Full Freeview on the Rowridge (Isle Of Wight, England) transmitter
 | Google Streetview |  | Google map |  | Bing map |  | Google Earth |  | 50.676,-1.369 or 50°40'35"N 1°22'7"W |  | PO30 4HT |
The symbol shows the location of the Rowridge (Isle Of Wight, England) transmitter which serves 620,000 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 Rowridge (Isle Of Wight, 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
DTG-12 QSPK 8K 3/4 8.0Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2
H/V: aerial position (horizontal or vertical)
Which Freeview channels does the Rowridge 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 Rowridge transmitter?
BBC South Today 1.3m homes 4.9%
from Southampton SO14 7PU, 26km north (354°)
to BBC South region - 39 masts.
ITV Meridian News 0.9m homes 3.6%
from Whiteley PO15 7AD, 24km north-northeast (20°)
to ITV Meridian (South Coast) region - 39 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 50% evening news is shared with all of Meridian plus Oxford
Are there any self-help relays?
| Portsmouth Docks | Transposer | 2 km N city centre | 50 homes Estimate. Group of houses' |
How will the Rowridge (Isle Of Wight, England) transmission frequencies change over time?
| 1950s-80s | 1984-97 | 1997-98 | 1998-2012 | 2012-13 | 2 May 2018 | ||||
| VHF | A K T | A K T | A K T | A K T | W T | ||||
| C3 | BBCtvwaves | ||||||||
| C21 | C4waves | C4waves | C4waves | +BBCB | BBCB | ||||
| C22 | +ArqA | ArqA | |||||||
| C24 | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBCA | BBCA | ||||
| C25 | SDN | SDN | |||||||
| C27 | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | D3+4 | D3+4 | ||||
| C28 | ArqB | ArqB | |||||||
| C29 | LSO | ||||||||
| C31 | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | com7 | |||||
| C37 | com8 | ||||||||
| 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 Mar 12 and 21 Mar 12.
How do the old analogue and currrent digital signal levels compare?
| Analogue 1-4 | 500kW | |
| PSB1||, PSB1≡, PSB2||, PSB2≡, PSB3||, PSB3≡ | (-4dB) 200kW | |
| COM4≡, COM4||, COM5≡, COM5||, COM6≡, COM6|| | (-10dB) 50kW | |
| com7≡ | (-13.1dB) 24.4kW | |
| Mux 1*, Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*, Mux C*, Mux D* | (-14dB) 20kW | |
| com8≡ | (-14.3dB) 18.4kW | |
| LSO≡ | (-17dB) 10kW |
Local transmitter maps
Rowridge Freeview Rowridge DAB 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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Friday, 23 September 2022
J
John H8:54 AM
What does the +' designation mean on Rowridge multiplex C22+
Many thanks
John.
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C
Chris.SE12:22 PM
John H:
As per the top of the page, it means that the actual centre frequency is offset by 166kHz, in this case above. It makes absolutely no difference to tuning by channel as all sets/boxes cope automatically.
The only difference it may make is if you have a device that you tune by frequency eg. some PC cards do that.
If you hover over C22 (or any channel number on this site prefixed by C) it gives you the centre frequency (note NOT C22+ just C22).
BUT frequencies are shown at the top of the page HOWEVER they are rounded to one decimal place ie 0.2 !!
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J
John H6:14 PM
Many thanks Chris.
I was clutching at straws to understand why 1 of our TV's refuse to display Sky News on broadcast CH 233, or any other broadcaster on that Mux. Not a problem just don't like mystery's.
All the best
John.
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Saturday, 24 September 2022
C
Chris.SE3:29 AM
John H:
Hi John. You always have struggled with COM5 and it is one of the most vulnerable to co-channel interference in your general locale using horizontal polarisation, additionally the COM muxes are lower power in HP than the PSBs, and there has been very variable "Tropo" coming and going across the UK in the last few weeks.
(As an aside, some sets do allow tuning by frequency when using Manual tuning, but in general this won't make any difference, it's those that only allow tuning by frequency where it seems important).
Using the Vertical Polarisation also transmitted from Rowridge, all muxes are at 200kW according to Freeview/DUK, and general predictions for the COM muxes are a lot better, (the data at the top of the page seems to be out of date) even though the COMs are still less reliable than the PSBs in your locale.
Your general locale isn't the best for reception from any of the potential transmitters (dependent on precise postcode & location), however VP from Rowridge is generally the best so unless you are able to get (and want) the Local Southampton mux from Rowridge, you might as well stick to VP now that COM7 has closed. VP should be generally far less vulnerable to CCI from across the Channel.
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Saturday, 1 October 2022
A
Anthony Kightley11:07 AM
Waterlooville
I live in Warfield Avenue, Waterlooville, PO7 7JN. When I moved here 12 years ago, I was struck by the number of high aerials that there were in the area. Obviously we are in a shaddow of the downs on the northern edge of Portsmouth, but why wasn't a repeater station built on the downs? Is it to give more business to aerial erectors!?
My aerial is on the far end of my garage roof which is behind the house. It was put there, primarily, to reduce the interference from household appliances in next door, but it does have a clear 'view' with no property in the line of sight, which is parallel to the street.
However, my main question is to ask if there is a reason for occasional poor reception of the Yesterday Channel? I did think it was related to climate but I cannot discover a distinct correlation.
