Full Freeview on the Sandy Heath (Central Bedfordshire, England) transmitter
 | Google Streetview |  | Google map |  | Bing map |  | Google Earth |  | 52.130,-0.242 or 52°7'47"N 0°14'33"W |  | SG19 2NH |
The symbol shows the location of the Sandy Heath (Central Bedfordshire, England) transmitter which serves 920,000 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 Sandy Heath (Central Bedfordshire, 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 Sandy Heath 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 Sandy Heath transmitter?
BBC Look East (West) 1.0m homes 3.7%
from Cambridge CB4 0WZ, 29km east-northeast (65°)
to BBC Cambridge region - 4 masts.
70% of BBC East (East) and BBC East (West) is shared output
ITV Anglia News 1.0m homes 3.7%
from Norwich NR1 3JG, 119km east-northeast (60°)
to ITV Anglia (West) region - 5 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 80% evening news is shared with Anglia (East)
How will the Sandy Heath (Central Bedfordshire, England) transmission frequencies change over time?
| 1965-80s | 1984-97 | 1997-98 | 1998-2011 | 2011-13 | 12 Feb 2020 | ||||
| VHF | A K T | K T | K T | W T | W T | ||||
| C6 | ITVwaves | ||||||||
| C21 | C4waves | C4waves | C4waves | +BBCB | BBCB | ||||
| C24 | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | D3+4 | D3+4 | ||||
| C27 | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBCA | BBCA | ||||
| C31 | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | ||||||
| C32 | com7 | ||||||||
| C33 | SDN | ||||||||
| C34 | com8 | ||||||||
| C35 | _local | ||||||||
| C36 | ArqA | ||||||||
| C39 | C5waves | C5waves | |||||||
| C43 | _local | ||||||||
| C48 | ArqB | ArqB | |||||||
| C51tv_off | SDN | ||||||||
| C52tv_off | ArqA | ||||||||
| 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 30 Mar 11 and 13 Apr 11.
How do the old analogue and currrent digital signal levels compare?
| Analogue 1-4 | 1000kW | |
| BBCA, D3+4, BBCB | (-7.4dB) 180kW | |
| SDN, ARQA, ARQB | (-7.7dB) 170kW | |
| com7 | (-13dB) 49.6kW | |
| com8 | (-13.1dB) 49.1kW | |
| Mux 1*, Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*, Mux C*, Mux D* | (-17dB) 20kW | |
| Analogue 5 | (-20dB) 10kW |
Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Sandy Heath transmitter area
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Wednesday, 25 December 2024
D
David Johnson2:47 PM
Freeview non existent on Christmas Day !
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S
StevensOnln14:59 PM
David Johnson: The BBC are currently warning of high pressure conditions causing reception issues in various parts of the country. Unfortunately nothing can be done about it other than waiting for the weather conditions to change.
High pressure currently affecting TV & Radio services across parts of the UK - 24 December | Help receiving TV and radio
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Thursday, 26 December 2024
B
barry hardwick12:13 PM
Maybe if we could have analogue, but just the lower number of stations during high pressure times, , that would be a very acceptable solutionStevensOnln1:
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C
Chris.SE6:21 PM
David Johnson:
Hope you haven't retuned as in these sort of conditions it will often clear your correct tuning and tune you to the weak signals from the distant transmitter which will eventually disappear!
You cannot tune to signals that aren't there or can't be decoded.
If you are correctly tuned, do NOT retune.
IF you did retune and now have the incorrect tuning, clear the current tuning by unplugging the aerial and doing a full retune, then plug the aerial back in and do a MANUAL tune of the UHF channels as listed at the very top of this page.
barry hardwick:
Similar comments apply to you. You are some distance away from the transmitter (unless you've moved since 2019!).
However, just to add, Analogue will make absolutely no difference to Tropospheric/Temperature Inversion conditions. Analogue signal are RF signals just as are digital and will be affected by such weather conditions in exactly the same way.
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C
Chris.SE6:25 PM
barry hardwick:
Apart from seeing my previous post, Freeview are also reporting these conditions.
High pressure could affect reception across the UK this week | Freeview
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Saturday, 28 December 2024
O
Owen8:28 PM
Chris.SE:
However, the Analogue transmission power levels were around 5x / 6dB higher, so there was more margin against interference. And analogue receivers were more tolerant to reduced signal levels, degrading more gracefully and just showing noise / interference on the picture.
Whereas with the digital system, a slight-drop in signal level (particularly for those on the margins of reception, as a decent more-local transmitter is not provided for our area) can just result in no reception at all - as I've had for many periods this year (The worst since switchover, and presumably due to sunspot cycle peak), as well as last few days.
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Sunday, 29 December 2024
C
Chris.SE1:04 AM
Owen:
Whilst you are correct in your comments, I'm not sure that in practise it actually gave more margin against interference.
DTV is more efficient and the coverage areas are pretty much the same or slightly better and coverage generally is better with the addition of all the Relays (over a 1000) added at DSO. The primary issue is that along with the rest of Europe, more of the frequencies are shared by more transmitters, especially those allocated to our COM Muxes.
Whilst you may think that analogue degraded more gracefully, with interference from a foreign transmitter present, trying to make out the picture when there was an almost equally strong interfering image, never mind the buzzing on the sound, was not something to relish.
It usually resulted in switching off until it had all gone away!
Did you ever change your aerial? These days Group K would be the one to go for.
How far are you from the Dallington Park relay? Can you get sufficient signal off the back of your aerial if you are generally to the east of it?
PS. Christmas/New Year 2019 was one of the worst (prolonged) periods in recent times.
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