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Full Freeview on the Winter Hill (Bolton, England) transmitter

Brian Butterworth first published this on 1st May 2004 at 08:20 - UK Free TV

53.625,-2.516 or 53°37'30"N 2°30'56"W

BL6 6SL

The symbol shows the location of the Winter Hill (Bolton, England) transmitter which serves 2,690,000 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 Winter Hill (Bolton, England) transmitter.

Choose from three options: ■ List by multiplex ■ List by channel number ■ List by channel name

_______

Which Freeview channels does the Winter Hill 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	H max	C32 (562.0MHz)	726m	DTG-	100,000W
	1 BBC One (SD) North West, 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	H max	C34 (578.0MHz)	726m	DTG-	100,000W
	3 ITV 1 (SD) (Granada), 4 Channel 4 (SD) North ads, 5 Channel 5, 6 ITV 2, 10 ITV3, 13 E4, 14 Film4, 15 Channel 4 +1 North ads, 18 More4, 26 ITV4, 28 ITVBe, 30 E4 +1, 35 ITV1 +1 (Granada), 71 That’s 60s,
PSB3 BBCB	H max	C35- (585.8MHz)	726m	DTG-	100,000W
	46 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD North West, 102 BBC Two HD England, 103 ITV 1 HD (ITV Granada), 104 Channel 4 HD North ads, 105 Channel 5 HD, 106 BBC Four HD, 107 BBC Three HD, 204 CBBC HD, 205 CBeebies HD, plus 1 others 66 TBN UK,
COM4 SDN	H max	C29 (538.0MHz)	726m	DTG-8	100,000W
	20 U&Drama, 21 5USA, 29 ITV2 +1, 32 5STAR, 33 5Action, 38 Channel 5 +1, 41 Legend, 42 GREAT! action, 57 U&Dave ja vu, 58 ITV3 +1, 59 ITV4 +1, 64 Blaze, 67 TRUE CRIME, 68 TRUE CRIME XTRA, 81 Blaze +1, 83 Together TV, 91 WildEarth, 93 ITVBe +1, 209 Ketchup TV, 210 Ketchup Too, 211 YAAAS!, 251 Al Jazeera English, 255 FRANCE 24 (in English), 265 Rok Sky +1, plus 29 others
COM5 ArqA	H max	C31 (554.0MHz)	726m	DTG-8	100,000W
	11 Sky Mix, 17 Really, 19 U&Dave, 31 E4 Extra, 36 Sky Arts, 40 Quest Red, 43 Food Network, 47 Film4 +1, 48 Challenge, 49 4seven, 60 U&Drama +1, 65 That's TV 2, 70 Quest +1, 74 &UYesterday +1, 76 That's TV 2 MCR, 233 Sky News, plus 13 others
COM6 ArqB	H max	C37 (602.0MHz)	726m	DTG-8	100,000W
	12 Quest, 25 U&W, 27 U&Yesterday, 34 GREAT! movies, 39 DMAX, 44 HGTV, 52 GREAT! christmas, 56 That's TV (UK), 63 GREAT! romance mix, 73 HobbyMaker, 75 That's 90s, 82 Talking Pictures TV, 84 PBS America, 235 Al Jazeera Eng, plus 18 others
LM	H -20dB	C40 (626.0MHz)	572m	DTG-12	1,000W
	from 1st October 2014: 7 That's Manchester,
LL	H -17dB	C24 (498.0MHz)	572m	DTG-12	2,000W
	from 30th June 2014: 7 Bay TV Liverpool,
LPR	H -20dB	C56 (754.0MHz)	572m	DTG-12	1,000W
	from 1st October 2014: 7 That's Lancashire,
GIM	H -20dB	C57 (762.0MHz)	572m	DTG-2	1,000W
	Now 90s, Spotlight TV, Clubland TV, Country Music Entertainment , Classic Hits MCR, 77 That's 60s MCR, 78 TCC, 80 That's 80s, 86 That's 90s MCR, 88 TV Warehouse+1,

DTG-8 64QAM 8K 3/4 27.1Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2
DTG-12 QSPK 8K 3/4 8.0Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2
DTG-2 16QAM 2K 3/4 18.1Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2
H/V: aerial position (horizontal or vertical)

Which BBC and ITV regional news can I watch from the Winter Hill transmitter?

BBC North West Tonight 3.1m homes 11.8%
from Salford M50 2QH, 22km southeast (140°)
to BBC North West region - 92 masts.

ITV Granada Reports 3.1m homes 11.6%
from Salford M50 2EQ, 22km southeast (139°)
to ITV Granada region - 80 masts.

