Full Freeview on the Fenton (Stoke-on-Trent, England) transmitter
 | Google map |  | Bing map |  | Google Earth |  | 53.003,-2.146 or 53°0'11"N 2°8'46"W |  | ST4 2NX |
The symbol shows the location of the Fenton (Stoke-on-Trent, England) transmitter which serves 130,000 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 Fenton (Stoke-on-Trent, England) transmitter._______
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 Fenton 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 Fenton transmitter?
BBC Midlands Today 2.9m homes 10.9%
from Birmingham B1 1RF, 61km south-southeast (164°)
to BBC West Midlands region - 66 masts.
ITV Central News 2.9m homes 10.9%
from Birmingham B1 2JT, 61km south-southeast (164°)
to ITV Central (West) region - 65 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 80% evening news is shared with Central (East)
How will the Fenton (Stoke-on-Trent, England) transmission frequencies change over time?
| 1984-97 | 1997-98 | 1998-2011 | 2011-13 | 7 Mar 2018 | |||||
| A K T | A K T | A K T | A K T | W T | |||||
| C21 | C4waves | C4waves | C4waves | +BBCB | BBCB | ||||
| C22 | +ArqA | ArqA | |||||||
| C24 | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | BBCA | BBCA | ||||
| C25 | SDN | SDN | |||||||
| C27 | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | D3+4 | D3+4 | ||||
| C28 | ArqB | ArqB | |||||||
| C29 | _local | _local | |||||||
| C31 | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | ||||||
| C32 | com7 | ||||||||
| C34 | com8 | ||||||||
| C35 | C5waves | C5waves | |||||||
| C55tv_off | com7tv_off | ||||||||
| C56tv_off | COM8tv_off |
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 Sep 11 and 21 Sep 11.
How do the old analogue and currrent digital signal levels compare?
| Analogue 1-5 | 10kW | |
| BBCA, D3+4, BBCB | (-7dB) 2kW | |
| SDN, ARQA, ARQB | (-10dB) 1000W | |
| com7, com8 | (-18.5dB) 140W | |
| Mux 1*, Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B* | (-20dB) 100W | |
| Mux C*, Mux D* | (-23dB) 50W |
Local transmitter maps
Fenton Freeview Sutton Coldfield TV region BBC West Midlands Central (West micro region)Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Sutton Coldfield transmitter area
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Thursday, 7 November 2019
B
b.kilgariff1:15 PM
channel 25 is not working ,i live at st48jt
fenton mast
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StevensOnln12:01 PM
b.kilgariff: Have you checked for any loose or damaged cables or connections behind your TV? Have you lost any other channels? Do not attempt to retune as this will delete all of your channels before searching for them again, which is the worst thing to do in this situation.
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Saturday, 25 December 2021
D
Dan T6:38 PM
Is anyone else having issues with stations on C55 / COM7? A recording of BBC Four HD on the 13th came out unwatchable. Since then I can't pick up any of those channels, and they don't appear on a rescan; forcing C55 gives zero signal strength. Same for several TVs and tvheadend.
I'm a few miles from the transmitter with a relatively new aerial and coax (~4 years). The other multiplexes give 75-80% signal strength - though they are 1-2kW.
Perhaps related to things being phased out for 5G? Though the official Freeview site and the BBC's checker both imply the channels should still be available.
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StevensOnln111:36 PM
Dan T: COM7 is still broadcasting from 25 transmitters (it was originally broadcast from 30 but 5 closed during 700MHz clearance) and no closure date has been announced, although COM7's licence is currently set to expire on 30th June 2022. The recent weather conditions may have had some impact, although if a new or upgraded 5G mast has been switched on near you that could be causing interference, as the frequencies either side COM7 are now beginning to be used by the mobile networks following the completion on the 700MHz auction earlier this year.
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Sunday, 26 December 2021
C
Chris.SE1:12 AM
Dan T:
Hi Dan. My suspicion is it was most likely weather conditions as StevensOnln1 has mentioned COM7 is still being transmitted from Fenton. Whilst mobile interference can't be ruled out, you should have received a communication from "restoretv.uk" if a new mobile mast operating in the 700MHz band is likely to cause you interference.
There had been moderate Temperature Inversion/Tropospheric Ducting affecting large parts of the UK for several days (pretty well a good week IIRC), it sometimes accompanies high pressure.
In such conditions, do NOT retune, it will more likely remove your correct tuning. It may even leave you incorrectly tuned to distant transmitters whose signals then disappear as conditions change.
