Freeview Light on the Darwen (Blackburn with Darwen, England) transmitter
 | Google map |  | Bing map |  | Google Earth |  | 53.696,-2.444 or 53°41'47"N 2°26'37"W |  | BB3 3SE |
The symbol shows the location of the Darwen (Blackburn with Darwen, England) transmitter which serves 15,000 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 Darwen (Blackburn with Darwen, England) transmitter._______
Digital television services are broadcast on a multiplexes (or Mux) where many stations occupy a single broadcast frequency, as shown below.
H/V: aerial position (horizontal or vertical)
The Darwen (Blackburn with Darwen, England) mast is a public service broadcasting (PSB) transmitter, it does not provide these commercial (COM) channels: 4seven, 5Action, 5STAR, 5USA, Al Jazeera Eng, Blaze, Blaze +1, CBS Reality, Challenge, Channel 5 +1, CITV, YAAAS!, Dave, Dave ja vu, DMAX, Drama +1, E4 Extra, Film4 +1, Food Network, GB News, GREAT! movies, GREAT! movies action, HGTV, HobbyMaker, ITV2 +1, ITV3 +1, ITV4 +1, ITVBe +1, Legend, PBS America, pick, Pop Player, Quest +1, Quest Red, Really, Sky News, Smithsonian Channel, Talking Pictures TV, TCC, That's TV (UK), Together TV, W, Yesterday +1.
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.
Which Freeview channels does the Darwen 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 | V max | C45 (666.0MHz) | 312m | DTG- | 100W |
 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, 250 BBC Red Button, plus 16 others | |||||
| PSB2 D3+4 | V max | C39+ (618.2MHz) | 312m | DTG- | 100W |
 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, 30 E4 +1, 35 ITV1 +1 (Granada), | |||||
| PSB3 BBCB | V max | C42 (642.0MHz) | 312m | DTG- | 100W |
 56 5SELECT, 101 BBC One HD (England no regional news), 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, 109 BBC Three HD, 204 CBBC HD, 205 CBeebies HD, plus 1 others | |||||
Are you trying to watch these 43 Freeview channels?
The Darwen (Blackburn with Darwen, England) mast is a public service broadcasting (PSB) transmitter, it does not provide these commercial (COM) channels: 4seven, 5Action, 5STAR, 5USA, Al Jazeera Eng, Blaze, Blaze +1, CBS Reality, Challenge, Channel 5 +1, CITV, YAAAS!, Dave, Dave ja vu, DMAX, Drama +1, E4 Extra, Film4 +1, Food Network, GB News, GREAT! movies, GREAT! movies action, HGTV, HobbyMaker, ITV2 +1, ITV3 +1, ITV4 +1, ITVBe +1, Legend, PBS America, pick, Pop Player, Quest +1, Quest Red, Really, Sky News, Smithsonian Channel, Talking Pictures TV, TCC, That's TV (UK), Together TV, W, Yesterday +1.
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.
Which BBC and ITV regional news can I watch from the Darwen transmitter?
BBC North West Tonight 3.1m homes 11.8%
from Salford M50 2QH, 27km south-southeast (159°)
to BBC North West region - 92 masts.
ITV Granada Reports 3.1m homes 11.6%
from Salford M50 2EQ, 27km south-southeast (159°)
to ITV Granada region - 80 masts.
How will the Darwen (Blackburn with Darwen, England) transmission frequencies change over time?
| 1984-97 | 1997-98 | 1998-2009 | 2009-13 | 31 Mar 2018- | |||||
| B E T | B E T | B E T | B E T | B E K T | |||||
| C39 | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | D3+4 | |||||
| C42 | C4waves | C4waves | C4waves | BBCB | BBCB | ||||
| C45 | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBCA | BBCA | ||||
| C49tv_off | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | +D3+4 |
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 | 500W | |
| BBCA, D3+4, BBCB | (-7dB) 100W |
Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Winter Hill transmitter area
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Is the transmitter output the same in all directions?
Radiation patterns withheldFriday, 4 September 2020
Transmitter engineering
7:28 AM
7:28 AM
DARWEN transmitter - DAB: Reduced quality due to a fault from 13 Aug 23:42 until 13 Aug 23:52. . [BBC]
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Thursday, 5 November 2020
Transmitter engineering
4:34 PM
4:34 PM
DARWEN transmitter - Freeview: Off the air due to essential engineering from 5 Nov 10:23 until 5 Nov 10:41. . [BBC]
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Wednesday, 18 November 2020
Transmitter engineering
7:44 AM
7:44 AM
DARWEN transmitter - Freeview: Off the air due to essential engineering from 18 Nov 00:36 until 18 Nov 00:38. . [BBC]
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Thursday, 10 December 2020
Transmitter engineering
7:49 AM
7:49 AM
DARWEN transmitter - DAB: Off the air due to a fault from 10 Dec 00:02 until 10 Dec 00:17. . [BBC]
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Wednesday, 6 January 2021
Transmitter engineering
5:05 AM
5:05 AM
DARWEN transmitter - Freeview: Off the air due to a fault from 5 Jan 23:14 until 5 Jan 23:16. . [BBC]
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Friday, 8 January 2021
Transmitter engineering
7:54 AM
7:54 AM
DARWEN transmitter - Freeview: Off the air due to a fault from 5 Jan 23:14 until 5 Jan 23:16. . DAB: Off the air due to a fault from 8 Jan 03:21 until 8 Jan 03:28. . [BBC]
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Monday, 11 January 2021
Transmitter engineering
7:55 AM
7:55 AM
DARWEN transmitter - DAB: Off the air due to a fault from 8 Jan 03:21 until 8 Jan 03:28. . [BBC]
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Saturday, 11 December 2021
V
Vivien Hamilton6:56 PM
Can you tell me if we will ever have full free view channels in bb32jx area. Many thanks
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C
Chris.SE11:19 PM
Vivien Hamilton:
Well it depends on where you are within your postcode. The short answer is No - from the Darwen transmitter. But maybe some parts of your postcode that haven't got line of sight issues to Winter Hill (it's only 7km from you) ie. trees, hills or nearby buildings in the way, may get good enough signals.
The issue is essentially that it's not considered cost effective by the commercial operators to add the transmission equipment to relay transmitters that serve only small numbers of viewers (and that's assuming frequencies to transmit on are available without causing interference elsewhere).
As far as getting reliable signals from Winter Hill, you really need an extremely good aerial installer that knows the area well (preferably CAI approved) to advise/install a new aerial. Winter Hill is in the opposite direction to Darwen for you. Have a look at your near neighbours' aerials to see if any point the opposite way, this will give you an idea. Ask them how reliable reception is if they do, as predictions for the 3 main PSB multiplexes are not as good as from your relay (but still quite good).
See Channel listings for Industry Professionals | Freeview for which channels are carried on which multiplex. (The 3 PSBs are BBCA, D3&4, BBCB HD).
The other option to consider is Freesat. A lot of modern TVs have built-in satellite tuners, so all you need is the Dish and LNB.
Personally I wouldn't rush to change anything unless you are happy about the budget. COM7 (at all main transmitters that have it which includes Winter Hill) will close by end of June 2022 (it was only a temporary HD multiplex). Whether anything will change with other multiplexes as a consequence is totally unknown at present (there's speculation but nothing definite), there's currently no room on the other multiplexes for COM7's channels so you might want to wait and see.
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Sunday, 23 October 2022
K
Karen Hughes2:02 PM
We have no signal. It went off a while ago so I checked on Facebook and other people are reporting the same problem
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