How will the Winter Hill (Bolton, England) transmission frequencies change over time?

	1956-80s	1984-97	1997-98	1998-2009	2009-13	2013-18	2013-17	20 Feb 2020
	VHF	C/D E	C/D E	C/D E	C/D E	C/D E T	W T	W T
C9	ITV_waves
C12	BBCtv_waves
C24								_local
C29								SDN
C31							com7	com7
C32								BBCA
C34								D3+4
C35								BBCB
C37							com8	com8
C40								LOCAL2
C48			C5_waves	C5_waves
C49_{tv_off}						ArqA	ArqA
C50_{tv_off}						BBCA	BBCA
C54_{tv_off}					-BBCB	-BBCB	-BBCB
C55_{tv_off}		BBC1_waves	BBC1_waves	BBC1_waves	ArqB	ArqB	ArqB	com7_{tv_off}
C56_{tv_off}					_local	_local	_local	LPR
C57_{tv_off}					GIM	GIM	GIM	GIM
C58_{tv_off}					SDN	SDN	SDN
C59_{tv_off}		ITV_waves	ITV_waves	ITV_waves	D3+4	D3+4	D3+4
C61					ArqA
C62		BBC2_waves	BBC2_waves	BBC2_waves	BBCA
C65		C4_waves	C4_waves	C4_waves

_{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 4 Nov 09 and 2 Dec 09.

How do the old analogue and currrent digital signal levels compare?

Analogue 1-4	500kW
SDN, ARQA, ARQB, BBCA, D3+4, BBCB	(-7dB) 100kW
com7	(-12.9dB) 25.7kW
com8	(-13.4dB) 22.6kW
Analogue 5	(-16dB) 12.5kW
Mux 1, Mux 2, Mux A, Mux B, Mux C, Mux D	(-17dB) 10kW
LL	(-24dB) 2kW
GIM, LM, LPR	(-27dB) 1000W

Local transmitter maps

Winter Hill Freeview Winter Hill DAB Winter Hill AM/FM Winter Hill TV region BBC North West Granada

Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Winter Hill transmitter area

May 1956-Jul 1968	Granada Television†
May 1956-Jul 1968	Associated British Corporation◊
Jul 1968-Feb 2004	Granada Television
Feb 2004-Dec 2014	ITV plc

Feb 1983-Dec 1992	TV-am•
Jan 1993-Sep 2010	GMTV•
Sep 2010-Dec 2014	ITV Daybreak•

• Breakfast ◊ Weekends ♦ Friday night and weekends † Weekdays only.

Is the transmitter output the same in all directions?

Comments

Wednesday, 11 March 2020

_{sentiment_satisfied}Gold

6:16 AM

Ken W: You could use Wake-on-LAN and Remote Desktop Connection if you have a machine with you.

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js's 841 posts GB flag

_{sentiment_satisfied}Gold

6:19 AM

Bad Characters Update

It's interesting to look at these events on the site:

TV Guide | Freeview

When I looked on there a few weeks ago, they were displaying the correct characters. They now seem to be using the same corrupt data they transmit.

For example, take error event #327 below:

This is what's transmitted:
******************
Al Jazeera Eng, Fri 13 Mar 20:00 - 21:00: title = "The Coming War On China", description = "Journalist John Pilger, reveals what the news doesn't {--} that the world's greatest military , the U.S. may well be on the road to war with China."
******************

Freeview site:
******************
The Coming War On China

13 Mar 2020 - 8:00pm - 9:00pm
Download our Freeview mobile app
Summary

Journalist John Pilger, reveals what the news doesn't that the world's greatest military power, the U.S. may well be on the road to war with China.
******************

Note how ungrammatical that is without the --

A shortened error report follows:

Invalid Character Codes in the EIT off North BBC A. Date: 2020/03/11 02:31:50

It has become apparent through observation that invalid bytes in the Freeview EIT text strings are the low-order bytes of the Unicode General Punctuation Block:

Of course only bytes less than 0x20 qualify as invalid codes in the context of EIT text strings.

