Full Freeview on the Rowridge (Isle Of Wight, England) transmitter
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The symbol shows the location of the Rowridge (Isle Of Wight, England) transmitter which serves 620,000 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.
Are there any planned engineering works or unexpected transmitter faults on the Rowridge (Isle Of Wight, England) mast?
Rowridge transmitter - Rowridge transmitter: Possible effect on TV reception week commencing 29/05/2023 Pixelation or flickering on some or all channels 
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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
DTG-12 QSPK 8K 3/4 8.0Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2
H/V: aerial position (horizontal or vertical)
Which Freeview channels does the Rowridge 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
DTG-12 QSPK 8K 3/4 8.0Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2
H/V: aerial position (horizontal or vertical)
Which BBC and ITV regional news can I watch from the Rowridge transmitter?
BBC South Today 1.3m homes 4.9%
from Southampton SO14 7PU, 26km north (354°)
to BBC South region - 39 masts.
ITV Meridian News 0.9m homes 3.6%
from Whiteley PO15 7AD, 24km north-northeast (20°)
to ITV Meridian (South Coast) region - 39 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 50% evening news is shared with all of Meridian plus Oxford
Are there any self-help relays?
| Portsmouth Docks | Transposer | 2 km N city centre | 50 homes Estimate. Group of houses' |
How will the Rowridge (Isle Of Wight, England) transmission frequencies change over time?
| 1950s-80s | 1984-97 | 1997-98 | 1998-2012 | 2012-13 | 2 May 2018 | ||||
| VHF | A K T | A K T | A K T | A K T | W T | ||||
| C3 | BBCtvwaves | ||||||||
| C21 | C4waves | C4waves | C4waves | +BBCB | BBCB | ||||
| C22 | +ArqA | ArqA | |||||||
| C24 | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBCA | BBCA | ||||
| C25 | SDN | SDN | |||||||
| C27 | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | D3+4 | D3+4 | ||||
| C28 | ArqB | ArqB | |||||||
| C29 | LSO | ||||||||
| C31 | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | com7 | |||||
| C37 | com8 | ||||||||
| 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 7 Mar 12 and 21 Mar 12.
How do the old analogue and currrent digital signal levels compare?
| Analogue 1-4 | 500kW | |
| PSB1||, PSB1≡, PSB2||, PSB2≡, PSB3||, PSB3≡ | (-4dB) 200kW | |
| COM4≡, COM4||, COM5≡, COM5||, COM6≡, COM6|| | (-10dB) 50kW | |
| com7≡ | (-13.1dB) 24.4kW | |
| Mux 1*, Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*, Mux C*, Mux D* | (-14dB) 20kW | |
| com8≡ | (-14.3dB) 18.4kW | |
| LSO≡ | (-17dB) 10kW |
Local transmitter maps
Rowridge Freeview Rowridge DAB Rowridge TV region BBC South Meridian (South Coast micro region)Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Rowridge transmitter area
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Saturday, 5 May 2018
D
David Leaworthy11:14 PM
At our Isle of Wight location we are unable to watch any Freeview channels, have checked the outside aerial
(on chimney) and have retuned countless times. The problems began in March and we have no idea why. Prior to this a number of channels disappeared or were unwatchable - we now effectively have no TV and are considering alternatives as our licence fee is wasted money.
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Sunday, 6 May 2018
MikeP
1:06 PM
1:06 PM
David Leaworthy:
You clearly have either a fault with your aerial system or else the TV has a problem. By retuning you have made it more difficult to determine the cause of the problem. A full post code would also help as then we can see what your predicted reception is like at you specific location.
Start by manually tuning your TV into the channels used by Rowridge. Some have recently changed and you need to have a wideband aerial to get them all again. You need to tune to channels 21, 22, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 55 and 56. It is these latter two that require a change of aerial as an 'old' Group A aerial cannot receive them. If you TV can tune to them but still not show any channels you need the TV checked. If you cannot tune to those channels, then yopu have a fult in the TV tuner system.
