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 22/05/2023 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
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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Tuesday, 10 September 2013
B
Bryan Jones3:57 PM
Crewe
My postal code is CW1 3HR. The reception quality has deteriorated drastically over the last 3-4 months, affecting all channels. Usually in the early morning, 7-9am, there is so much picture freezing and pixilation as well as sound distortion that it is impossible to watch the television. Also, frequently in the evening, 7-10pm, the same thing happens - for instance, on 06 September, I couldn't watch the England v Moldova football match. Reception at lunchtime and through the afternoon is much better with just occasional problems. I have tried all the recommended solutions with no success and the problem occurs with all three receivers in the house. A BT technician checked the signal strength recently during a period of good reception and said that the signal strength received at the time was good and that there was no problem with the aerial. So, it seems that there is a problem with signal strength from the transmitter at certain times of the day. Two other neighbours living within 100 metres have said that they are experiencing the same problems. Could you please look into this problem.
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Wednesday, 11 September 2013
I
Irvine Bell5:38 PM
Lytham St. Annes
Wednesday 11-09-2013. My postcode is FY8 4PX.
I retuned my TV to deal with a problem of Film 4 not being where it should be. Now I seem to be back with a problem that happened earlier this year of the BBC Wales Channels pre-empting the BBC North West channels - 1 is BBC 1 Wales and BBC1 NW England has been put in 800 something. I have tried various different types of re-tuning, including manual re-tuning and re- ordering channel sort sequences, but none are a very satisfactory solution to my problem - I just want to run a simple re-tune on the TV and get BBC1 North West in slot 1 and so on. Earlier in the year the problem just eventually seemed to go away, presumably because the transmission authority changed something. Has something changed recently to re-introduce the problem? Maybe if I wait and try again it will just go away again?
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J
jb386:45 PM
Irvine Bell: The way to solve this problem is by first of all blanking out everything stored in the tuners memory, carrying out an auto-tune but with the aerial being disconnected usually being suffice and checking afterwards that nothing is indicated in the EPG listings, if not then go into your TV's manual tuning menu and tune in Winter Hills BBC on Ch50 storing the results if not done automatically, next enter then scan the ITV mux on Ch59 likewise storing the results.
Normally I would have said to use the channels update procedure to add the remaining muxes if this is offered in your TV's tuning menu, and although you could try using this facility however on some TV's this acts like a normal auto-tune and which would wipe out the two muxes that you have already stored, therefore its sometimes best to continue using manual tuning to add the remaining muxes, these being: HD service (54) - SDN (58) - Arq A (49) - Arq B (55).
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Thursday, 19 September 2013
T
tony10:40 PM
my post code is wn68nu the reception quality has deteriorated drastically over the last 4-5 months, affecting all channels the picture keeps freezing and breaking up im using 2 different aerials both outside one is even a highgain aerial even tried tv boosters but nothing works :(
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Sunday, 22 September 2013
R
Rob7:00 PM
I hope this is the right place to post this. I'm in BL0 (Holcombe Brook, just south of Ramsbottom) and experiencing very odd signal behaviour similar to that described above - and yes - I'm on the Winter Hill transmitter.
Essentially once every day, I lose all the BBC stations (radio and TV) and only the procedure described above (wipe with aerial out, then rescan with aerial in) brings them back. Apart from this being a colossal pain in the backside, the wipe causes all scheduled recordings to be lost. I'm not averse to spending a few quid to get it sorted (separate aerial, booster, filter or whatever) but sounds like there simply is no fix - am I right? If so - why does it lose the BBC mux every day?
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Friday, 27 September 2013
C
Corin1:14 AM
There is a problem on the Winter Hill relays page
<https://ukfree.tv/maps.php?key=subregion&c=51>
The transmitter in Moreton, previously named Bidston, but since renamed Sunningdale, not because of the locality but because of the name of the appartment block on which it is located is labeled as Portwood (Stockport) and links to that transmitter.
Corruption in the database?
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C
Corin1:23 AM
Strange that in my just posted message above, the message parser creates a hyperlink on the word "Bidston" to the Sunningdale transmitter, but not the word "Sunningdale" its-self.
And that the word "Moreton" becomes a hyperlink to "FM, MW and LW radio transmitters".
Something really is broken.
At least it got both "Portwood" and "Stockport" correctly hyperlinked to to the Portwood transmitter.
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Sunday, 29 September 2013
J
John Hoyle11:41 PM
Chester
Several months ago, every evening the television signal dropped off completely for a couple of hours, we made enquiries regarding this and were told it was possible interference between our property and the transmitter.
We tolerated this problem for months and put it down to "interference" or "atmospheric pressure" since it was not a continual break in service.
During the summer it seems to have improved.
This week the same thing has happened again, we receive all programmes perfectly until 9.20 pm and despite continual retuning no signal found, At 11.10 pm we retuned and service resumed as normal.
The loss of signal occurs when there is no change to any appliance or introduction of mobile devices in the home.
We live in the CH3 area.
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Tuesday, 1 October 2013
G
Greebo12:20 AM
There seems to be a data problem with the two Manchester local muxes here.
C57 is what OFCOM call G_MAN and has been running since the Channel M days - is live now and contains six 24hour channels: movies4men, movies4men+1, Sony SAB, CAPITAL TV, HeartTV & Fire Hit TV.
C56 will have three petals of local TV - the Preston & Liverpool petals are listed correctly. The Manchester one is missing and will have Your TV Manchester on LCN8 and has the potential for two more channels on it.
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Greebo: As far as I understand it, there will only be one service in Manchester. The existing one will "cease" when the "new" one stats.
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