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

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

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.

Are there any planned engineering works or unexpected transmitter faults on the Winter Hill (Bolton, England) mast?

Winter Hill transmitter - Winter Hill transmitter: Possible effect on TV reception week commencing 22/04/2024 Pixelation or flickering on some or all channels

Choose from three options: ■ List by multiplex ■ List by channel number ■ List by channel name

_______

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, 83 Together TV, 89 ITV4 +1, 91 WildEarth, 209 Ketchup TV, 210 Ketchup Too, 211 YAAAS!, 267 Al Jazeera English, plus 30 others
COM5 ArqA	H max	C31 (554.0MHz)	726m	DTG-8	100,000W
	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 TV 2, 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
	12 Quest, 25 W, 27 Yesterday, 34 GREAT! movies, 39 DMAX, 44 HGTV, 52 GREAT! romance, 56 That's TV (UK), 61 GREAT! movies extra, 63 GREAT! romance mix, 71 That’s 60s, 73 HobbyMaker, 82 Talking Pictures TV, 84 PBS America, 235 Al Jazeera Eng, plus 18 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 TV 2 MCR, 77 That's 60s MCR, 80 That's 80s, 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 AM/FM 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?

Comments

Monday, 26 June 2023

Chris.SE

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

1:32 PM

js: & Karl:

Hi. This is certainly NOT my area of expertise. I have however managed to download the dump.7z file ok and Malwarebytes said it was ok and MS Defender didn't come up with an issue.
I haven't looked at the file, not having time atm but would need to understand how theses errors appear etc.

js, for my edification can you try and explain how some of this errors appear in the EPG listing or synopsis when looking at what the set displays, and/or what other effects they may have?

link to this comment

Chris.SE's 4,153 posts GB flag

_{sentiment_satisfied}Gold

4:35 PM

Chris.SE:
Content reference identifier
Content reference identifier - Wikipedia

AFAIK this information is not normally displayed although Humax have a way of showing it.

From the Wikipedia article:

Format
crid://authority/data

The "authority" part is "default_authority" and is usually present as a string in an SDT descriptor

The "data" part on and appears as strings in descriptors at the event level in the EIT and always starts with a slash - or should do!

That makes no sense to me, given the format definition contains a slash, but that's the way it is.

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js's 827 posts US flag

_{sentiment_satisfied}Gold

5:07 PM

Karl: Well, I checked before I posted that the download worked and was taken directly to the download page where I downloaded the file.

When I closed the page I found that a page with an advert for the Opera browser had been opened.

Sendspace have a paid for option of direct download link.

I would think what you saw was one of those dodgy antivirus adverts.

link to this comment

js's 827 posts US flag

Wednesday, 28 June 2023

Chris.SE

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

12:56 PM

All:

As this hasn't been posted for a while, there were many changes to UHF frequencies across the country during the Clearance program. The site owner here struggled to keep up with all the changes - there are over 1100 transmitters in the UK. Whilst a number didn't change, most changes were notified in PDF documents most of which had to be read manually.
Here on the page, two of the Local details haven't been updated.

For the sake of clarity, here is the current data -
In the multiplex order BBCA/PSB1, D3&4/PSB2, BBCB HD/PSB3, SDN/COM4, ArqA/COM5, ArqB/COM6
Winter Hill UHF are -
The main multiplexes are , , , , ,
The Local ones are Local Manchester, Manchester GI on & .
Liverpool Local mux on , Local mux on .
If you hover over the C channel numbers, it should give you the .

What you can receive and how well will depend on location, a full postcode is needed to look at predictions.

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Chris.SE's 4,153 posts GB flag

Thursday, 29 June 2023

Karl
12:15 PM

Chris.SE: Thanks Chris, I had need of that info only a few days ago and had to go hunting (lol). Another user of Sony equipment that is stuck on EPG update and Sony are blaming an 'unwanted' Ch 24 broadcast. How they conclude that I have no idea.

The user concerned is on and receives all the you list at 100% (even all the local ones).I think there is something else going on, however....

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Karl's 15 posts GB flag

_{sentiment_satisfied}Gold

1:16 PM

Karl: As I said, slashless crids remain, courtesy of 'GREAT! tv +1' UHF

GIM
ONID.TSID = 233A.7401
522 MHz, uhf 27, 8 MHz, 16-QAM, 8k, 3/4, 1/32
Target Regions = (GBR.England.North )U(GBR.Isle of Man)
(
LCN SID TYPE SERVICE NAME
062 7501 01 GREAT! tv +1
063 77C1 01 GREAT! romance +1
077 76C1 01 That's 60s MCR
080 7641 01 That's 70s MCR
086 7681 01 That's 80s MCR
087 7601 01 TV Warehouse
088 7701 01 TV Warehouse+1
)

LCN SERVICE NAME DEFAULT_AUTHORITY
062 GREAT! tv +1 sonycrimechannel.co.uk

The user should report it.

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js's 827 posts US flag

Chris.SE

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

1:59 PM

Karl:

Whether that Sony comment has anything to do with these EIT Invalid character codes which JS referred to, see top of Winter Hill (Bolton, England) Full Freeview transmitter | free and easy
Whether there's still something on either of the Great TV channels on the Local mux on , JS would have to look if he can!
Remember 100% can sometimes cause overloaded front ends which can cause issues such as freezing & similar or pixellation etc. However, if that user doesn't normally have a problem, then that's fine.

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Chris.SE's 4,153 posts GB flag

Chris.SE

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

2:02 PM

Karl:

Also as mentioned in JS post before my last which I didn't see when I posted!

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Chris.SE's 4,153 posts GB flag

Friday, 30 June 2023

Transmitter engineering

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Owner

11:09 AM

- Winter Hill transmitter: Possible effect on TV week commencing 26/06/2023 Pixelation or flickering on some or all [DUK]

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Transmitter engineering's 150,866 posts GB flag

Karl
1:33 PM

Chris.SE: Thanks Chris. All has gone quiet on the Sony front... possibly all a bit to much for an average user.

I did advise him to try some attenuators, perhaps as high as 15 to 24db seeing as he can receive even the low locals at essentially 100% but all has gone silent.

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Karl's 15 posts GB flag

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