Freeview Light on the Dorking (Surrey, England) transmitter
This transmitter has no current reported problems
The BBC and Digital UK report there are no faults or engineering work on the Dorking (Surrey, England) transmitter.
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The symbol shows the location of the Dorking (Surrey, England) transmitter which serves 3,700 homes.
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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.
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See terrain plotDorking transmitter Freeview broadcasts
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 | Aerial position | Frequency | Height | Mode | Watts |
PSB1
BBCA | horizontal max vertical -3.1dB | C44 (658.0MHz)
| 149m | 64QAM 8K 2/3
24.1Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2 | 9W
4W |
| 
1 BBC One London, 2 BBC Two England, 7 BBC Three, 9 BBC Four, 70 CBBC Channel, 71 CBeebies, 80 BBC News, 81 BBC Parliament, 301 301, plus 12 others 200 BBC Red Button, 700 BBC Radio 1, 701 BBC 1Xtra, 702 BBC Radio 2, 703 BBC Radio 3, 704 BBC Radio 4, 705 BBC Radio 5 Live, 706 BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra, 707 BBC 6 Music, 708 BBC Radio 4 Extra, 709 BBC Asian Network, 710 BBC World Service,
|
PSB2
D3+4 | horizontal max vertical -3.1dB | C41 (634.0MHz)
| 149m | 64QAM 8K 2/3
24.1Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2 | 9W
4W |
| 
3 ITV (London), 4 Channel 4 London ads, 5 Channel 5 London ads, 6 ITV 2, 13 Channel 4+1 London ads, 14 More 4, 28 E4, 33 ITV +1 (London),
|
PSB3
BBCB | horizontal max vertical -3.1dB | C47 (682.0MHz)
| 149m | 256QAM 32KE 2/3
40.2Mb/s DVB-T2 MPEG4 | 9W
4W |
| 
101 BBC One HD (England no regional news), 102 BBC Two HD (England), 103 ITV HD (ITV London), 104 Channel 4 HD London ads, plus 1 others 232 The Space,
|
Looking for these 26 channels?
The
Dorking (Surrey, England) mast is a
public service broadcasting (PSB) transmitter, it does not provide these
commercial (COM) channels: 4Music, 4seven, 5*, 5USA, Al Jazeera English, Challenge, Channel 5 +1, CITV, Community Channel, Dave, Dave ja vu, E4+1, Film 4, Food Network, ITV 2 +1, ITV 3, ITV 4, Movie Mix, PICK TV, Quest, Really, RT English , Sky News, The Zone, VIVA, Yesterday.
If you want to watch these channels, your aerial must point to one of the 80
Full service Freeview transmitters. For more information see the
will there ever be more services on the Freeview Light transmitters? page.
Regional news from the Dorking transmitter
How the transmission frequencies change over time
| years | | 1984-97 | 1997-98 | 1998-2012 | 2012-13 | 2013-18 | 2013-18 | |
| aerial group | | B E | B E | B E | B E K | B E K | B E K | |
| C41 | | ITV | ITV | ITV | D3+4 | D3+4 | D3+4 | |
| C44 | | BBC2 | BBC2 | BBC2 | BBCA | BBCA | BBCA | |
| C47 | | C4 | C4 | C4 | BBCB | BBCB | BBCB | |
| 700 | C51 | | BBC1 | BBC1 | BBC1 | | | | |
| orange background for multiplexes names more | green background for transmission frequencies | lilac background for power levels in watts | 800MHz band: 4G mobile to start in 2013 | 700MHz band: possible 4G in 2019 more | 600MHz band: new or moved digital TV services more |
Notes:
+ and
- denote 166kHz offset; aerial group are shown as
A B C/D E K WItalics for
analogue, digital switchover was Wednesdays 4th April and 18th April 2012.
Comparison of old analogue and current digital signal levels
| Analogue 1-4 | 33W | |
| PSB1≡, PSB2≡, PSB3≡ | (-5.6dB) 9W | |
| PSB1||, PSB2||, PSB3|| | (-8.8dB) 4.4W | |
History of Channel 3 in the Crystal Palace transmitter area
| Sep 1955-Jul 1968 | Associated-Rediffusion† |
| Sep 1955-Jul 1968 | Associated TeleVision◊ |
| Jul 1968-Dec 1992 | Thames† |
| Jul 1968-Feb 2004 | London Weekend Television♦ |
| Jan 1993-Feb 2004 | Carlton† |
| Feb 2004-Dec 2014 | ITV plc† |
| 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. Dorking was not an original Channel 3 VHF 405-line mast: the historical information shown is the details of the company responsible for the transmitter when it began transmitting Channel 3.
Your comments: most recent posts are at the bottom
Your comments are always welcome. Please use the form below to add your thoughts or questions to this page. We will get back to you as soon as we can.
Mike DimmickThursday 7 April 2011 9:11PM
BBC B on the VP aerials should be 4.4W, the same as BBC A and D3&4.
