Full Freeview on the Winter Hill (Bolton, England) transmitter

Brian Butterworth first published this on 1st May 2004 at 08:20 - UK Free TV

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53.625,-2.516 or 53°37'30"N 2°30'56"W

BL6 6SL

The symbol shows the location of the Winter Hill (Bolton, England) transmitter which serves 2,690,000 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 Winter Hill (Bolton, 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 Winter Hill 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.

Mux	H/V	Frequency	Height	Mode	Watts
PSB1 BBCA	H max	C32 (562.0MHz)	726m	DTG-	100,000W
	1 BBC One (SD) North West, 2 BBC Two England, 9 BBC Four, 23 BBC Three, 201 CBBC, 202 CBeebies, 231 BBC News, 232 BBC Parliament, plus 17 others
PSB2 D3+4	H max	C34 (578.0MHz)	726m	DTG-	100,000W
	3 ITV 1 (SD) (Granada), 4 Channel 4 (SD) North ads, 5 Channel 5, 6 ITV 2, 10 ITV3, 13 E4, 14 Film4, 15 Channel 4 +1 North ads, 18 More4, 26 ITV4, 28 ITVBe, 30 E4 +1, 35 ITV1 +1 (Granada),
PSB3 BBCB	H max	C35- (585.8MHz)	726m	DTG-	100,000W
	46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD North West, 102 BBC Two HD England, 103 ITV 1 HD (ITV Granada), 104 Channel 4 HD North ads, 105 Channel 5 HD, 106 BBC Four HD, 107 BBC Three HD, 204 CBBC HD, 205 CBeebies HD, plus 1 others 66 TBN UK,
COM4 SDN	H max	C29 (538.0MHz)	726m	DTG-8	100,000W
	20 Drama, 21 5USA, 29 ITV2 +1, 32 5STAR, 33 5Action, 38 Channel 5 +1, 41 Legend, 42 GREAT! action, 57 Dave ja vu, 58 ITVBe +1, 59 ITV3 +1, 64 Blaze, 67 TRUE CRIME, 68 TRUE CRIME XTRA, 78 TCC, 81 Blaze +1, 89 ITV4 +1, 91 WildEarth, 209 Ketchup TV, 210 Ketchup Too, 211 YAAAS!, 267 Al Jazeera English, plus 35 others
COM5 ArqA	H max	C31 (554.0MHz)	726m	DTG-8	100,000W
	Smithsonian Channel, 11 Sky Mix, 17 Really, 19 Dave, 31 E4 Extra, 36 Sky Arts, 40 Quest Red, 43 Food Network, 47 Film4 +1, 48 Challenge, 49 4seven, 60 Drama +1, 65 That's Christmas, 70 Quest +1, 74 Yesterday +1, 75 That's 90s, 233 Sky News, plus 11 others
COM6 ArqB	H max	C37 (602.0MHz)	726m	DTG-8	100,000W
	Quest Red +1, Classic Hits, 12 Quest, 25 W, 27 Yesterday, 34 GREAT! movies, 39 DMAX, 44 HGTV, 52 GREAT! christmas, 56 That's TV (UK), 61 GREAT! movies extra, 63 GREAT! christmas mix, 71 That’s 60s, 73 HobbyMaker, 82 Talking Pictures TV, 83 Together TV, 84 PBS America, 235 Al Jazeera Eng, plus 20 others
LM	H -20dB	C40 (626.0MHz)	572m	DTG-12	1,000W
	from 1st October 2014: 7 That's Manchester,
LL	H -17dB	C24 (498.0MHz)	572m	DTG-12	2,000W
	from 30th June 2014: 7 Bay TV Liverpool,
LPR	H -20dB	C56 (754.0MHz)	572m	DTG-12	1,000W
	from 1st October 2014: 7 That's Lancashire,
GIM	H -20dB	C57 (762.0MHz)	572m	DTG-2	1,000W
	Now 90s, Spotlight TV, Clubland TV, Country Music Entertainment , Classic Hits MCR, 76 That's Christmas MCR, 77 That's 60s MCR, 80 Best Xmas Music, 86 That's 90s MCR, 88 TV Warehouse+1,

DTG-8 64QAM 8K 3/4 27.1Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2
DTG-12 QSPK 8K 3/4 8.0Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2
DTG-2 16QAM 2K 3/4 18.1Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2
H/V: aerial position (horizontal or vertical)

Which BBC and ITV regional news can I watch from the Winter Hill transmitter?

