Leek transmitter - analogue switch-off

Why is Leek so far behind everyone else? We are stil limited to four channels (no channel 5) and this won't change until we go digital in 2011. Why should we have to pay the same tv licence as everyone else?

Bill Cornwell: It is a long process with a lot of equipment to change! If you want a better service than you will get in 2011 today, get Freesat instead!

Please see All about Freesat | ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002 for more.

Hi Everyone, Just come back from 6 weeks in Asia and my Freeview doesnt seem to work properly. I have a cheap Sagem ITD60 which has been fine for the past 3 years, but now I can only get BBC and some other digital channels. All the others are there but totally broken up. I live in New Milton, Hampshire BH257JA, Im half a mile from the coast from where I can clearly see the Isle of Wight. I have always used a set top wide band aerial without problem from my first floor flat.

I've checked all the leads. I did press the rescan when it told me it had detected "new channels". I have since gone through the setup procedure from scratch but it's still the same. In your opinion is this my STB that needs changing (it's not one of those listed),a transmitter problem or my aerial? (map)

Addendum
Forgot to mention, most of the channels that break up only do so at night. They seem to work ok during the daytime (daylight hours) (map)

Spencer: There is a list of things to check here - Freeview reception has changed? | ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002

Thanks Briantist. Great site btw. I have subsequently found out that my neighbour had the same problem and they bought a new STB and all is fine with their reception now. So I bought another Sagem, this time an ITD62 which was on sale for £22. I'm planning on getting one of those new Samsung 1080p 100hz LCD sets in January, so this is a bit of a stop gap solution.

The picture is great, except about every 3/5 minutes it freezes for a fraction of a second. The old model never did that when it worked. I can of course take it back and get a refund and buy another brand or could there be something else that I need to check? I bet you're gonna say follow your previous instructions! :) Thanks for all your time, trouble and help anyway. (map)

Spencer: I'm glad it's working most of the time - this time I'm going to suggest this page: Freeview intermittent interference | ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002 - I hope this fixes it!

Apart from Leek transmitter which does not have freeview for another couple of years. I can get a very good signal picking up BBC Wales from using a small hand held pocket tv. Is freeview available from this North Wales transmitter if I go for a good aerial.Houses just up the road can pick up winter hill but I don't think I will be able to.
Many thanks.

Rob Bond: I can't really say without knowing the full postcode of your location.

Briantist, postcode st13 8xt.

Thanks.

Got a aeriel fitter out last week. He went onto the sutton coldfield transmitter.
Managed to get BBC1 to BBC4, CBBC. ITV1-ITV4.
Channal 5 and all the other channal 5 stuff and the odd shopping channals.
But could not pick anymore? None of the Dave stuff,news channals,skysports news. The stuff we managed to get had a good picture. The fitter said he used a high gain aerial but I have seen better ones on the internet. Would this help. Also he used a five foot pole but he thinks I may need a 10 foot plus pole to get more.

I would be grateful for any info. (map)

Rob B, I hate to tell you this but you're doing well to get anything. Wolfbane's site reckons Sutton Coldfield is right down at 8dBµV/m for you based on the terrain prediction. Fenton is closer and theoretically higher-strength, but the muxes are on the same channels and polarization as the Leek analogue transmitter and probably just appear as low levels of noise on the analogue signal. You might get Mux 1 and 2 - BBC and ITV channels. That actually sounds a bit suspicious - are you sure it's pointing at Sutton Coldfield and not Fenton? Fenton might identify itself as SC as it's just a relay. Check the frequencies. Leek analogue transmissions are 10-20 times higher than Fenton digital.

The problem is that you're in quite a steep valley. There are FOUR massive hills between you and Sutton Coldfield transmitter. You'd need 60 metres more height to see over them. I think you'd need planning permission for that!

In contrast there are still several hills between you and Fenton, and it's much lower power, but it is much closer.

Given the fact that you appear to be in the bottom of a near 30m deep valley, an additional five feet is unlikely to do much. I added 2m to the Wolfbane default aerial height (above ground) of 10m and got an extra 1dB. It could help, but it's not going to be fantastic.

High gain aerials don't necessarily mean massive. Wideband aerials are mostly a crock - not that they don't do what's described, just that very few people need them, and they're inferior to grouped aerials for the most part. It's worth planning for post-switchover, and disregarding any analogue channels that are out of group. Sutton Coldfield is currently described as group E/W because Mux C is at C52 and Mux D at C55, just outside the group B range. Analogue channel Five is at C37 on Lichfield, which is out of the original B and E range but inside the revised 1995 ranges; still, I wouldn't design your system for that channel at this stage.

The graphs at Gain (curves), Again are pretty interesting. Note that the Tribooms are outperformed by the XB16 family in pretty much every case. Also note from the B group graph that the XB16B outperforms XB16E right across the B range spectrum, and channel 55 gain is just as good as C40 which is officially within the band (in fact, it's analogue BBC Two right now, but is to be sold off after switchover). However, the XB16B can only give about 9dB more than the DM Log, so you'd likely need to add a booster as well.

Wolfbane data at UK digital TV reception predictor You will need a Postscript viewer to see the terrain charts - I'm using Ghostscript and GSview.

After switchover, Fenton goes up from its current 100W (Mux 1, 2, A, B)/50W (C, D) to 2kW (PSB)/1kW (COM). That 20 times increase is a 26dB increase. Sutton Coldfield goes up to 200kW, although Mux C and D will initially run at 20kW, from the present 8kW (except Mux D 10kW), a 28dB increase. Any boosters you add now will likely want to come out.

Leek is going from 1kW analogue down to 200W digital, but the analogue predictor currently says 90dBµV/m for you on this transmitter; a 13dB drop should be fine, because digital boxes are happy with about 15-20dB less signal than analogue TV requires. (The smallest generally acceptable signal level for analogue - 60dBµV - is on the verge of overwhelming the digital box according to http://www.aerialsandtv.com/tvaerialtests.html.) However, Leek will only provide the PSB multiplexes. (RG47SH)

I live in LEEK (ST13 8LL) and currently all the signals I'm receiving from the main 4 terrestrial channels are of poor quality - Channel4 being the worst and hardly viewable most of the time.

I receive the signals through a normal (on the roof aerial) and just wondered if anyone else lately has also had similar poor reception?

Thanks for that Mike. I am sure he went on to Sutton Coldfield as he said Fenton is out of reach to Leek? I may be wrong. We got a very good picture on the channels we picked up. When does Fenton increase its power by the way?

Again thanks for the info Mike.