Full Freeview on the Caradon Hill (Cornwall, England) transmitter
 | Google Streetview |  | Google map |  | Bing map |  | Google Earth |  | 50.511,-4.437 or 50°30'38"N 4°26'14"W |  | PL14 5LT |
The symbol shows the location of the Caradon Hill (Cornwall, England) transmitter which serves 180,000 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 Caradon Hill (Cornwall, England) mast?
Caradon Hill transmitter - Caradon Hill transmitter: Possible effect on TV reception week commencing 11/11/2024 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
H/V: aerial position (horizontal or vertical)
Which Freeview channels does the Caradon 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.
64QAM 8K 3/4 27.1Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2
H/V: aerial position (horizontal or vertical)
Which BBC and ITV regional news can I watch from the Caradon Hill transmitter?
BBC Spotlight 0.8m homes 2.9%
from Plymouth PL3 5BD, 26km east-southeast (123°)
to BBC South West region - 107 masts.
ITV West Country News (West) 0.8m homes 2.9%
from Plymouth PL7 5BQ, 32km east-southeast (116°)
to ITV West Country region - 107 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 50% evening news is shared with West Country (East)
Are there any self-help relays?
| Barleycombe | Active deflector | 25 km E Plymouth | 3 homes |
| Parracombe | Transposer | 17 km NE Barnstaple | 80 homes |
How will the Caradon Hill (Cornwall, England) transmission frequencies change over time?
| 1961-80s | 1984-97 | 1997-98 | 1998-2009 | 2009-13 | 27 Mar 2019 | ||||
| VHF | A K T | A K T | A K T | A K T | A K T | ||||
| C12 | ITVwaves | ||||||||
| C21 | +SDN | SDN | |||||||
| C22 | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | +BBCB | BBCB | ||||
| C24 | -ArqA | ArqA | |||||||
| C25 | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | +D3+4 | D3+4 | ||||
| C27 | -ArqB | ArqB | |||||||
| C28 | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | +BBCA | BBCA | ||||
| C30 | _local | _local | |||||||
| C31 | com7 | ||||||||
| C32 | C4waves | C4waves | C4waves | ||||||
| C37 | com8 |
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 12 Aug 09 and 9 Sep 09.
How do the old analogue and currrent digital signal levels compare?
| Analogue 1-4 | 500kW | |
| BBCA, D3+4, BBCB | (-7dB) 100kW | |
| SDN, ARQA, ARQB | (-10dB) 50kW | |
| com7 | (-16.3dB) 11.6kW | |
| Mux 1* | (-20dB) 5kW | |
| Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*, Mux C*, Mux D* | (-21dB) 4kW | |
| com8 | (-24.2dB) 1.9kW |
Local transmitter maps
Caradon Hill Freeview Caradon Hill DAB Caradon Hill AM/FM Caradon Hill TV region BBC South West West CountryWhich companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Caradon Hill transmitter area
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Tuesday, 23 July 2019
M
Michael9:48 PM
In times of high atmospheric pressure, TV and radio signals travel further. This includes "unwanted" signals from other transmitters, which can cause interference (pixellation, picture blocking etc.). If this occurs and does not disappear again when atmospheric conditions return to normal, there might be another cause. Wait and see!
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Saturday, 31 August 2019
M
Matt Payne11:32 AM
Bude
Hi we have a roof aerial and postcode is EX23 9PL
We are experiencing really poor signal and break which only happens at weekends stating on Fridays. Currently we have no bbc channels and weak other channels which keep breaking up.
Can you advise of any problems in this area please
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Matt's: mapM's Freeview map terrainM's terrain plot wavesM's frequency data M's Freeview Detailed Coverage
M
Michael10:41 PM
Matt, see earlier posts on this page. If some channels are ok and others not, it might well be the case that your automatic TV channel tuner has saved channels from different transmitters. Try a factory-reset (deletes all saved channels) and retune each of the six multiplexes *manually*. See channel numbers on this page. However, as you state that break-up occurs at weekends, you might be receiving interference from a local source that only operates at weekends. This might affect weaker signals, eg if you are auto-tuned to different transmitters. In any case, I would try the manual retune first. Come back to us with your findings!