I guess you can't show the HP and VP analogue power levels separately? HP should be 45W and VP 22W according to 
UK Television Reception Advice . An old IBA booklet had 55/14. (RG47SH) Mike Dimmick: The database can't deal with it at the moment, I will look into it. DORKING transmitter - Freeview BBC Digital TV Off Air; DSO related from 12:54 today to 13:27 today BBC Digital TV Off Air; DSO related from 00:23 today to 02:07 today [BBC] DORKING transmitter - Freeview BBC Digital TV Off Air; DSO related from 00:23 today to 02:07 today BBC Digital TV Off Air; DSO related from 12:54 today to 13:27 today [BBC] DORKING transmitter - Freeview BBC Digital TV Off Air; DSO related from 00:23 on 18 Apr to 02:07 on 18 Apr BBC Digital TV Off Air; DSO related from 12:54 on 18 Apr to 13:27 on 18 Apr [BBC] MikeWednesday 20 February 2013 9:58AM
I live in Claygate Road, Dorking, just behind the Glory Woods, and having just moved into the house from about 1 mile away in North Holmwood I was surprised to find that the tv signal is far worse, despite being higher up on a hill (less channels are received and the signal quickly degrades to become unwatchable, pictures freeze etc and then disappear to be replaced by 'no signal' or 'signal cannot be decoded' messages). I am assuming that the hills and woods in the area may be responsible, despite the house being situated higher up than my old house. The aerial on the house appears to be the old style yagi type, and it is much lower down than neighbouring houses (they are on poles about 6-8 feet higher). Would I benefit from switching to a high gain aerial on a longer pole, and roughly how much might this cost? I don't particularly want to have to get cable or Sky, although the previous owneres had Sky, possibly because of the freeview signal issues, as I am content with the channels offered by Freeview, or would be if I could watch them!!.
ThanksMike: Firstly, looking at the aerials on Claygate Road via Streetview, there are a number of transmitters being used. The first thing to do is ensure that the TV is tuned to the transmitter to which the aerial faces.
The Dorking relay transmitter is close by:
mb21 - The Transmission Gallery
It is within the trees and is visible from Streetview. It could be that your TV has tuned to it for PSB channels and it is this that you need to correct.
If you're on another transmitter, then I guess that it's likely to be Crystal Palace or Reigate. The tower blocks may be acting to block these transmitters for some of the houses on Claygate Road.
Crystal Palace and Reigate broadcast all Freeview channels, and Dorking only carries PSB channels. For a list of Freeview services (including which are PSB and which are COM) see:
DTG :: DTT Services by Multiplex
Dorking broadcasts on 44, 41 and 47(HD)
Crystal Palace's are 23, 26, 30(HD), 25, 22, 28
Reigate's are 60, 57, 53(HD), 21, 24, 27
These numbers are the UHF channel numbers of each multiplex (mux): PSB1, PSB2, PSB3(HD), COM4, COM5, COM6, respectively. Most receives give UHF/RF channel numbers, but some anti-quated ones only give frequencies in MHz, so you will have to convert. The frequencies are given by this website on each transmitter's page.
Whilst viewing one service from each mux, bring up the signal strength. So check BBC One, ITV, BBC One HD, ITV3, Pick TV and Film4 (these are the first services from each mux).
If you find that the PSBs from Dorking have been tuned in when they should be from Reigate or Crystal Palace, then unplugging the aerial during the middle part of the scan should hopefully do. I say "hopefully" because it might be that the signal from Dorking is that strong that it picks them up with no aerial, for that reason it's probably best to unplug the aerial lead where it goes into your TV/box rather than at the wall socket.
Crystal Palace's channels are in the bottom third of the band, so unplugging at 30% and leaving it out until the end of the scan will do. For Reigate, unplug at 30% and then plug in again at 58% so as to miss out Dorking, in the middle. Mike: The bearings for the transmitters are:
Crystal Palace 36 degrees, aerial horizontal
Reigate 65 degrees, aerial vertical
There also appear to be a few horizontally-polarised aerials pointing to Heathfield which is at 123 degrees. The Streetview photos were taken before switchover, in March 2009. If I'm correct, number 22 and a few others may have found that PSB3, COM5 and COM6 are unavailable as they are co-channel with Dorking's. MikeWednesday 20 February 2013 1:52PM
Thanks Dave, I'll have a look and see where my aerial is pointing and go from there. I'm pretty sure it's not pointing towards the dorking relay as that is opposite the front of my house and up the hill behind the trees. I think it's pointing out from the back of the house, sort of south east ish, so possibly it's looking over to the Heathfield array. Once I know where it's looking, I'll see if I can retune using your method above and see if that helps. I have noticed when retuning when I moved in that I ended up with about 5 channels for a couple of days, and then it picked up more; sometimes what I can actually see does vary, not sure why that is but I guess it could just be a poor signal area. Anyway, I'll let you know how I get on - no doubt I'll probably have more questions ;-)updates
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