Freeview Light on the Piddletrenthide (Dorset, England) transmitter
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The symbol shows the location of the Piddletrenthide (Dorset, England) transmitter which serves less than 500 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 Piddletrenthide (Dorset, England) transmitter._______
Digital television services are broadcast on a multiplexes (or Mux) where many stations occupy a single broadcast frequency, as shown below.
H/V: aerial position (horizontal or vertical)
The Piddletrenthide (Dorset, England) mast is a public service broadcasting (PSB) transmitter, it does not provide these commercial (COM) channels: U&Yesterday, 4seven, 5Action, 5STAR, 5USA, Al Jazeera Eng, Al Jazeera English, Blaze, Blaze +1, Challenge, Channel 5 +1, DMAX, E4 Extra, YAAAS!, Film4 +1, Food Network, FRANCE 24 (in English), GREAT! action, GREAT! christmas, GREAT! movies, GREAT! romance mix, HGTV, HobbyMaker, ITV2 +1, ITV3 +1, ITV4 +1, ITVBe +1, Legend, PBS America, Quest +1, Quest Red, Really, Sky Mix, Sky News, Talking Pictures TV, That's 90s, That's TV 2, Together TV, TRUE CRIME, TRUE CRIME XTRA, U&Dave, U&Dave ja vu, U&Drama +1, U&W.
If you want to watch these channels, your aerial must point to one of the 80 Full service Freeview transmitters. For more information see the will there ever be more services on the Freeview Light transmitters? page.
Which Freeview channels does the Piddletrenthide 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 | V max | C45 (666.0MHz) | 152m | DTG- | 11W |
 1 BBC One (SD) South, 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 | V max | C39 (618.0MHz) | 152m | DTG- | 11W |
 3 ITV 1 (SD) (Meridian (South Coast micro region)), 4 Channel 4 (SD) South ads, 5 Channel 5, 6 ITV 2, 10 ITV3, 13 E4, 14 Film4, 15 Channel 4 +1 South ads, 18 More4, 26 ITV4, 28 ITVBe, 30 E4 +1, 35 ITV1 +1 (Meridian south coast), 71 That’s 60s, | |||||
| PSB3 BBCB | V max | C42 (642.0MHz) | 152m | DTG- | 11W |
 46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD South, 102 BBC Two HD England, 103 ITV 1 HD (ITV Meridian Southampton), 104 Channel 4 HD South ads, 105 Channel 5 HD, 106 BBC Four HD, 107 BBC Three HD, 204 CBBC HD, 205 CBeebies HD, plus 1 others | |||||
Are you trying to watch these 44 Freeview channels?
The Piddletrenthide (Dorset, England) mast is a public service broadcasting (PSB) transmitter, it does not provide these commercial (COM) channels: U&Yesterday, 4seven, 5Action, 5STAR, 5USA, Al Jazeera Eng, Al Jazeera English, Blaze, Blaze +1, Challenge, Channel 5 +1, DMAX, E4 Extra, YAAAS!, Film4 +1, Food Network, FRANCE 24 (in English), GREAT! action, GREAT! christmas, GREAT! movies, GREAT! romance mix, HGTV, HobbyMaker, ITV2 +1, ITV3 +1, ITV4 +1, ITVBe +1, Legend, PBS America, Quest +1, Quest Red, Really, Sky Mix, Sky News, Talking Pictures TV, That's 90s, That's TV 2, Together TV, TRUE CRIME, TRUE CRIME XTRA, U&Dave, U&Dave ja vu, U&Drama +1, U&W.
If you want to watch these channels, your aerial must point to one of the 80 Full service Freeview transmitters. For more information see the will there ever be more services on the Freeview Light transmitters? page.
Which BBC and ITV regional news can I watch from the Piddletrenthide transmitter?
BBC South Today 1.3m homes 4.9%
from Southampton SO14 7PU, 73km east (79°)
to BBC South region - 39 masts.
ITV Meridian News 0.9m homes 3.6%
from Whiteley PO15 7AD, 84km east (83°)
to ITV Meridian (South Coast) region - 39 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 50% evening news is shared with all of Meridian plus Oxford
How will the Piddletrenthide (Dorset, England) transmission frequencies change over time?
| 1984-97 | 1997-98 | 1998-2012 | 2012-13 | 31 Mar 2018- | |||||
| B E T | B E T | B E T | B E K T | B E K T | |||||
| C39 | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | D3+4 | D3+4 | ||||
| C42 | C4waves | C4waves | C4waves | BBCB | BBCB | ||||
| C45 | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBCA | BBCA | ||||
| C49tv_off | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | ITVwaves |
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 7 Mar 12 and 21 Mar 12.
How do the old analogue and currrent digital signal levels compare?
| Analogue 1-4 | 56W | |
| BBCA, D3+4, BBCB | (-7.1dB) 11W |
Local transmitter maps
Piddletrenthide Freeview Rowridge TV region BBC South Meridian (South Coast micro region)Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Rowridge transmitter area
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Wednesday, 21 March 2012
NO FREEVIEW TONIGHT FROM MIDNIGHT UNTIL 3PM - then RETUNE - see Switchover "completes" for Southampton, Portsmouth and Brighton | ukfree.tv - independent free digital TV advice :::::
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Saturday, 24 March 2012
B
Bernard Roughton12:33 PM
Dorchester
Hi, Now on Freeview since 21st March on Piddletrenhide booster Xmitter in Dorset, fed off Rowridge. Picture is reasonable, but...only getting 22 channels & not Sky news or ITV3 & 4. How many channels should I be receiving from this Xmitter? Aerial on roof, using iCan 285IT digital box.(Box obviously tuned after Digital switchover & factory reset!) Thanks for your help.