BBC North West Tonight 3.1m homes 11.8%
from Salford M50 2QH, 22km southeast (140°)
to BBC North West region - 92 masts.

ITV Granada Reports 3.1m homes 11.6%
from Salford M50 2EQ, 22km southeast (139°)
to ITV Granada region - 80 masts.

How will the Winter Hill (Bolton, England) transmission frequencies change over time?

	1956-80s	1984-97	1997-98	1998-2009	2009-13	2013-18	2013-17	20 Feb 2020
	VHF	C/D E	C/D E	C/D E	C/D E	C/D E T	W T	W T
C9	ITV_waves
C12	BBCtv_waves
C24								_local
C29								SDN
C31							com7	com7
C32								BBCA
C34								D3+4
C35								BBCB
C37							com8	com8
C40								LOCAL2
C48			C5_waves	C5_waves
C49_{tv_off}						ArqA	ArqA
C50_{tv_off}						BBCA	BBCA
C54_{tv_off}					-BBCB	-BBCB	-BBCB
C55_{tv_off}		BBC1_waves	BBC1_waves	BBC1_waves	ArqB	ArqB	ArqB	com7_{tv_off}
C56_{tv_off}					_local	_local	_local	LPR
C57_{tv_off}					GIM	GIM	GIM	GIM
C58_{tv_off}					SDN	SDN	SDN
C59_{tv_off}		ITV_waves	ITV_waves	ITV_waves	D3+4	D3+4	D3+4
C61					ArqA
C62		BBC2_waves	BBC2_waves	BBC2_waves	BBCA
C65		C4_waves	C4_waves	C4_waves

_{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 4 Nov 09 and 2 Dec 09.

How do the old analogue and currrent digital signal levels compare?

Analogue 1-4	500kW
SDN, ARQA, ARQB, BBCA, D3+4, BBCB	(-7dB) 100kW
com7	(-12.9dB) 25.7kW
com8	(-13.4dB) 22.6kW
Analogue 5	(-16dB) 12.5kW
Mux 1, Mux 2, Mux A, Mux B, Mux C, Mux D	(-17dB) 10kW
LL	(-24dB) 2kW
GIM, LM, LPR	(-27dB) 1000W

Local transmitter maps

Winter Hill Freeview Winter Hill DAB Winter Hill TV region BBC North West Granada

Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Winter Hill transmitter area

May 1956-Jul 1968	Granada Television†
May 1956-Jul 1968	Associated British Corporation◊
Jul 1968-Feb 2004	Granada Television
Feb 2004-Dec 2014	ITV plc

Feb 1983-Dec 1992	TV-am•
Jan 1993-Sep 2010	GMTV•
Sep 2010-Dec 2014	ITV Daybreak•

• Breakfast ◊ Weekends ♦ Friday night and weekends † Weekdays only.

Is the transmitter output the same in all directions?

K

K Gardner
9:57 AM
Preston

Please clarify why poor signal strength/ from tx channel 55.

The Tv I receive from on channel 55, are all indicated on channel 31 from the web page for Winter Hill. Is the information here current ?
i.e. Tv channels 56,82,87,97,107,109,110

Channel 55 transmitter is indicated as 100kW, but quality for these TV channels (above) is 3 at best (but generally ) - postcode PR4 2BW

Signal quality is 10 from TV channels received from transmitter channels 31,37,49,50,54,56,58,59 which are all OK.

The problem is present on two televisions. Is channel 55 coverage different or lower power than advertised?

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K Gardner's 1 post GB flag

K's: K's Freeview map K's terrain plot K's frequency data K's Freeview Detailed Coverage

S

StevensOnln1

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

10:12 AM

K Gardner: According to UK COM6 is on UHF 37 at 100kW, COM7 is on at 22.9kW, COM8 is on at 22.6kW. The information at the top of this page doesn't seem to be have been updated to take account of recent changes yet.