Your licence fee would not be watsed money if you can receive any TV services live on-air, it is onpy if you use catch-up services that in some curcumstances you may not need a Television Broadcast Receiving Licence.
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D
Dave Watson5:53 PM
Since the may retune we have lost the multiplex with bbcnews24 Hd
We tried a manual tune as we found it should be on freq 55 - but the tv didnt find
Any thing.
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S
StevensOnln110:23 PM
Dave Watson: You most likely have a Group A aerial which isn't designed to receive the upper part of the UHF band where COM7 & COM8 have moved to at Rowridge. If you don't have satellite or cable you may be eligible to have a replacement wideband aerial fitted free of charge, which can be arranged by contacting the Freeview Advice Line (see link below).
Important changes to Freeview TV signals | Freeview
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Monday, 7 May 2018
T
Terri7:57 PM
Bournemouth
Hi over the past few days I cannot get freeview in the evening. It is there when I turn the tv on in the morning without retuning. This is on both the tv's upstairs that are only running off the aerial. Freeview via talktalk on the downstairs tv is ok. I haven't changed anything. My postcode is bh7 6hu.
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S
StevensOnln18:43 PM
Terri: Have you checked for any loose or damaged cables or connections? Are all of your TVs fed from the same aerial?
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A
AR Sillence9:25 PM
Southampton
During the summer we can and do get what is called "lift" radio conditions, during these summer periods associated with high pressure VHF FM, DRAB and UHF TV aka "digital TV" may be lost for hours on end, other stations may be seen French TV can be seen, only to disappear hours later. This is normal occasional behaviour of Radio and TV signals. There is now't you can do apart from using freesat. Apart from ensuring you are tuned to the local appropriate transmitter site. Retuning of course under these conditions will achieve nothing apart from un-tuning the stations when normal conditions return.
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Tuesday, 8 May 2018
T
Tony Whyman4:21 PM
colin1951uk:
Well, if you are getting 45% at Eastleigh, I'm not so surprised that by Alresford it gets down to 0%. However, there is something seriously amiss with COM7 (ch 55) from Rowridge. Com8 (ch 56) comes in here at a signal strength of 90% with a 0 BER and all the other multiplexes are up around the 98% mark. Before the switch, Com7 (ch 31)was always the worst at 74%, but never so bad as to be unavailable.
Pre-switchover, the signal strength of COM7 was meant to 24.4K with Com8 down at 18K. To get this bad, they must have reduced the signal strength down to sweet FA. Even before digital switchover we got all the multiplexes at often low power levels.
Maybe the transmitter output mask has been configured wrongly. That seems to be the only way COM7 could have got so bad compared with Com8.
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K
Ken4:41 PM
Dave Watson:
I had a similar problem and it turned out to be the aerial was oriented for Rowridge's Vertical Polarisation transmissions. Rowridge broadcast this to reduce co-channel interference from the continent.
The recent retune didn't just shift COM7 and COM8 out of Group A, which probably includes most aerials in its catchment since it has been a Group A transmitter for 50 odd years. It also stopped transmitting them in VP completely which is why, like you, I couldn't get anything of channel 55.
If so then you have a choice:
1: Change the aerial orientation from VP to HP and risk loss of signal quality on some Muxes in good weather or
2: Keep the VP alignment and watch BBCNews24 and the other COM7 & 8 channels on SD/fuzzyvision - less inclination to fork out for that new 4K HDR TV.
I took Option 1, but the Bank Holiday weather saw Mux D3+4 quality going all over the place despite a strong signal, which I assume to be the DTV effect of co-channel problems.
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M
Martin G Nash7:58 PM
A number of people here in Ferndown have lost at least the BBC HD News channel that was 107. Now if we try to use 107 the TV almost immediately re-tunes to whatever channel you're watching.
I see above that the March/May re-tune included a switch that included Channels to 55 & 56 and that we may have to have a new aerial to tune into this. This hardly seems fair?
Kind regards,
Martin
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