Full Freeview on the Waltham (Leicestershire, England) transmitter
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The symbol shows the location of the Waltham (Leicestershire, England) transmitter which serves 770,000 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 Waltham (Leicestershire, England) mast?
Waltham transmitter - Waltham transmitter: Possible effect on TV reception week commencing 27/11/2023 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
DTG-12 QSPK 8K 3/4 8.0Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2
H/V: aerial position (horizontal or vertical)
Which Freeview channels does the Waltham 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 Waltham transmitter?
BBC East Midlands Today 0.9m homes 3.4%
from Nottingham NG2 4UU, 28km northwest (306°)
to BBC East Midlands region - 17 masts.
ITV Central News 0.9m homes 3.4%
from Birmingham B1 2JT, 83km west-southwest (244°)
to ITV Central (East) region - 17 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 80% evening news is shared with Central (West)
Are there any self-help relays?
| Braunstone | Transposer | 5 km SW Leicester city centre | 170 homes |
How will the Waltham (Leicestershire, England) transmission frequencies change over time?
| 1984-97 | 1997-98 | 1998-2011 | 2011-13 | 2013-18 | 2013-17 | 4 Mar 2020 | |||
| C/D E | E | E | W | W T | W T | W T | |||
| C26 | LNG | LNG | |||||||
| C29 | SDN | SDN | SDN | SDN | |||||
| C31 | com7 | com7 | |||||||
| C32 | BBCA | ||||||||
| C34 | D3+4 | ||||||||
| C35 | C5waves | C5waves | BBCB | ||||||
| C37 | com8 | com8 | |||||||
| C41 | _local | ||||||||
| C49tv_off | BBCA | BBCA | |||||||
| C54tv_off | C4waves | C4waves | C4waves | D3+4 | D3+4 | D3+4 | |||
| C55tv_off | com7tv_off | ||||||||
| C56tv_off | ArqA | ArqA | ArqA | COM8tv_off | |||||
| C57tv_off | ArqB | ArqB | ArqB | ||||||
| C58tv_off | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBCB | BBCB | BBCB | |||
| C61 | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | BBCA | |||||
| C64 | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBC2waves |
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 17 Aug 11 and 31 Aug 11.
How do the old analogue and currrent digital signal levels compare?
| Analogue 1-5 | 250kW | |
| BBCA, D3+4, BBCB | (-7dB) 50kW | |
| SDN, ARQA, ARQB | (-10dB) 25kW | |
| com8 | (-12.7dB) 13.4kW | |
| com7 | (-13.9dB) 10.2kW | |
| Mux 1* | (-14dB) 10kW | |
| Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B* | (-14.9dB) 8kW | |
| Mux C*, Mux D*, LNG | (-17dB) 5kW |
Local transmitter maps
Waltham Freeview Waltham DAB Waltham AM/FM Waltham TV region BBC East Midlands Central (East micro region)Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Waltham transmitter area
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Sunday, 4 January 2015
Mike P I suggest you appreciate my point better and living in Nottingham (where my late father was born) hardly helps you understand when the BBC reporters, mic and camera comes out from the fabled 'east' Midlands , does the interviews for their 'East Midlands Today' and tells folks who view Sutton Coldfield the item will be on either later or tomorrow but because of the 'divide' suiting those in Nottingham with a clear coverage from Waltham (Freeview, Sky, Virgin) and no border problems leaves Hinckley and S.Leics OUT . What would make sense is an overlap such as we here had in the VHF TV days and UHF (analogue) days when even Anglia TV was receivable not from Mendlesham but Sandy Heath in the case of UHF . The curse of digital is whilst more stations (too many 'sellervision' regrettably) because of technical limits divisions now exist which did not and this WAS based on political maps drawn in Whitehall. In the 50's 60' right to the 70's we Midlanders and our one region was from Wales to Nottinghamshire (we had no coast-line) that's the 'politics' I mean geographical politics, where Lincolnshire folk were East Coast . The anger that was expressed when Belmont transmitter went from sending Anglia TV/ BBC East(Norwich) to Yorkshire ITV/ BBC Leeds is still talked of in places such as Skegness decades later so the flippant comment of not wanting East Midlands replaced by West Midlands rather ignores my point - I think at least there should be an adherence to the coverage map (increase Waltham power (do BBC/ITV actually carry out field strength tests - obviously not fully) or a longer , more inclusive Midlands Today (as the Birmingham programme is titled from the capital city of the Midlands). If you recall MikeP the regional assemblies which were meant to give some solidity to the sub-regions like east Midlands and west Midlands were never lawfully and properly established or elected and the Prime Minister abolished them in 2012. When