Since about April 2018, the following invalid codes have been found in the Freeview EIT text items:

0x01, substitute: {0x01} -> Unicode Character: "EM QUAD" (U + 2001)
0x08, substitute: { } -> Unicode Character: "PUNCTUATION SPACE" (U + 2008)
0x0B, substitute: {} -> Unicode Character: "ZERO WIDTH SPACE" (U + 200B)
0x10, substitute: {-} -> Unicode Character: "HYPHEN" (U + 2010)
0x13, substitute: {--} -> Unicode Character: "EN DASH" (U + 2013)
0x14, substitute: {---} -> Unicode Character: "EM DASH" (U + 2014)
0x18, substitute: {L'} -> Unicode Character: "LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK" (U + 2018)
0x19, substitute: {R'} -> Unicode Character: "RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK" (U + 2019)
0x1C, substitute: {L''} -> Unicode Character: "LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK" (U + 201C)
0x1D, substitute: {R''} -> Unicode Character: "RIGHT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK" (U + 201D)

There are 1235 invalid codes in the current EIT:
invalid code, count, percentage
0x13, 4, 0.32%
0x18, 25, 2.02%
0x19, 1144, 92.63%
0x1C, 31, 2.51%
0x1D, 31, 2.51%

There are 942 events with invalid codes in the current EIT.

The Culprits:
Format:
service_name, number of events containing errors

BBC World Sv., 6
BBC Radio 4, 1
BBC World Sv., 6
BBC Radio 4, 1
Yaaas!, 17
Blaze, 22
ADULT Studio 66, 32
Planet Knowledge, 24
Sports Channel Network, 112
Ketchup TV, 11
RNIB Connect, 3
Food Network, 1
Sony Movies, 21
POP, 69
Al Jazeera Eng, 4
PBS America, 4
Sony Channel +1, 24
POP Max, 126
Tiny Pop, 85
Sony Movies +1, 3
Sony Channel, 28
Sony Movies Classic, 2
That's TV, 48
Tiny Pop, 85
Sony Movies +1, 3
Sony Channel, 28
Sony Movies Classic, 2
That's TV, 48
Tiny Pop, 85
Sony Movies +1, 3
Sony Channel, 28
Sony Movies Classic, 2
PBS America +1, 8

Events with invalid codes in the eight-day EIT off multiplex BBC A at 2020/03/11 02:31:50:

#1: BBC World Sv., Wed 11 Mar 11:32 - 12:00: title = "13 Minutes to the Moon", description = "1/6. {L''}Houston, we've had a problem.{R''} To ignite catastrophe would take just the flick of a single switch. Why Nasa's third bid to land on the Moon was flawed from the start.", description error bytes: 0x1C, 0x1D

...

#4: BBC World Sv., Tue 17 Mar 04:32 - 05:00: title = "In the Studio", description = "Nicknamed the {L''}first lady of graffiti{R''}, Ecuadorian-American artist Lady Pink talks murals, music and money.", description error bytes: 0x1C, 0x1D

...

#7: BBC Radio 4, Sun 15 Mar 08:10 - 08:48: title = "Sunday Worship", description = "From St Patrick's Church, Coleraine, on the Lenten theme, {L''}Care for God's Creation{R''}.", description error bytes: 0x1C, 0x1D

...

#15: Yaaas!, Wed 11 Mar 00:30 - 01:00: title = "Wallace and Gromit's...", description = "... Cracking Contrapitions. From the Soccamatic to the 535 Crackervac, Wallace{R'}s inventions are truly imaginative if not always the most efficient!", description error byte: 0x19

...

#327: Al Jazeera Eng, Fri 13 Mar 20:00 - 21:00: title = "The Coming War On China", description = "Journalist John Pilger, reveals what the news doesn't {--} that the world's greatest military power, the U.S. may well be on the road to war with China.", description error byte: 0x13

...

#942: PBS America +1, Wed 18 Mar 15:20 - 15:55: title = "Steven Raichlen's...", description = "...Project Fire: Raichlen{R'}s Rules: In this episode, Steven looks at fundamental techniques that he has employed over the years. (Part 12 of 12)", Huffman coded, description error byte: 0x19

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js's 841 posts GB flag

Friday, 13 March 2020

Richard Simmonds
4:05 PM
Congleton

Since retuning completely as directed in February we have had pixelation on many , which had been OK before.
Today I went through the first 50 channels and the first few HD channels; these were unwatchable or had no :
Unwatchable MPlex NO RECEPTION MPlex
11 Pick COM5 7 LM
17 Really COM5 8 NOT IN LIST ?
19 Dave COM5 48 ?
32 Sony Movies COM5 50 ?
38 Quest Red COM5
41 Food Network COM5
45 Fim4+1 COM5
46 COM5

101 BBC1 HD BBCB
102 BBC2 HD BBCB
103 ITV HD BBCB

How can I fix this? My postcode is CW12 3TW and the points to Bolton ( )

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Richard Simmonds's 2 posts GB flag

Richard's: R's Freeview map R's terrain plot R's frequency data R's Freeview Detailed Coverage

Chris.SE

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

11:38 PM

Richard Simmonds:

This looks like you may have picked up tuning from another for COM5 & PSB3/BBCB HD as the only change at in February was the move of the PSB1/BBCA from UHF to , If you are having no issues with those in their normal LCNs in the EPG, it seems you shouldn't have an issue. (Be aware that the BBCA mux is also simulcasting on its old channel C50 so that people with aerial problems have time to get it resolved before this ceases with the final changes on April 22nd. Those programmes will be found at LCNs 751 et seq. in the EPG.)