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Anthony's: mapA's Freeview map terrainA's terrain plot wavesA's frequency data A's Freeview Detailed Coverage
C
Chris.SE3:12 PM
Anthony Kightley:
Well 12 years ago we would have still been talking about analogue days and high aerials in your locale were probably needed to reduce ghosting problems. Multipath doesn't generally affect digital signals in the same way. As far a relay transmitters go, the general issue is available freqencies and more so on the south coast where the issue of interference to and from transmissions in the north of France can be a problem. In these digiatl days, this is one of the reasons that Rowridge uses vertical polarisation as well as horizontal where vertical is less likely to suffer problems in many locations.
I see you asked a similar question in 2020 about "Yesterday" which is carried on COM6.
See Channel listings for Industry Professionals | Freeview for which channels are carried on which multiplex.
You were given a fairly detailed technical explanation and that situation has not changed for the main PSB, COM4-6 and Local multiplexes. The temporary muxes COMs 7&8 are now closed.
As far as local interference issues are concerned, quality double screened coax such as CT100 will reduce the chances of that being a problem. You haven't mentioned how old the aerial installation is, whether the rods (or squashed Xs) are horizontal or vertical. Is it a group A aerial or is it a wideband, group T or K?
If you don't get or want the Local multiplex (Southampton area news on LCN7) or the other 5 channels on the mux, then your reception is predicted to be much better with vertical polarisation.
Interference with the "wrong" weather conditions is likely to be reduced.
It is not simply "high pressure" that gives the problems as some reports would suggest. It's Tropospheric Ducting/Temperature Inversion which can often accompany high pressure but the conditions can be very variable, you can't correlate this with what you "see" of the weather or simple barometric pressure. Such conditions have been present over several recent weeks affecting different parts of the country at different times and they don't usually affect several multiplexes at once (it depends where the interference is coming from). There is some present now which could be affecting parts of the south.
Rowridge again had Planned Engineering over the latter part of August which may have continued in the first week of September, but none is currently reported.
In your previous post you mentioned signal strength but it's not just strength that is important. Signal quality (or Bit Error rate - BER) is more important. You also mentioned amplifiers.
If you have any multiplexes (PSBs especially) with very high strength and not 100% quality (or a high BER) then you may have too much gain, wind your amp down a bit. 100% quality or low BER is paramount. Many sets quite happily function with strengths that are quite low as long as the quality is 100%. Of course, if the signal is weak in the first place then you may not get 100% quality, as long as it's high and stable, that should be satisfactory for most of the time.
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Tuesday, 4 October 2022
S
Stuart Tier 1:17 PM
Until yesterday I've been able to receive Great Movies Classic on ch52, although recently it has been dropping out or pixelated. Yesterday half way through a film it dropped out completely which caused my wife great annoyance. I've checked the signal strength on my TV which is 0. Checking your website it appears that only That's TV is operating on the local mux (602Mhz) from Rowridge but the Freeview site states it should be available at my postcode! If my patchy reception wasn't from Rowridge where did it come from? Most importantly can I retune to find this channel again or is it gone for good?
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Wednesday, 5 October 2022
C
Chris.SE7:11 AM
Stuart Tier :
Do NOT retune. The Local mux is on UHF C37 at Rowridge (602MHz0 as you mention.
You haven't said how good a signal the Freeview predictor gives for the Local mux (or given a full postcode so we could check) but it's "temporary" loss is most likely due to current weather conditions.
As mentioned in the post before yours -
It is not simply "high pressure" that gives the problems as some reports would suggest. It's Tropospheric Ducting/Temperature Inversion which can often accompany high pressure but the conditions can be very variable, you can't correlate this with what you "see" of the weather or simple barometric pressure. Such conditions have been present over several recent weeks affecting different parts of the country at different times and they don't usually affect several multiplexes at once (it depends where the interference is coming from).
There is some present now which could be affecting parts of the south.
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J
John H4:41 PM
Worthing
At varrious times of the year at BN13 3LN I get good receiption on Broadcast channels 37 from Abbyville + Cherbourg. However if Stuart only looses ch52 on Com8 (ch37) I guess those French stations that also broadcast on 37 may not be te culprit for his loss of Great Movies Classic.
John H
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John's: mapJ's Freeview map terrainJ's terrain plot wavesJ's frequency data J's Freeview Detailed Coverage
C
Chris.SE5:02 PM
John H:
Stuart Tier :
Just to be clear, Com8 closed 2 years ago, and Com7 at the end of June. The "over time" list has not been updated with all the changes. UHF C37 is now the Local multiplex as per the full listing at the very top of the page.
The co-channel interference on C37 could be coming from France, it could also come from any UK transmitter using C37, it is entirely down to the particular Tropo conditions at the time. Transmitters from elsewhere in Europe and even the north of England have been received on occasions in the past.
John I'm sure you realise that your reception from Rowridge can be variable to poor, depending on multiplex. In your case, Findon is the only transmitter predicted to give you good reception, even then that's only the 3 PSB multiplexes as it's a "Light" transmitter. Whitehawk Hill is predicted to give variable reception of the 6 main and Local (Brighton) multiplexes.
Yours is a "tricky" location as I'm sure you know!
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