I was born (Nuneaton 1947) Midlanders, like Londoners, belonged to their region as did such as the BBC Midland Home Service (from Birmingham originally 5IT on 426 Metres MW 626 kHz, a small office and studio for essential news in Nottingham area 5NG on 326 Metres MW was ironically controlled from Manchester ! ) Of cause the regional BBC Home Service stations (radio) were ended in 1967 - the BBC didn't bother to ask licence payers of cause in the same way digital TV was brought in complete with required regular re-tuning of the receivers! Of cause the east/west Midlands joke where whole areas get the 'wrong' service has been repeated in Northern England, South West, North and South Wales and Scotland and to one incomer quite happy with the forced division of regional programmes there are two angry established TV viewers. The SES/Astra satellites at 28.2 E are the only real answer and offer all the BBC1 regions (labelled on EPG) and ITV regions (unlabeled !) but of cause a Sky box and dish is required and a specific no-sub contract with Sky or good friend 'in the trade'. But if they (BBC/ITA) could sort out coverage to give inclusion not exclusion in the late 1950's and 1960's why not now? So viewers paying out the obligatory £145 odd TV licence (combined radio colour TV in 1969 - £11) could have a choice - watch their own local news and not have a second-rate digital terrestrial system.
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MikeB7:25 PM
Rog Parsons: Since I use Waltham, yet live in North Cambridgeshire (not far from Stamford..), I get East Midlands, rather than Anglia. However, I cannot imagine why, as MikeP put it, someone in Stamford would want news from Telford - by no stretch is it even close to 'local'. In TV terms, local is a somewhat strange term, because the regions are largely based, as MikeP pointed out, on the terrain and of course on the position of transmitters.
There are always people who are going to be annoyed that they cannot their 'local' news, but life is the art of the possible, and as you point out, Freesat can supply any 'local' news service anyway, so there are alternatives.
BTW - Although the combined colour TV & radio licence might have been £11 in 1969, as Brianist recently pointed out, its cost in real terms was the modern day equivalent of over £157 at 2013 prices Television licensing in the United Kingdom (historical) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
So we pay less in real terms for more channels, with more content...
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MikeP
10:11 PM
10:11 PM
It's interesting that on Saturday there was a letter in the Daily Telegraph (I read others as well) from someone who claimed to have worked on the plans for the switch from analogue to digital and saying how wonderful it has all been. In the latest copy of Computer Active (I read others as well) is a report that much of the country cannot get even 10 Mbps and that some 13% claim not to want anything to do with internet services.
From our jpoint experience on this website we see that digital reception is not as consumer-friendly as analogue was. We've had complaints here of serious reception problems of a type that never happened in the 'old days'. We also have news that Ofcom think it's a good idea to flog off the UHF spectrum to mobile operators purely for profit reasons and not to improve TV reception at all. If 13%, if that figure is correct, will not have internet then TV coverage will fall below the level found in the late 1950's! Is that a forward step?
The 'division' between getting East or West midlands is a sore point for people in places likem Coalville, just to the west of Leicester. The Waltham signal is poor in many parts of the town so Sutton Coldfield gets used but they always wanted, and I presume still do, the East Midlands service for news and local events. So geography has been 'against' them for many years (I was Senior Engineer in Oadby and Loughborough for some years, so have a good understanding [I hope] of viewers concerns in that area).
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MikeB11:11 PM
MikeP: I'm not sure that digital TV is any less ' consumer-friendly as analogue was'. Most of the problems that people report seem to be little different - poor reception caused by aerial system failures, the problems of geography, tuned into the wrong transmitter and occasional problems caused by high pressure.
On the other hand, certain problems seem to have disappeared. I know my parents no longer pick up French TV when there is a high pressure system along the South Coast. And while poor signal strength continues to be a problem for some, its simply that whereas the picture used to be very snowy, its now very blocky!