Probably the easiest way to deal with this normally is to unplug the aerial and carry out a full automatic retune which should clear all previous tuning as no channels are found. Then plug the aerial back in and repeat the retune, hopefully all channels will be restored in their normal LCNs. (For the time being you'll still find the old BBCA mux channels in LCNs 751 et seq.).

You should have no problem receiving all the main multiplexes PSBs1-3, COMs4-6, also COMs7&8 at your location. Some of the local Manchester multiplexes, you may receive with marginal variable to poor .
See Channel listings | Freeview for which channels are on which multiplex.

Post back and tell us if the retunes suggested resolve the problem.

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Chris.SE's 4,394 posts GB flag

Monday, 16 March 2020

Mazbar

_{sentiment_satisfied}Gold

12:52 PM

In the light of the covid 19 outbreak do you think the April 22nd retune will be postponed. I have 25 retunes booked in already.

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Mazbar's 384 posts GB flag

MikeP

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

8:02 PM

Mazbar:

The engineers who carry out the work at the transmitters do not come into contact with members of the public as a rule so they are unlikely to postpone their work. You may need to consider you own health security in light of today's Government announcements.

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MikeP's 3,056 posts GB flag

Tuesday, 17 March 2020

Grahame Phillips
5:33 AM
Stockport

Since the Retune I have lost most of my HD , I have done a Factory Reset of the Box, I have done an Out/Aerial In Retune and all the HD Channels are on the Guide. I can watch BBC 4 HD, QVC HD, QVC BEAUTY HD, QUEST HD and CBEEBIES HD all the rest say . When I try a Manual Retune Channels 54, 55 and 57 will Not Due To Signal. I had ALL the HD Channels before the Retune. I have a Communal Aerial (which I know has been Upgraded but not gone Live yet) My Postcode is SK1 3PD. Any ideas?

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Grahame Phillips's 13 posts GB flag

Grahame's: G's Freeview map G's terrain plot G's frequency data G's Freeview Detailed Coverage

Chris.SE

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

4:31 PM

Grahame Phillips:

The retune back on 20th Feb. only moved PSB1/BBCA to and COM8 to . So you shouldn't be having any problems with the PSB3/BBCB HD on . Although IIRC there may have been Planned at Winter Hill last week which may not have helped. COM7 was already on , and isn't due to change and as you have no problem with COM8, I'm surprised you can't get COM7.
The mux on is one of the local ones and is predicted to give poor at your location.

When you say the communal has been upgraded but not gone live, I'm not sure why the reception of all the HD muxes would be affected. Do you know if the distribution is a channelised system? Maybe something isn't set correctly. The Freeview Detailed Coverage Checker indicates there shouldn't be a problem with reception of these at you location. I would check if your neighbours are having similar issues and chase the building maintenance people if you all are.

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Chris.SE's 4,394 posts GB flag

Saturday, 21 March 2020

Ken W
3:34 PM

js: & Chris.SE:

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I did think of RDC but things have moved on now. Due to the virus situation I'll be remaining in the local area so will be able to configure things manually myself on the 22nd April.

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Ken W's 3 posts GB flag

Saturday, 28 March 2020

Chris.SE

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

9:10 PM

ALL:

April 22nd Retune is now postponed due to the Covid-19 situation, see https://www.ofcom.org.uk/….pdf
Putting postcodes into the Detailed Coverage Checker is now just indicating a date of 2021, presumably something more specific will be stated when it's decided in the future.

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Chris.SE's 4,394 posts GB flag

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Please post a question, answer or commentIf you have Freeview reception problems before posting a question your must first do this Freeview reset procedure then see: Freeview reception has changed, Single frequency interference, and Freeview intermittent interference.

If you have no satellite signal, see Sky Digibox says 'No Signal' or 'Technical fault'

If you have other problems, please provide a full (not partial) postcode (or preferably enter it in box at the top right) and indicate where if aerial is on the roof, in the loft or elsewhere.

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