Full Freeview on the Winter Hill (Bolton, England) transmitter
 | Google Streetview |  | Google map |  | Bing map |  | Google Earth |  | 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._______
Digital television services are broadcast on a multiplexes (or Mux) where many stations occupy a single broadcast frequency, as shown below.
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 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 | |||||
| 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 ITV3 +1, 59 ITV4 +1, 64 Blaze, 67 TRUE CRIME, 68 TRUE CRIME XTRA, 78 TCC, 81 Blaze +1, 83 Together TV, 91 WildEarth, 93 ITVBe +1, 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), 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-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 | ITVwaves | ||||||||
| C12 | BBCtvwaves | ||||||||
| C24 | _local | ||||||||
| C29 | SDN | ||||||||
| C31 | com7 | com7 | |||||||
| C32 | BBCA | ||||||||
| C34 | D3+4 | ||||||||
| C35 | BBCB | ||||||||
| C37 | com8 | com8 | |||||||
| C40 | LOCAL2 | ||||||||
| C48 | C5waves | C5waves | |||||||
| C49tv_off | ArqA | ArqA | |||||||
| C50tv_off | BBCA | BBCA | |||||||
| C54tv_off | -BBCB | -BBCB | -BBCB | ||||||
| C55tv_off | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | ArqB | ArqB | ArqB | com7tv_off | ||
| C56tv_off | _local | _local | _local | LPR | |||||
| C57tv_off | GIM | GIM | GIM | GIM | |||||
| C58tv_off | SDN | SDN | SDN | ||||||
| C59tv_off | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | D3+4 | D3+4 | D3+4 | |||
| C61 | ArqA | ||||||||
| C62 | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBCA | |||||
| C65 | C4waves | C4waves | C4waves |
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 GranadaWhich companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Winter Hill transmitter area
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Wednesday, 3 July 2024
K
Karl10:58 AM
js: many thanks for your work on the Freeview/Sony/EPG issue. Much appreciated. It is really frustrating that each time this happens it is like starting from zero in explaining things. I'm hoping a fix will be issued.
Last year Freeview contacted me to say the issue was somewhat of a 'grey area' but having identified the problem it should not occur again (indeed! I wish) and that if it did they would know where the issue was.
So we are all hoping for a fix ASAP.
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Thursday, 4 July 2024
C
Chris.SE1:44 AM
Karl:
Have Freeview actually realised (which I doubt, they're a bit thick most times) or been made aware that the issue has re-occurred? And thanks JS.
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K
Karl5:49 AM
Chris.SE: The BBC reply says that they have contacted Freeview.
"Our engineers have discussed it with the Freeview team and have been informed that they are investigating this. If you haven't already we would recommend contacting Freeview directly. This will ensure they understand the extent of the problem and you will be able to obtain updates from them directly"
I have also contacted Freeview a few days ago (that was my first initial reaction) and I used Direct Messages on X for that. That was like starting from zero and is so annoying because all this was thrashed out last year.
Freeview contacted me last August saying:
"We as Freeview Advice agents are now aware of this issue and can offer advice. It was a grey area when you reported this in June. Hopefully it can be worked on to avoid this issue for future channel updates"
Have you followed this on AVForums?
Sony 870 (and all Sony HXD and some Pioneers) DVD Recorders - No Freeview | Page 44 | AVForums
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J
js6:54 AM
Karl: These "slashless CRIDs" are actually valid in this case.
default_authority = madeinliverpool.tv
CRID authority = uklocal.tv
From ETSI TS 102 323
Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB); Carriage and signalling of TV-Anytime information in DVB transport streams
6.3 Default authority and abbreviated CRIDs
6.3.1 Abbreviated CRID rules
In certain situations described in the present document a CRID string may use the following abbreviated forms. These reduce the overhead of a CRID string by leaving out information that can be inferred from the location of the CRID entry.
Firstly, the characters "crid://" may be omitted from the start of the string so that the string starts with the first character of the CRID authority. So the example CRID:
crid://company.com/foobar
may be encoded as:
company.com/foobar
Additionally, within the scope of the definition of a default authority (see clause 6.3.2), the CRID authority part of the string may also be omitted if the CRID's authority matches the current value of default authority. In this case the string starts with the delimiter between CRID authority and data parts of the CRID (i.e. "/"). Therefore, the example CRID:
crid://company.com/foobar
may be encoded as:
/foobar
6.3.2 Scope of a default authority definition
A default authority is defined by the presence of a default authority descriptor. The purpose of the default authority is to allow a CRID reference within the scope of such a definition to leave out the protocol and authority parts of a CRID URI, if the CRID authority part of that CRID reference is the same as the defined default authority.
The scope of a particular value of default authority is defined by the location of the default authority descriptor. A value of default authority defined in a scope overrides any value of default authority already defined for a wider, enclosing scope. See table 15 for definitions of the permitted locations of the default authority descriptor and which scope override which others.
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J
js1:42 PM
I thought it might be worth trying to contact the creators of this problematic EIT data.
Local TV Limited - Wikipedia
An attempt to visit uklocal.tv gave this message:
Your connection is not secure
The owner of uklocal.tv has configured their website improperly. To protect your information from being stolen, Tor Browser has not connected to this website.
uklocal.tv uses an invalid security certificate. The certificate expired on 01 May 2024 11:00. The current time is 04 July 2024 10:44.
There is an option to "Add exception..." which I did.
The page which then came up merely said:
"We are updating our website.
Please bear with us while we work our magic"
- nothing there then.
What they have done overrides the existing default_authority "madeinliverpool.tv" with "uklocal.tv"
There are two ways to fix these CRID strings so they are harmless.
"uklocal.tv" is removed from the start of the CRID string enabling the existing default_authority "madeinliverpool.tv" to be used.
"uklocal.tv" is removed from the start of the CRID string and the default_authority is changed to "uklocal.tv"
In each case the CRID string then starts with "/"
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K
Karl5:40 PM
js: as before, many thanks for your investigations into this. I'll be honest, the make up of the data is outside my field of expertise but I get the gist of all you are saying.
And before I forget... it seems to have just been fixed this afternoon. Mine is working OK and reports from others say the same.
What I don't know (and it would be useful/informative to know) is whether the problem could be classed as an invalid change that violate the DVB-T standard or... is the Sony product range affected non compliant in some way to what should be a valid make up of the data or... is it just a grey area that nobody anticipated issues with.
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Friday, 5 July 2024
J
js9:48 AM
Karl:
Yes, fixed by removing "uklocal.tv" from the start of the CRID strings.
The fix:
https://ibb.co/Sy2sGby
This time the CRIDs were valid, but not so on previous occasions.
Sony should have fixed the firmware long ago.
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K
Karl2:12 PM
js: I did wonder if the firmware could be altered (it is available on the Sony site) and rewritten and given a higher version number... I know, dream on...
It would be great if it could though. I just wonder how long Freeview will keep accommodating those of us that still have these models. They have outlasted pretty much everything else around.
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