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StevensOnln1's 3,570 posts GB flag

C

Chris.SE

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

3:42 PM

K Gardner:
If you click on the link for "digitaluk trade" at the bottom of your previous post, it will show you the predicted for you on the appropriate for each mux at .
COM7 (UHF55) and COM8 (UHF31) are indeed on a lower of 22.9kW and 22.6kW respectively.
There is no main mux on UHF56 currently, this is a local mux and is only being transmitted with 2kW!
Now, if you are picking up this local mux OK, it does suggest there are unlikely to be any major problems with your /coax, however bad/dirty connections at plugs and sockets etc have been known to mess up reception of an individual UHF channel, so it's worth just checking all your connections are clean and connecting ok. I'm assuming that you do have a aerial.
What is not helpful here, is you will see that the predicted reception for you for COM7 (UHF55) is much poorer than COM8. This will most likely be due to co-channel from other transmitters on UHF55 and other than checking your aerial alignment, there's unfortunately not a lot that you might be able to do to improve things.

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Chris.SE's 3,940 posts GB flag

MikeP

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

4:25 PM

K Gardner:

Further to that said by fellow contributors above, you may need to change your to a type to enable recepotion of all available . If you look at thwe uk website with your postcode, Coverage Checker - Detailed View you will see that a wideband aerial is now recommended and it also shows the actual channels being used to broadcast the TV . (Note that these are not the same as the Logical Channel Numbers used to identify each broadcast service, such as BBC 1 on LCN 1.)

You may qualify for some assistance, you can check by contacting on their website at www.freeview.co.uk/tvchanges or by ringing them on 0808 100 0288.

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MikeP's 3,056 posts GB flag

J

js

_{sentiment_satisfied}Gold

4:00 AM

I'm seeing some unusual character codes in the freeview EPG; specifically, an apostrophe ' with code 0x19 and a dash or minus sign - with code 0x13.

I don't have a device so can anyone tell me if the characters inside the curly brackets in the following event descriptions are rendered properly?

FreeSports, Mon 07 May 22:30 - 00:30: La Liga 2
v Rayo Vallecano: Coverage from the latest round of {'}s Segunda Division as teams battle it out to earn a promotion to the much coveted La Liga.

PBS America, Sun 06 May 21:10 - 23:35: The Vietnam War
Resolve (January 1966-June 1967): As an antiwar movement builds back home, soldiers and Marines discover that the war in Vietnam is nothing like their fathers{'} war. (Part 4 of 10)

Al Jazeera Eng HD, Wed 02 May 07:00 - 08:00: The Coming War On China
Journalist John Pilger, reveals what the news doesn't {-} that the world's greatest military , the U.S. may well be on the road to war with China.

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js's 826 posts GB flag

MikeP

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

1:03 PM

JS:

The curly brackets are extraneous, read it as if they are not present and it makes perfect UK English grammatical sense. Why they are showing I don't know.

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MikeP's 3,056 posts PT flag

R

Robert Lee

_{sentiment_satisfied}Bronze

6:20 PM

UHF 55 has disappeard and with it BBC News HD and a few others. Everything else is OK. Any ideas as no fault flagged.

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Robert Lee's 87 posts GB flag

M

Michael
7:39 PM

Between this morning and this afternoon BBC News HD and Aljazeera HD have both vanished ( on 107 or 1108). No changes are indicated here, so what has happened?

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Michael's 1 post GB flag

R

Robert Lee

_{sentiment_satisfied}Bronze

7:46 PM

The missing programmes have just reappeared on UHF 32 which now carries programmes previously on 55. Nice of them to let us know.

Brianist - can we please have !

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Robert Lee's 87 posts GB flag

R

Robert Lee

_{sentiment_satisfied}Bronze

9:20 PM

Just realised that I'm probably getting a weak from .
So, what has happened to UHF 55 on ?

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Robert Lee's 87 posts GB flag

Page 166

Please post a question, answer or commentIf you have Freeview reception problems before posting a question your must first do this Freeview reset procedure then see: Freeview reception has changed, Single frequency interference, and Freeview intermittent interference.

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