Perhaps the more things change, the more they stay the same. I certainly agree withyour comments about broadband speed though!
Perhaps this is a project for Brian - has there actually be a change in the number of complaints, or is it simply that we can now complain more easily, and perhaps fail to understand how TV actually works?
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Monday, 5 January 2015
MikeP
11:17 PM
11:17 PM
MikeB
In my considerable experience in the TV servicing side of the industry, we now have a system that requires a great many retunes, even when things are working correctly as the 'powers that be' decide to change the allocations forcing retunes. Viewers never had to retune for many, many years using analogue - but didn't have so many services to choose from. When you look at it from the perspective of the normal viewer with no technical interest at all (they only want to watch the programmes) the services provided now are a lot less reliable for some, but not all. The digitally encoded transmissions are more susceptible to problems than was the case with analogue.
As for the interference aspects, at least most could watch the programmes despite some interference on the picture and/or sound. With digital it's usually a case of all or nothing or if it's a borderline case then seriously broken up pictures with sound you can hardly bear to listen to.
Further, a weak analogue signal still gave you the programmes even though they were 'spotty' with white noise. With digital it usually doesn't get decoded so people get the 'No Signal' message, sometimes wrongly as it also appears when there is too strong a signal. From the viewer's perspective the spotty pictures were better than none at all!
Since moving house, closer to Mendip, our signal has deteriorated to the point where many evenings we can get less than half the normal Freeview range and no HD at all (glad we also have a dish). The log-periodic I had installed soon after we moved has not helped one bit! I am seriously considering a 48 element wide-band modified Yagi type that has a minimum of 16.5 dB gain across all channels. If that gives too much signal then I have a variable attenuator to hand (0 to -36dB). I've tried variable gain amplifiers (0 to +25dB) and attenuators with the log-periodic but a check on strength shows it is just about adequate on BBC1/2, poor on ITV and almost absent on the HD channels! So a trip up the ladder equipped with a new aerial and meter is on the cards for me I'm afraid.
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Tuesday, 6 January 2015
A
Angela Barker9:24 PM
The other day we lost channels for our freeview. We are on Waltham transmitter. Since yesterday we now get just 9 ITV channels after retuning. I know they say there are no problems but can anyone please explain what is happening.
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MikeB10:05 PM
Angela Barker: I get my signal from Waltham, and its fine, which confirms what 'they say'. Logically, if its not the transmitter, it must be you. There are two things that could be happening.
Firstly, your aerial system has a problem. Corroded or frayed cable, moisture in the system, etc. Thats sounds the most likely reason.
Secondly, because you've retuned, you've possibly lost Waltham, but found another transmitter, either a 'light' one, or one much further away. Or you've got no more than the strongest signals from Waltham, becuase your aerial system is up the creek. If you've lost signal, its normally the aerial, so retuning is pointless, and makes the problem potentially worse.
Check your system. And then make sure your tuned to Waltham. And then get your system sorted out.
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Wednesday, 7 January 2015
G
Gordon1:38 AM
I see the Waltham transmitter carries several HD channels on Com7 C31 and is operating at 10.2 KW.
Is there some specific reason for this when all the rest are 50KW & 25KW (except Nottm local TV C26 and unused CH37)?
I have some problems receiving C31in my location / area (Duffield, Derbys), which I am assuming must be due to the low signal power. All the other channels are fine.
Why is C31 on low power ??
Thank you.
Gordon
Picture Perfect
Derby
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Dave Lindsay
11:24 AM
11:24 AM
Gordon: It is not on "low" power, it is on its highest power.
COM7 and the future COM8 broadcasts from 30 transmitters only using channels set aside exclusively for them. Thus they must fit in with other transmitters and therefore transmission powers are lower than for the main six multiplexes. They are effectively pre-switchover services, only covering a proportion of the population.
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Thursday, 8 January 2015
G
Gordon Insley12:54 AM
Dave:
I have not yet got a grasp on your explanation.
Would you like to explain why these predominately primary HD channels are the poor relations.
Given that HD is the way forward then several important channels may not make it to those screens that are on the fringe of a given transmitters service coverage.
Is the intention to 'up' the signal power at some point of is this it for the foreseeable future.
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