Full Freeview on the Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham, England) transmitter
 | Google Streetview |  | Google map |  | Bing map |  | Google Earth |  | 52.600,-1.835 or 52°36'1"N 1°50'5"W |  | B75 5JJ |
The symbol shows the location of the Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham, England) transmitter which serves 1,870,000 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 Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham, England) mast?
Sutton Coldfield transmitter - Sutton Coldfield 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 Sutton Coldfield 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 Sutton Coldfield transmitter?
BBC Midlands Today 2.9m homes 10.9%
from Birmingham B1 1RF, 15km south-southwest (200°)
to BBC West Midlands region - 66 masts.
ITV Central News 2.9m homes 10.9%
from Birmingham B1 2JT, 15km south-southwest (201°)
to ITV Central (West) region - 65 masts.
All of lunch, weekend and 80% evening news is shared with Central (East)
Are there any self-help relays?
| Burton (shobnall) | Transposer | 1 km W Burton-on-Trent | 60 homes |
| Coalville | Transposer | 18 km NW Leicester | 600 homes |
| Solihull | Transposer | Land Rover building | 400 homes |
How will the Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham, England) transmission frequencies change over time?
| 1950s-80s | 1984-97 | 1997-98 | 1998-2011 | 2011-13 | 7 Mar 2018 | ||||
| VHF | B E T | B E T | B E T | B E K T | W T | ||||
| C4 | BBCtvwaves | ||||||||
| C33 | com7 | ||||||||
| C35 | com8 | ||||||||
| C36 | LOCAL2 | ||||||||
| C39 | +ArqB | ArqB | |||||||
| C40 | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | +BBCB | BBCB | ||||
| C42 | SDN | SDN | |||||||
| C43 | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | BBCA | BBCA | ||||
| C45 | ArqA | ArqA | |||||||
| C46 | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | D3+4 | D3+4 | ||||
| C48 | _local | ||||||||
| C50tv_off | C4waves | C4waves | C4waves | ||||||
| C51tv_off | LB | ||||||||
| 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 Sep 11 and 21 Sep 11.
How do the old analogue and currrent digital signal levels compare?
| Analogue 1-4 | 1000kW | |
| SDN, ARQA, ARQB, BBCA, D3+4, BBCB | (-7dB) 200kW | |
| com7 | (-10.5dB) 89.2kW | |
| com8 | (-10.7dB) 86kW | |
| LB | (-20dB) 10kW | |
| Mux 1*, Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*, Mux C*, Mux D* | (-21dB) 8kW |
Which companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Sutton Coldfield transmitter area
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Thursday, 7 April 2011
R
Ryan2:18 AM
Is there any chance of non-BBC channels working well, consistently, before switch over date?
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G
Gordon2:22 AM
BBC Freeview channels received in Derby (north area Duffield / Belper) from Mux1 Sutton Coldfield have just become unwatchable in the last 3-4 days. The website shows Max signal for mux1, yet the signal meter is showing about 30-40% signal and the pixelation and sound break-up is like never experienced before. Generally it's mux2 and muxA (ITV channels) that give occasional problems but they appear OK. So, viewing on all the other five mux's is OK only Mux1 is rubbish. Any idea's? Is there some sort of transmitter work going on again at Sutton Coldfield?
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M
Mike Dimmick6:12 AM
Reading
Patrick: Digital UK's predictor gives you a better chance of picking up the early HD services from Lichfield than from most of the other possibilities. It does think that The Wrekin could be better than Lichfield from the 20th, but you might lose Mux A. You might *gain* Mux D - the prediction from Sutton Coldfield is for variable results.
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M
Mike Dimmick6:13 AM
Reading
Duff76, Ryan: It's hard to help without a full postcode to see where you are and what might be causing a problem.
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M
Mike Dimmick6:23 AM
Reading
Gordon: Please see 'Freeview reception has changed'. We're not aware of any issues at Sutton Coldfield.
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D
Duncan Smith1:18 PM
Leicester
I live in Narborough , last night I retuned as requested by a popup on BBC1, and since then I've had only the channels in MUX 1, B & C. I've tried retuning numerous times, with varying results, but this is the most I've had - some times I only get a few channels, other times I get a few doxen, but all within these MUXes. I've got a Humax PVR connected to a neon TV, and I get the same results whether I connect the aerial to the PVR or directly to the TV and use the internal Freeview tuner in the TV, soit's not the equipment.
It could be the aerial (I've checked the connections) as we had a plumber in yesterday and he unplugged the aerial wire from the socket in the wall to get at some pipes - if he damaged the cable wouldn't this have meant a loss of all MUXes, not just some?
We receive from Sutton Coldfield - I triedmanually retuning to Waltham and got nothing, Manual retuning to SC gave same results as Auto tuning.
Any suggestions, anyone?
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P
Patrick4:04 PM
Stafford
@Mike
I did think Lichfield might be an option. I've yet to actually put the wideband aerial up, and while 5 on analogue has a pretty good picture (not perfect though) we've not found any HD channels upon scan. It is pointing towards Sutton, so we can readjust with the wideband aerial and see what we get from Lichfield.
The Digital UK site did reckon that the strongest overall signal for all the Muxs was Bromsgrove, which made me wonder whether that might be a viable shrot term option until September.
Cheers.
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P
Patrick4:10 PM
Stafford
(Don't tend to have any issues with Mux D from Sutton Coldfield, by the way - only very occasionally)
Might I struggle with Mux B from the Wrekin? What is the reasoning behind Mux B not being listed on the Digital UK site from some transmitters?
Thanks again.
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M
Mike Dimmick5:43 PM
Reading
Patrick: Mux B is converted into the HD mux at switchover. Therefore it isn't shown on any transmitter that has switched, and it's not shown after Switchover Step 2.
(The services that were on Mux B go on BBC A, for BBC services, on ArqB for Sky Sports 1 and 2, on ArqA for the new slot if anything actually starts up on it.)
Otherwise, the predictor shows the channel number but no prediction where it thinks the results will be unusably poor - not reaching 70% coverage 50% of the time. The DUK predictor is a bit hard to get your head around because it's based on probabilities of probabilities. Usually this problem occurs where two transmitters in range are allocated the same frequencies.
Looking at the trade view I can't see why it would think Bromsgrove would be best. It won't get to final channels and powers on the commercial muxes until a week after Sutton Coldfield switches over, because SC is currently using the frequencies it's been allocated. SC has no post-switchover retune events and no power restrictions, and the probabilities are higher than Bromsgrove and Lark Stoke.
The Wrekin is about equal with SC in its final configuration: the PSBs are 99% in the first column rather than 100%, but ArqB is 100% compared to 99% for SC.
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