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Bernard's: mapB's Freeview map terrainB's terrain plot wavesB's frequency data B's Freeview Detailed Coverage
K
KMJ,Derby1:03 PM
Bernard Roughton: The Piddletrenthide relay only transmits the three PSB muxes (a Freeview Light transmitter). It is possible that you will be able to receive the COM muxes when using a suitable aerial from either Mendip after the power increase on 28th March, or Rowridge VP after the transmitters enter service on 18th April 2012. Mendip requires a group C/D aerial set for horizontal polarisation, Rowridge VP requires a group A aeerial set for vertical polarisation. You could try C48 now for SDN from Mendip, as this transmitter is at higher power than the other muxes.
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Bernard Roughton: Piddletrenthide is only a Public Service transmitter; the Commercial broadcasters do not wish to pay to transmit from this and 1000 or so similar small relays. They achieve around 90% coverage by using 80 of the biggest sites (by viewer population).
To transmit from the rest would roughly double their cost of transmission They were asked if they wished to increase coverage and they declined. They are private profit driven organisations and generate a return by selling advertising which they show to as many people as possible at lowest cost.
See here for a further explanation:
Will there ever be more services on the Freeview Light transmitters? | ukfree.tv - independent free digital TV advice
The Digital UK Tradeview predictor suggests that your reception from Rowridge may be "good" for the Public Service Broadcaster or PSB services (those are the channels relayed by Piddletrenthide), but "variable" and "poor" for the Commercial or COMs (the ones that you don't get now).
I guess that the reason for the lower rating of the Rowridge COMs is due to possible interference from Stockland Hill as its COMs are co-channel with Rowridge's COMs (although its PSBs are not).
Mendip is predicted as "good" with some multiplexes being "variable". Two of its COMs are predicted as "good" with one being "variable". Going fully with Mendip would mean a change of regional BBC and ITV programming. Having looked at your road on Google Streetview, I see that there are a mixture of Mendip aerials and Piddletrenthide aerials. They are roughly in the same direction, but the former are horizontal and the latter vertical.
Some suggested possibilities (which will probably need an expert opinion, such as aerial installer, to say how feasible they might be) are:
1. Change entirely to Mendip which will mean a change of regional programming. This will require a single aerial.
2. Diplex (combine) your current aerial with one on Mendip so as to receive its COMs. This will give you BBC South and ITV Meridian, as now, but with the COMs. Be warned that whilst from a signal point of view this is perfectly find, some PVRs have issues where different multiplexes come from different transmitters.
3. Attempt reception of all services from Rowridge. You will have to wait until 18th April for this as its COMs are on low power until then. Once that date has passed, Rowridge will be broadcasting horizontally (as it was before switchover) and vertically. The COMs signals will be more powerful vertically, but the vertical element of the COMs will only become available on 18th April, which is why you will probably need to wait until then to do that. Receiving Rowridge vertically will also help reduce the possibility of the possible interference from Stockland I mentioned as it is transmits only in the horizontal plane.
4. Increase the number of channels you have with Freesat. There are some services such as Sky News and Dave that aren't on Freesat but are on the full Freeview service. If you used this in conjuction with a Mendip aerial, you could then get all the channels available on Freeview (but not on Freesat), plus you would be able to receive BBC South/ITV Meridian via satellite, negating the need to connect the current Piddletrenthide aerial. It might be a good idea to retain (even if you don't use) the current aerial as a back-up or if you decide to change the arrangement.
P.S. One other thing to mention is that in the future it is expected that there will be three more licences granted to Commercial broadcasters. Expect these to not bother with Piddletrenthide but transmit from Mendip and Rowridge.
Because of the UHF channels they are likely to use (somewhere from 31 to 38 from all transmitters), this could perhaps present a problem, particularly if you go with option 2. It may be that in the future you may need a second aerial for the new services from Mendip. You might like to raise this potential issue with the installer, should you decide to go down this route.
If you go with option 3 (a single aerial on Rowridge) you will be OK.
If you go with option 1 (a single aerial on Mendip), then this will need to be a wideband aerial. If it is a Group C/D aerial, then you will need a second aerial for the new services. Again, best to raise this with an installer.
I add this P.S. as a warning, so that you aren't taken by surprise (and perhaps annoyed) that in a few years time you find that you have to have more work done in order to receive the future Commercial services.
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Sunday, 25 March 2012
B
Bernard Roughton1:14 PM
Dorchester
Thank you to KMJ & Dave Lindsey for taking the time to answer my query, much appreciated. The Dorset village I live in went Digital last week, & as I was BBC staff for a long time (Film unit, not engineeering!) people here have asked me questions about their about Freeview problems, which your replies help me to answer. Any other comments you may have would be gratefully received!
Thanks
Bernard Roughton
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Bernard's: mapB's Freeview map terrainB's terrain plot wavesB's frequency data B's Freeview Detailed Coverage