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Wednesday, 4 September 2019
C
Chris.SE6:37 AM
Matt Payne:
Michael has pointed out the main issues but you are not in the best of locations for reception of 2 of the COM multiplexes - SDN & ArqA. A lot might depend on the quality of your aerial & its installation, its beamwidth, whether it's pointing in exactly the best direction etc.
You might be able to get better reception of those 2 multiplexes from the Redruth transmitter, albeit some distance away as at your location it could be within the beamwidth of your aerial pointing at Caradon Hill. See your predicted reception at Coverage Checker - Detailed View for details and the UHF channel numbers from the transmitters. Doing a manual tune rather than an automatic one may be the way forward.
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Sunday, 15 September 2019
M
Mr Paul Freeman8:29 PM
Why is the service from Carradon Hill actually declining?
I'm thinking in terms of the number of HD channels which are now SD only (eg. BBC 4, BBC News ).
Is this really the best we can expect going forwards ? if so it's pathetic.
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S
StevensOnln110:07 PM
Mr Paul Freeman: The only thing that has been lost are the temporary COM7 and COM8 multiplexes which carry additional HD and SD channels, which were only ever available from 30 main transmitters covering around 70% of UK households. As part of the 700MHz clearance program, Arqiva (the operator of COM7&8) have decided to close these services at 5 transmitters including Caradon Hill, rather than pay the costs of re-engineering them to broadcast on a different frequency for another couple of years when they are expected to close completely.
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Monday, 30 December 2019
R
Roger Palmer12:01 PM
Holsworthy
Experiencing break up on whole frequency coverage since Friday 27th December 2019, initially only BBC channels, followed by most extra channels resulting in DB programmes failing to record on Saturday and Sunday evenings, MOST ANNOYING!!.
N.B. new aerial and mast head amplifier, installed September 2019!
Please advise why problems experienced.
My location Week St Mary, Bude, North Cornwall. EX22 6UR. (we live in North Cornwall not Devon, which the Royal Mail states- stupid post code allocations.
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Roger's: mapR's Freeview map terrainR's terrain plot wavesR's frequency data R's Freeview Detailed Coverage
C
Chris.SE2:04 PM
Roger Palmer:
There are unusually high levels of "Tropospheric propagation" at present, often associated with High Pressure weather systems.
These levels of propagation are unusual at this time of year - they cause signals from more distant transmitters to travel a lot further than normal. It is currently affecting different parts of the country by varying degrees and signals can change by the second or remain stable for much longer periods.
In the old "analogue" days there was a lot of talk about "continental" interference often in the summer months, but the interference can come from transmitters anywhere in the UK or Europe and even further afield. At the moment some people are getting DAB radio from the Netherlands and FM Radio from France as well as the interference to DTV.
It is predicted to continue for a couple more days, and you are advise NOT to retune as you will likely lose the correct tuning that you had. The "propagation" can be very frequency dependent, and it can only affected one frequency or several, but it can/will be different for others.
People will however have noticed the unusually mild weather which the Met office is referring to as a "Foehn effect" but it's not helpful that it seems none of the major broadcasters are making any reference to the interference being caused to TV and Radio reception! So it's no surprise that people wonder what is going on and think there is a transmitter problem.
For those that have retuned and lost correct tuning, you will have to try again and it could be hit and miss whilst the unusual propagation continues. If you are able to do a manual tune for the correct UHF channels, you may still receive interference or the wrong programmes.
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MikeP
7:31 PM
7:31 PM
In addition to it affecting TV reception, it is also affecting DAN signals as well, causing either loss of some signals or fading of those. In either case DO NOT RETUNE, as Chris.WE says.
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Tuesday, 31 December 2019
C
Chris Morse10:01 AM
Yelverton
Transmitter engineering:
PL20 6QU and neighbours have had intermittent blackouts since 29th December. I see that there is no work being carried out at Caradon but a lot in our village are being affected??
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Chris's: mapC's Freeview map terrainC's terrain plot wavesC's frequency data C's Freeview Detailed Coverage
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