Full Freeview on the Winter Hill (Bolton, England) transmitter
 | Google Streetview |  | Google map |  | Bing map |  | Google Earth |  | 53.625,-2.516 or 53°37'30"N 2°30'56"W |  | BL6 6SL |
The symbol shows the location of the Winter Hill (Bolton, England) transmitter which serves 2,690,000 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 Winter Hill (Bolton, England) mast?
Winter Hill transmitter - Winter Hill transmitter: Possible effect on TV reception week commencing 05/06/2023 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
DTG-2 16QAM 2K 3/4 18.1Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2
H/V: aerial position (horizontal or vertical)
Which Freeview channels does the Winter Hill 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
DTG-2 16QAM 2K 3/4 18.1Mb/s DVB-T MPEG2
H/V: aerial position (horizontal or vertical)
Which BBC and ITV regional news can I watch from the Winter Hill transmitter?
BBC North West Tonight 3.1m homes 11.8%
from Salford M50 2QH, 22km southeast (139°)
to BBC North West region - 92 masts.
ITV Granada Reports 3.1m homes 11.6%
from Salford M50 2EQ, 22km southeast (139°)
to ITV Granada region - 80 masts.
How will the Winter Hill (Bolton, England) transmission frequencies change over time?
| 1956-80s | 1984-97 | 1997-98 | 1998-2009 | 2009-13 | 2013-18 | 2013-17 | 20 Feb 2020 | ||
| VHF | C/D E | C/D E | C/D E | C/D E | C/D E T | W T | W T | ||
| C9 | ITVwaves | ||||||||
| C12 | BBCtvwaves | ||||||||
| C24 | _local | ||||||||
| C29 | SDN | ||||||||
| C31 | com7 | com7 | |||||||
| C32 | BBCA | ||||||||
| C34 | D3+4 | ||||||||
| C35 | BBCB | ||||||||
| C37 | com8 | com8 | |||||||
| C40 | LOCAL2 | ||||||||
| C48 | C5waves | C5waves | |||||||
| C49tv_off | ArqA | ArqA | |||||||
| C50tv_off | BBCA | BBCA | |||||||
| C54tv_off | -BBCB | -BBCB | -BBCB | ||||||
| C55tv_off | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | BBC1waves | ArqB | ArqB | ArqB | com7tv_off | ||
| C56tv_off | _local | _local | _local | LPR | |||||
| C57tv_off | GIM | GIM | GIM | GIM | |||||
| C58tv_off | SDN | SDN | SDN | ||||||
| C59tv_off | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | ITVwaves | D3+4 | D3+4 | D3+4 | |||
| C61 | ArqA | ||||||||
| C62 | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBC2waves | BBCA | |||||
| C65 | C4waves | C4waves | C4waves |
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 | 500kW | |
| SDN, ARQA, ARQB, BBCA, D3+4, BBCB | (-7dB) 100kW | |
| com7 | (-12.9dB) 25.7kW | |
| com8 | (-13.4dB) 22.6kW | |
| Analogue 5 | (-16dB) 12.5kW | |
| Mux 1*, Mux 2*, Mux A*, Mux B*, Mux C*, Mux D* | (-17dB) 10kW | |
| LL | (-24dB) 2kW | |
| GIM, LM, LPR | (-27dB) 1000W |
Local transmitter maps
Winter Hill Freeview Winter Hill DAB Winter Hill TV region BBC North West GranadaWhich companies have run the Channel 3 services in the Winter Hill transmitter area
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Monday, 20 April 2015
A
anthony9:44 AM
Karen, Heart TV is on a very low power transmitter with a directional aerial, beamed from winter hill in the direction of Stockport. Most people can't get it at all. Tiny differences in the sensitivity of TVs will give the effects you are getting. Assuming that you have no loose cables etc, the only solution is a better aerial. As it is not known how long this service will last and assuming reception on all the other channels is OK, you may not want to take that option.
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Transmitter engineering
10:30 AM
10:30 AM
WINTER HILL transmitter - MainPossible weak signal [DUK]
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Thursday, 23 April 2015
K
Keith Hill1:02 PM
how can I stop Welsh transmitter channels getting to my TV in Rochdale? When I set up my TV it chooses the welsh area channels over my region (Granada)
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Dave Lindsay
1:23 PM
1:23 PM
Keith Hill: Manual tuning or pulling the aerial out for the part of the scan where the Welsh channels are, although this might be tricky due to Moel-y-Parc (the transmitter in Wales which you are likely picking up) and Winter Hill.
The other possibility is to install an attenuator, assuming that the wanted signal from Winter Hill is higher than that of the unwanted of Moel-y-Parc. This will reduce the signal levels with the hope that the unwanted ones are disregarded by your receiver, or at least not given primary positions.
Some receivers, usually the HD ones, have a setting for region or network preference which would achieve the same objective.
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A
anthony5:19 PM
Com 8 is now on air with QVC HD channels. Transmitter power is22.6 kW.
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Tuesday, 28 April 2015
Transmitter engineering
4:31 AM
4:31 AM
WINTER HILL transmitter - MainPossible weak signal [DUK]
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Wednesday, 29 April 2015
J
js1:52 AM
Does anyone know why the Arqiva T2 multiplexes have a different bitrate to that of BBC B?
com 7: 40,200,039 bps
com 8: 40,200,034 bps
BBC B: 40,214,669 bps
(bps = bits per second)
The bitrates were measured from recorded samples of the full transport stream by "DVB-T2 Data-Rate Calculator", which is a free tool found here:
DVB-T2 Data-Rate Calculator - decontis
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J
js6:46 AM
To give an idea of the accuracy of the measured bitrates, here are the results for all the Winter Hill multiplexes.
40214625 bps BBC B
40200015 bps com 7
40200018 bps com 8
27144380 bps Arqiva A
27144382 bps Arqiva B
27144372 bps SDN
24128332 bps BBC A
24128338 bps D3&4
18096298 bps LocalMux1
9048132 bps LocalMux2
The results from "DVB-T2 Data-Rate Calculator" are identical to those from my own program, which works like this:
TS packets are read until a packet containing a PCR is found. The PID is noted and PCRs are read from packets with this PID, noting the corresponding packet count, until end of file.
Results from a ten second (long enough to capture all the service tables) sample of com 7 were
pcr pid = 401
first_pcr = 2138813251731
first_packet = 2
last_pcr = 2139084457513
last_packet = 268483
Using this data we get:
bitrate = 27000000*(last_packet-first_packet)*188*8/(last_pcr-first_pcr) = 40200015 bps
Notes:
A Transport Stream (TS) is a sequence of packets.
A TS packet is 188 bytes long or 188*8 bits.
PID = packet identifier = A unique integer value used to identify elementary streams in a Transport Stream.
PCR = Program Clock Reference = A time stamp in the Transport Stream from which decoder timing is derived.
PCR is a count of cycles of the 27 MHz system clock.
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Transmitter engineering
4:31 PM
4:31 PM
WINTER HILL transmitter - DAB: BBC National DAB Radio Off Air from 01:25 today to 02:50 today. [BBC] MainPossible weak signal [DUK]
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Thursday, 30 April 2015
Transmitter engineering
4:31 AM
4:31 AM
WINTER HILL transmitter - DAB: BBC National DAB Radio Off Air from 01:25 yesterday to 02:50 yesterday. [BBC] MainPossible weak signal [DUK]
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