Essentially it results in interfering signals from other transmitters in the UK or Europe reaching you and so your wanted signals are disrupted, and of course ability to receive signals from transmitters further afield that are on different frequencies. It can/did also affect FM and DAB.
It won't necessarily affect all multiplexes or necessarily at the same time if more than one. It can last for seconds, minutes, sometimes hours or longer.
These conditions cleared the UK by Thursday morning.
Despite the incorrect spelling, this link does work - simple technical explanation
https://www.bbc.co.uk/rec….jpg
Since Thursday conditions seem to have returned to normal, so if you haven't tried a manual retune for C55 since then I would give it another go. Also make sure you don't have any HDMI leads close to your aerial or fly-leads (especially if the latter aren't double screened coax) as HDMI has been known to cause interference especially to C55.
What figures does the Freeview Detailed predictor give for your COM7, and does the BBC one say variable or good?
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Dan T3:07 PM
Stoke-on-trent
Hi both, thanks for the responses.
Regarding not retuning yet, it's a bit late for that. :) (In some cases auto-retuning takes place).
Tvheadend will keep the existing stations until I delete them myself. If I tune to one of the channels on C55 and then check the status it shows a signal strength of 65%, but with countless errors. After a while, perhaps a second of garbled video/audio.
If I try and manual tune of the regular TVs to C55, they show 0% strength.
No new cabling/things moved around (mains, HDMI etc).
The official Freeview checker says "Good" signal strength for my postcode.
I've had nothing through the door from restoretv.uk, and checking on their site implies there shouldn't be an issue at my postcode.
The predictor here at ukfree.tv/prediction lists all the channels for my postcode. The map also shows an EE mast being almost directly between myself and the Fenton transmitter, but much closer. EE's coverage checker says weak 5G outdoors here - though I don't know if that particular mast is 5G, anyway.
Checking back on my older posts here - it looks like I was getting 70% on C55 in May 2018 so perhaps they were always borderline for me.
I only use this multiplex to record BBC Four HD maybe once a month to watch back without the iPlayer watermark in the corner - otherwise it's no great loss to me. I'll keep half an eye on it and see if it reappears or if ukfree.tv thinks I need a filter after all.
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Dan's: mapD's Freeview map terrainD's terrain plot wavesD's frequency data D's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Monday, 27 December 2021
C
Chris.SE6:28 PM
Dan T:
Just one point of clarification, it doesn't matter whether it's 5G or 4G etc., it's whether it's transmitting in the 700MHz band. Some of those transmissions from some MNOs can be 4G. The MNOs coverage maps don't usually give an indication as to what band(s) a particular mast is transmitting on. There are some sources that do give some idea, but they aren't always up-to-date as they rely on users updating the data. Whether StevensOnln1 can tell us any good sites in that respect, I don't' know.
I would turn off any auto-retune where you can, it's more trouble than it's worth and there's no real benefit to it. If something changes on any of the COM muxes, you'll normally get an on-screen pop-up message telling you.
It might be worth just checking what sort of strengths you get with the aerial direct to one set, just as some sort of reference, can always be useful to check the amps aren't playing up as well.
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StevensOnln111:27 PM
Chris.SE: Cellmapper (see link below) generates a crowd sourced map of mobile base stations (the individual networks each publish their own coverage maps but don't show details such as the frequency bands in use at each site) so whilst there is no guarantee as to the accuracy of the data, for areas which have been well mapped it is possible to get a fairly good idea of where the 4G/5G base stations are and which frequency bands are in use (band 20/800MHz and band 28/700MHz are the ones to look out for when looking for possible sources of interference which may impact Freeview reception).
Cellular Tower and Signal Map
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Tuesday, 28 December 2021
C
Chris.SE2:44 AM
StevensOnln1:
Hi, thanks for your post. I had come across cellmapper but not found it particularly intuitive to use. It also seems to suffer problems with cell locations on maps with some cells I'd looked at - similar to AM/FM mast locations on this site!
Any ideas why that might be?
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StevensOnln111:18 AM
Chris.SE: The red dots on Cellmapper show sites where the location has been calculated automatically, which can sometimes be very inaccurate if there is little mapping data for that particular cell site. The yellow dots are sites which have been located by users (any registered user can move cell sites so some locations may be guesses if the actual location cannot be located visually). Clicking on each dot will show the mapped coverage for each cell sector (most sites are configured with antennas pointing in 2, 3 or sometimes 4 different directions to provide coverage in all directions).
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