BBCA | BBCA | ||||
| C45 | ArqA | ArqA | |||||||
| C46 | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | D3+4 | D3+4 | ||||
| C48 | _local | ||||||||
| C50tv_off | C4waves | C4waves | C4waves | ||||||
| C51tv_off | LB | ||||||||
| C55tv_off | com7tv_off | ||||||||
| C56tv_off | COM8tv_off |
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 7 Sep 11 and 21 Sep 11.
How do the old analogue and currrent digital signal levels compare?
| Analogue 1-4 | 1000kW | |
| SDN, ARQA, ARQB, BBCA, D3+4, BBCB | (-7dB) 200kW | |
| com7 | (-10.5dB) 89.2kW | |
| com8 | (-10.7dB) 86kW | |
| LB | (-20dB) 10kW | |
| Mux 1*, Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*, Mux C*, Mux D* | (-21dB) 8kW |
Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Sutton Coldfield transmitter area
|
|
Thursday, 14 September 2017
A
Aerialman11:55 AM
Ima: The first issue you have is that the 3 Com channels from Blaenplwyf,channels 22,25,28,correspond to the three channels broadcast from the Llangrannog relay.This may affect the quality as well as the signal strength thus incurring the 'digital cliff' poor quality/no picture.
I am making an assumption that you are on higher ground above the village and sea front and that is why you are receiving a use-able signal from Blaen-plwyf?To improve your reception a roof top would be a better option and better still if if you're on high enough ground and can receive Presely TV transmitter all channels are clear of interference from any local transmitters.
After all the Llangrannog relay is dependent on the incoming signal it receives from Presely.
| link to this comment |
Monday, 16 October 2017
J
Jan3:38 PM
Used to get BBC East Midlands, presumably from Waltham transmitter. Been busy not watched much tv for a long while, turn it on one day and retune as tv asks and I get BBC West Midlands. Try all the retune even manually retuning after deleting channels and reading both instructions off Digital TV sites and my tv. Still, I get BBC West Midlands and that area news/weather. Even got aerial checked. On checking transmitter coverage maps it seems we no longer get coverage or signal for our area from Waltham, but from Sutton Coldfield and no alternative transmitter. Has the area surrounding Coalville suddenly moved to the West Midlands? Really annoying I cannot any longer rely on local news being on tv , now I have more time to relax .
| link to this comment |
S
StevensOnln15:00 PM
Jan: Please provide a full postcode so we can see the coverage prediction for your location. Waltham hasn't suddenly reduced its coverage area so there must be some kind of fault or interference somewhere. When you say you've tried manual tuning, which UHF channels have you tried this with?
| link to this comment |
Tuesday, 17 October 2017
MikeP
11:42 AM
11:42 AM
Jan:
Coalville *is* still covered by the Waltham transmitter as it has been for years (I used to be a senior Engineer for a TV rental company in Loughborough and we serviced Coalville and sorrounding areas for years).
If you look at https://ukfree.tv/transmi…ham, you will see that you are served from Waltham.
The channel numbers you need to tune to are: 49 (for PSB1-BBCA), 54 (for PSB2-D3&4), 58 (for PSB3-BBCB), 29 (for SDN-COM4), 56 (for ArqA-COM5), 57 (for ArqB-COM6), 26 (for LNG), 31 (for COM7) and 37 (for COM8). As some of those channels are lower than a Group C/D aerial can receive, you will need either a Group K or a Log-Periodic aerial to get all the available channels.
Hope that helps?
| link to this comment |
Tuesday, 24 October 2017
R
RichardW11:56 AM
C33 is down this morning. I tried a manual retune which returned 0 channels :(
| link to this comment |
M
MikeB3:44 PM
RichardW: Why would that channel be down? Sounds more like a fault with your system - I'd check the other muxes and then your cabling.
Brianist: I'm getting an expired security certificate when I try to access UKFree.TV on Chrome - is it just me?
| link to this comment |
Wednesday, 25 October 2017
MikeP
2:44 PM
2:44 PM
MikeB:
It's not just you, I'm getting it in Firefox, Chrome and Opera.
So I hope Briantist can fix this for everyone.
| link to this comment |
Thursday, 26 October 2017
S
StevenH7:01 PM
Sutton Coldfield channels on C33 and C35 have disappeared for the last two afternoons between 12 and 6pm approximately. I'm in Nottingham, but normally have a strong signal with quality hovering around 100% (according to the Humax tuner) at other times of the day. Are they doing any work on the transmitter or could it be something else? Thanks for any suggestions.
| link to this comment |
Friday, 27 October 2017
MikeP
2:09 PM
2:09 PM
StevenH:
Com7 and Com8 from Sutton Coldfield are broadcast at a just under half the power used for the main services so are susceptible to reception problems at the distance Nottingham is from Sutton Coldfield. As you have not given a full post code, we cannot determine what the reception conditions are like at your location. However, most of Nottingham receives either from the Waltham transmitter or else the Nottingham one, not far off the A610 near Kimberley. So why are you trying to get Sutton Coldfield signals? Note also that many areas of Nottingham and the surrounding area are not served well from Sutton Coldfield - just look at the map at the top of this page.
You are more likely to get better results using Waltham perhaps, but a full post code would let us check for you.
| link to this comment |
S
Stuart Harris2:17 PM
Same here, although I receive main tv from Brierley Hill, can normally get a very decent signal from Sutton Coldfield for COM7 & 8, however as Steven said the last couple of afternoons there has been no signal, plus at other times the signal has been a lot weaker than normal.
Problem is the only websites that give transmitter information only seem to show the BBC Muxesso you can't really check although Sutton Coldfield was down on the DigitalUK site as having engineering works this week.
| link to this comment |
Select more comments
Your comment please