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, 10 October 2023
S
Sandy Hanna8:36 PM
Falmouth
Despite your banner heading of no faults currently I am suffering a fourth day of intermittent or no signals on all channels. Many people in the village are having the same problem (Mabe = tr10 postcode) and several comments from users in Falmouth and Penryn (TR11) are complaining of the same problem. If you have not spotted problems could it be that there is an unspotted one? On day one it was annoying but in our reception area we do seem to suffer a lot of intermittent lack of signal problems so it didn't seem unusual but this is day four and does seem unacceptable for service users. We have many elderly people in our area who depend on the television for company and entertainment and I'm sure they are even worse off than myself and friends. Is it possible for you to check out with a more directed check? Many thanks
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Sandy's: mapS's Freeview map terrainS's terrain plot wavesS's frequency data S's Freeview Detailed Coverage
C
Chris.SE8:42 PM
Sandy Hanna:
There are no Faults or Planned Engineering listed for the Caradon Hill transmitter, so I'm afraid it's down to current weather conditions -
They have been causing Tropospheric Ducting affecting much of the south coast and southern parts of the country on Saturday and extending into the Midlands and North of the country through Sunday including East Anglia, now currently affecting Wales and England. These conditions have been unusually quite extreme on occasion recently.
This causes interfering signals from distant transmitters in Europe or the UK to affect reception of your wanted signals. This can periodically last, seconds, minutes and sometimes much longer - Do NOT Retune.
There is nothing you can do about this apart from wait for conditions to change, or use online streaming if available.
IF you did retune, you'd be best manually retuning the UHF channels for your transmitter, as detailed in the top section of the relevant transmitter page.
The BBC and Freeview have issued warnings -
High pressure weather conditions impacting TV & Radio services - from 07 October | Help receiving TV and radio
High pressure could affect reception across parts of the UK this week | Freeview
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H
Hilary Harrod8:47 PM
I live in TR10 Post code area and our TV signal has been intermittent for several
Days now. Currently says NO SIGNAL and this is becoming a big
problem for many people. How much longer will it be before
we get a trustworthy tv signal.
There must be a problem somewhere that still hasn't been detected.
Please sort it out ASAP.
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J
Jeanette Phillips 9:15 PM
Please tell me why every time we have lovely weather we lose all our free view channels. We live in Budock TR11 and this happens all the time now. This only seemed to have started all the time since going over to digital . Is there no way in the day of age it can be sorted out please
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C
Chris.SE9:18 PM
Hilary Harrod:
I suggest you read my post immediately before yours. The normal transmitter signal is trustworthy, it's the weather that isn't!!
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C
Chris.SE9:32 PM
Jeanette Phillips :
It doesn't happen every time we have "lovely weather". Sometimes - more often with high pressure but not always, it can happen in winter as well, we get these Tropospheric conditions. They have been quite extreme on occasion this time. See my post further up the page Caradon Hill (Cornwall, England) Full Freeview transmitter | free and easy for 21 years
Now, your location may not be the best for reliable reception from Caradon Hill. On a random check in your locale, there was better reception from the Redruth transmitter which is also a lot closer. However we'd need a full postcode to check your predicted reception as the local terrain can make a big difference. We could then possibly offer some advise that might help you get more reliable reception.
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C
Chris.SE9:34 PM
Jeanette Phillips :
In addition to the full postcode, please tell us which way (approximate compass bearing) that your aerial is pointing, and whether it's external or in the loft.
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C
Chris.SE11:42 PM
Jeanette Phillips :
I had also meant to include the fact that this DID occur before DSO. With analogue you started off with lots of wiggly lines over the picture, maybe some buzzing and hash on the sound, until the channel became unwatchable and inaudible. You may have even seen some foreign pictures.
Before UHF TV channels, back in the old B&W 405 line days, similar problems commonly happened with the BBC channels in Band I, but it was a slightly different atmospheric phenomena called "Sporadic E" (referring the the E layer of the atmosphere). We used to call it "Continental Interference" !
Also the current conditions can/are affecting DAB and FM radio transmissions in different places.
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Wednesday, 11 October 2023
J
Jeanette Phillips 5:18 PM
Falmouth
Hi Chris . My Ariel is outside on the side of the roof. My husband said it is pointing 45 degrees North east. My full postcode is Tr11 5DB. Everyone's is pointing the same way. I always thought the Redruth one would be nearer.
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Jeanette's: ...
Thursday, 12 October 2023
C
Chris.SE4:11 AM
Jeanette Phillips :
Hi. The precise compass bearing is supposedly 51 degrees which is 6 degrees E of NE, not only well within the beamwidth of your aerial but may not be the optimum in a specific location due to the way signals propagate. A few degrees either way can often give the best results. But Caradon Hill is 62km away and although more powerful than Redruth (compass bearing 306 degrees almost NW) which is only 12km away, Caradon Hill is predicted to give quite variable reception across your postcode, whereas predictions by both the Freeview and BBC checkers for Redruth are much better.
However, predictions are that, a quick check of the local terrain will give a better feel for this, and we'll post further comment on that in due course.
Everyone's aerials pointing the same way may be for historic reasons, I'll see if I can find any information.
Do you know how old (roughly) your aerial is? Has it been changed since DSO (Digital Switch Over) ~10 years ago?
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