Full Freeview on the Mendip (Somerset, England) transmitter
 | Google Streetview |  | Google map |  | Bing map |  | Google Earth |  | 51.237,-2.626 or 51°14'12"N 2°37'33"W |  | BA5 3LB |
The symbol shows the location of the Mendip (Somerset, England) transmitter which serves 720,000 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 Mendip (Somerset, England) mast?
Mendip transmitter - Mendip 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
DTG-12 QSPK 8K 3/4 8.0Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2
H/V: aerial position (horizontal or vertical)
Which Freeview channels does the Mendip 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
DTG-12 QSPK 8K 3/4 8.0Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2
H/V: aerial position (horizontal or vertical)
Which BBC and ITV regional news can I watch from the Mendip transmitter?
ITV West Country News (East) 0.9m homes 3.4%
from Bristol BS4 3HG, 23km north (11°)
to ITV West region - 61 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 50% evening news is shared with West Country (West)
Are there any self-help relays?
| Cheddar | Transposer | 15 km E Weston-super-Mare | 1674 homes |
| Luccombe | Active deflector | 6 km w Minehead | 38 homes |
How will the Mendip (Somerset, England) transmission frequencies change over time?
| 1984-97 | 1997-98 | 1998-2010 | 2010-13 | 2013-18 | 2013-17 | 27 Feb 2018 | |||
| C/D E | E | E | C/D E | C/D E T | W T | W T | |||
| C30 | _local | ||||||||
| C32 | BBCA | ||||||||
| C33 | com7 | com7 | |||||||
| C34 | D3+4 | ||||||||
| C35 | com8 | com8 | |||||||
| C36 | ArqB | ||||||||
| C37 | C5waves | C5waves | |||||||
| C48 | SDN | SDN | SDN | SDN | |||||
| C49tv_off | BBCA | BBCA | |||||||
| C51tv_off | LBS | LBS | |||||||
| C52tv_off | ArqB | ArqB | ArqB | ||||||
| C54tv_off | C4waves | C4waves | C4waves | D3+4 | D3+4 | D3+4 | |||
| C55tv_off | com7tv_off | ||||||||
| C56tv_off | ArqA | ArqA | ArqA | COM8tv_off | |||||
| C58tv_off | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBCB | BBCB | BBCB | |||
| C61 | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | BBCA | |||||
| C64 | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBC2waves |
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 24 Mar 10 and 7 Apr 10.
How do the old analogue and currrent digital signal levels compare?
| Analogue 1-4 | 500kW | |
| Analogue 5 | (-6dB) 126kW | |
| SDN, ARQA, ARQB, BBCA, D3+4, BBCB | (-7dB) 100kW | |
| com7 | (-8.4dB) 72.4kW | |
| com8 | (-8.6dB) 69.1kW | |
| Mux 1*, Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*, Mux C*, Mux D*, LBS | (-17dB) 10kW |
Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Mendip transmitter area
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Monday, 9 October 2023
B
bruce4:46 PM
BBC 1, 2 & 4 plus ITV and others showing signal too week to receive transmission. Been like this since mid morning. Freeview appears to be OK. Anything known? My location Yeovil BA 21 4NW
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B
bruce4:49 PM
Yeovil
BBC 1, 2 & 4 plus ITV and various others showing signal to week. Anything known. My location is Yeovil BA21 4NW
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bruce's: mapB's Freeview map terrainB's terrain plot wavesB's frequency data B's Freeview Detailed Coverage
C
Chris.SE10:33 PM
bruce:
It's current weather conditions affecting you, they have been causing Tropospheric Ducting affecting much of the south coast and southern parts of the country on Saturday and now extending into the Midlands and North of the country through Sunday including East Anglia. 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 be best manually retuning the UHF channels for your transmitter.
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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Monday, 6 November 2023
M
MossMan3:34 PM
Is there ever a week when there *isn't* "possible effect on TV reception" for Mendip these days?!
