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 20/03/2023 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, 14 April 2011
M
Mike Dimmick1:11 PM
Bob: It's probably because this is the first time you've retuned since the BBC services at Ridge Hill went high-power, and moved to a much lower channel. I'm afraid a lot of boxes store the first version of the channel that they find, rather than the best version. Signals are now loud enough from Ridge Hill to be decodable, but not usable.
The problems are likely to increase next week when the other multiplexes at Ridge Hill go to high power. The predictions are actually reasonably good for service from Ridge Hill *if* you have the right aerial, oriented the right way. As it is you're clearly getting just barely decodable results.
Rotating the aerial slightly away from Ridge Hill may help, but it's then reasonably likely to pick up The Wrekin instead. This is on a lower frequency even than Ridge Hill.
(The angles are Ridge Hill at 210°, Brierley Hill at 228°, The Wrekin at 300°.)
All we can really suggest is deleting all channels and manually tuning the frequencies you want. See the Brierley Hill page for details. Another approach is to unplug the aerial connection before starting a scan, and only plug in once it gets past half-way.
The only permanent solutions are to replace the box with one that stores the best quality signals, or for the communal system to filter out the unwanted transmissions.
Some advice for tenants can be found at PARAS - Professional Aerial Riggers Against The Sharks
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J
John Finnis2:12 PM
Southam
from yesterday 13.4.11 signals from Midlands East are stronger than from Sutton Coldfield (BBC West Midlands)- the Midlands ones have moved to the 800 series channels and have become de-graded - several re-tunes have not solved the probelem so switching to Freesat
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D
Dave Bennett2:34 PM
Sutton Coldfield
Post code B75 5AG, within 1/2 mile of Sutton Coldfield transmitter and 7 miles Lichfield.
Last Thursday 7th April the HD Channels suffered from poor signal and eventually disappeared from Ch 34 completely. I've tried retuning but still they remain absent. Any ideas anyone?
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B
brendafoxall4:23 PM
Stourbridge
Post Code DY8 5JE. Why am I needing to retune my digital tv, twice this week? Is there work being done.
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M
Mike Dimmick6:56 PM
brendafoxall: You're likely using the Brierley Hill relay transmitter, where there has been engineering work for the past three days. There was one day of warning for the first two days, no notice at all for today.
If you're lucky they've now finished. If not it could be off again tomorrow. It's probably dependent on the weather.
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J
janet vardy7:31 PM
Nottingham
NG17 8LL
I have retuned my TV and Freeview box since the switchover on 13/04/2011 and now I cannot get all the ITV channels without them being pixilated. I cannot see the picture at all - just lots of green. What on earth can I do? This is ridiculous.
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R
Ryan7:47 PM
Alfreton
Not sure if you saw my post, Mike.
My post code is DE55 7DG (You asked a few days back).
Thanks.
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C
Carl7:50 PM
Belper
We have lost all MUXs on Sutton circa yesterday, and haven't been able to get anything back despite frequent retunes on two boxes. We did get some of the BBC channels appear briefly tuning into the 800's for a bizarre reason.
We live in Duffield (N Derby) DE56 4FS, and know that the signal is pretty marginal and wondered if any of the power increases on other transmitters may have caused interference resulting in us not able to receive the marginal signal from Sutton.
Prior to the last couple of days we were able to receive all MUXs with only signal dropout issues on ITV in the evenings.
The aerial has not moved and the cables are all OK. Just seems bizare that a number of others have noted signal strength drops.
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Carl8:08 PM
Belper
In relation to previous post I noticed that the Nottingham Relay was turned up to 400w from 40w yesterday and not sure if this could be causing any interference. It seems to have been causing issues for people in the Derby area pointing at Waltham ? But wou;dn't have thought it would have affected me pointing at Sutton ????
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K
KMJ,Derby8:58 PM
Carl: The problem for viewers to the Waltham transmitter is based around the changes of frequency affecting MuxA on 30th March and Mux2 on 13th April. This coincided with switchover at Nottingham/Kimberley as the new frequencies became available after analogue transmitters were turned off at Kimberley and frequencies swapped around.Unfortunately there is always confusion when frequencies are changed, with some viewers being caught unawares and others believing that every retune is the actual switchover. There is no reason why the stronger signal from Kimberley would make reception from Waltham or Sutton Coldfield deteriorate.
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