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C
Chris.SE3:49 PM
MossMan:
A lot of transmitters, especially the main ones have had extended periods of Planned Engineering this year. It's worth pointing out that it's a good 10 years since DSO and the masts, any guy wires, antennae and transmitter equipment has undoubtedly needed detailed checks and some (possibly extensive) maintenance to ensure ongoing reliability (and safety of course).
It's also worth pointing out that Mendip is an identical construction to the Bilsdale mast that caught fire in August 2021, so it wouldn't surprise me if there was extensive work to ensure (as far as possible) that a similar thing didn't happen to Mendip!
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Tuesday, 7 November 2023
M
MossMan10:42 AM
Good info, thanks. To be clear, I wasn't complaining - just noting that it's been the same message each week for what seems like months now.
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Saturday, 11 November 2023
R
Robert jones6:59 AM
Wotton-under-edge
Over the last 2 months our television reception has been so bad it's not watchable. I've tried retune to no effect. Prior to this time our reception has been good on all Chanel's.
Our post code GL12 7NX
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Robert's: mapR's Freeview map terrainR's terrain plot wavesR's frequency data R's Freeview Detailed Coverage
C
Chris.SE1:51 PM
Robert jones:
You are in quite a good location there, and in normal circumstances should have very good reception of all of Mendip's multiplexes including the Local multiplex.
That said, you may have noticed the post 2 before yours, Mendip is the subject of Planned Engineering, however, most of the time this hasn't had any significant effect although there have been periods of reduced power or use of the Reserve Antennae and on occasion the Local multiplex has been off-air overnight for a few hours.
There have been other issues that may have affected reception - that being the weather. We've had a couple of periods during the last few months when the conditions have brought "Tropospheric Ducting" (more commonly under high pressure, but not always) this causes signals from distant transmitters to travel a lot further and interfere with the normal signals you are trying to receive. However, right at this moment there isn't any affecting this area, and your reception should be near perfect, although the BBC A (SD multiplex) and the ArqA/COM5 multiplex may be on slightly reduced power.
(There is the very remote possibility there could be very slight ducting this evening for a short period)
One thing that is never advised (if you were correctly tuned initially) is to NOT retune if you have badly pixellated pictures, broken sound or no signal. You cannot tune to signals that aren't there or can't be decoded. The net result if you do is it will often clear correct tuning and sometime tune you to weak signals from another transmitter (which can often disappear as conditions change).
The first thing to check is that you are correctly tuned to Mendip's UHF channels.
Look in your TV Tuning section (maybe something like Signal Test)
Mendip's correct UHF channels are C32, C34, C35, C48, C33, C36, & C30. That's is the multiplex order BBCA/PSB1, D3&4/PSB2, BBCB HD/PSB3, SDN/COM4, ArqA/COM5, ArqB/COM6 & Local mux.
Select each one in turn and post back the Signal Strength & Quality figures for each.
If you are not correctly tuned to those UHF channels it'll probably be best to clear the current tuning and manually retune to each UHF channel. Do so by unplugging the aerial, doing a full automatic retune which should clear the current tuning as no channels should be found. Plug the aerial back in and Manually tune each UHF channel.
Another possibility is interference from a new/upgraded mobile phone mast. Your postcode should have received cards from restoretv if you put your postcode into https://restoretv.uk/post…ure/ but we know some areas have not received them despite this information.
Your Quality and Signal Strength figures may help identify this possibility.
If you haven't already got a Free filter from them you should contact them.
Do you have any amp/splitter to feed more than one TV? Such a filter should go before the amp.
Post back your tuning information and we might be able to advise further.
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Tuesday, 14 November 2023
C
Chris.SE2:05 PM
Robert jones:
Mendip still appears to be having Engineering work despite not being on the list.
Several multiplexes appear to be on reduced power or the Reserve Antenna at time of posting.
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