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Cross Reference For Pictures Of General Transmitter Features

Antenna arrays, main transmitters at Waltham, Sudbury and Hannington.

Antenna arrays, relay/repeater transmitters, Oughtibridge, Birchover and Llanddulas

Base of a tubular mast (Belmont) and of a spaceframe (Ridge Hill, including figures

                                                                                        for the weight of masts etc)

How high is high ? Man on a mission at Sandy transmitter.

Feeder cables for the signals (Waltham) including “duplication” information

Mast stays.  They aren`t straight !   The anchor blocks

Painting Bilsdale transmitter, including pictures of the “Bosun`s Chair” system used

                                                                                             and the type of paint !

Population coverage figures for the major transmitters

Transmitter Relative Heights                          (Also see How High is High ? )

Just how big would Emley Moor transmitter (TX) look next to Belmont ?

How big would one of the shorter TXs, like The Wrekin, look next to Belmont ?

Just how small would our shop look next to the shortest of the main TXs, The Wrekin ?

The “powers that be” keep changing the name of the MUXES, so we just refer to them as MUXES 1 to 6,

as they should be anyway....

Also see MUXES and PSBs

Note

All the pictures of the transmitters (TXs) are to scale.

The heights of the structures are estimates. Different sources give different heights, some

of which seem to include the transmitting array(s) at the top, and others don`t. In fact the only mast which I`m certain of the height is Waltham, because I`ve seen the actual plans

for the layout of its transmitting antennas ! On the subject of Waltham, there are three

other TXs of the same design, Winter Hill (in the graphic above), Bilsdale and Mendip.

Belmont is also similar, it`s just even taller and has six sets of stay levels.

The height of our shop is to the top of the roof.  

Belmont  385m

Emley Moor 328m

Waltham 314m

Bilsdale 309m

Winter Hill 309m

Black Hill 307m

Mendip 280m

Moel Y Parc 240m

Sandy Heath 240m

Burnhope 229m

Holme Moss 228m

Sutton Coldfield 225m

Crystal Palace 222m

Oxford 160m

Ridge Hill 160m

Sudbury 160m

Pontop Pike 154m

Hannington 154m

Heathfield 145m

Rowridge 135m

Craigkelly 135m

Relative heights of the other major structures on this site.

Which Transmitter Am I On ?

TV aerials are very directional (particularly if they`re “high gain”) so the simplest way to

find out which transmitter you may be on is by checking which way your antenna faces !

Alternatively, in your locality, which way do most (or preferably all....) of the other antennas face ? This is a good guide but it`s not infallible. We`ve occasionally done installs where every other aerial is utilising a particular transmitter (usually the nearest one......) with imperfect results, we`ve decided to try a different one and it`s come up trumps !

Now check on Transmitter Maps or Digital Transmitter map or

MB21`s map page or BBC maps or Ofcom Maps

Bear in mind that they`re hundreds of the smaller repeater / relay transmitters (which don`t transmit digital yet) and do not appear on our Digital Nationwide page.

If there is more than one transmitter in that particular direction check if the polarity of the aerial(s) gives an indication as to which is the correct one.

Most digiboxes will tell you which transmitter is being received, though in the case

of a repeater (e.g. Nottingham) it may just indicate the main transmitter feeding it.

In the case of Nottingham it would be Waltham.

If your aerial is vertically polarised it is likely to be on a repeater.

You should bear in mind that some transmitters have restricted radiation patterns.

An example of the latter being Sheffield which only broadcasts digital at low power to the south so as to avoid co-channel interference with the Totley repeater. Finding out which transmitters have restricted radiation patterns is very difficult because Ofcom (or “arqiva” (SPX...) or National Grid Wireless) do not publicise this information. That said, Ofcom can be more helpful in this regard than any of the others. In fact when I managed to talk to Channel Five`s Broadcast Technical Manager he informed me that it was company policy

to keep this information confidential ! It`s pathetic, I cannot comprehend why they feel it`s

so secret, does the security of the country depend on it ?  Possibly.......

These days it seems that not giving out any information is the “default position”.

It`s all a long way from the Public Service ethos that the broadcasters used to adhere to.

If anyone knows of any restricted radiation patterns which we have not included on our

site please contact us and we`ll add the information to the relevant section.

When considering which transmitter to receive your signals from always remember the critical factor is “Line Of Sight”, generally speaking this is far more important than which is the nearest.               (also see Major Transmitters: Which Aerial To Use)

Remember that if you are realigning your aerial to test the signal from a different transmitter, you MUST retune your TV or you won`t get anything at all !

Coverage Maps

This site does not provide TV transmitter coverage maps because at best they are misleading and at worst they are downright inaccurate !

In the case of accuracy the best example is a certain websites coverage maps of Winter

Hill and Winter Hill B where they look virtually identical. Perusal of our Winter Hill page (which gives the radiation patterns of the two transmitters) reveals that this cannot possibly be the case. Hannington is even more inaccurate.

On a more general level the use of coverage maps is misleading because they cannot conceivably take into account local conditions (e.g. trees or high buildings) and they over emphasise distance to the transmitter. Any professional installer will tell you the over riding importance of the former and the relative lack of importance of the latter. For instance if a locality has a choice of two different main transmitters, one 10 miles away through a bleedin` great tree (or high building) and one 40 miles away but with clear line of sight,

any installer worth his salt will choose the latter of the two options.

As a “worked example” of coverage predictions accuracy (or lack of it.....) try using one

of them for the site of our shop or our test site, the Post Codes and Grid References are given in the table below. Bear in mind that you don`t want signals smaller or larger than

the range shown in the table or interference may result. It should be noted that a DM Log

is a relatively low gain aerial, the gain figures of all our are measured relative to it.  

Digital UK coverage prediction

Wolfbane analogue TV coverage prediction

Wolfbane digital TV coverage prediction

Just to help put the above figures in context, you could put the Emley Moor signal at our test site through an 8 way splitter (loss 12 dB) and still have enough signal to put those outputs through another 2 way splitter (loss 4 dB), i.e.  83 - 12 - 4 = 67dBuV

You would have about a 3 dB loss on the cable, but that`s still 64dB, and that`s with up

to 16 ( SIXTEEN ) TV points, off one relatively low gain aerial !

Post code predictions can sometimes be highly amusing, and this is particularly the

case in sparsely populated areas where the geographical areas are larger.

The analogue reception predictor for our test site advises “High Gain” or even `Amplified Extra High Gain` aerials, yet as you can see the signal levels are either OK, or in the case

of Emley, too large, off a DM Log !

We got a call from a customer near Owler Bar (on the outskirts of Sheffield) who`d been advised by the checker that she couldn`t get Digital. But the site is over 1000ft in altitude,

on the NE side of a mountain facing Belmont, so what do you think ? ! ? In fact she could probably pick up Bilsdale and Crosspool (Sheffield), with a chance of Emley Moor as well !

No aerial installation company would waste their time consulting a coverage map but

what they would want access to are the polar diagrams (radiation patterns) of the transmitters and preferably in all three dimensions. It is a pointless waste of time

identifying an alternative transmitter (and aligning onto it) if unbeknownst to you the

sodding thing is not putting much signal out in your direction ! Unfortunately, for reasons

I cannot comprehend, this information is not generally available. Whenever any radiation pattern anomalies come to light we add them to the relevant transmitter page and we are always more than interested to hear of any additional data in this regard.

Well OK we do provide a link to a site giving “coverage” for all the particular frequencies, mainly out of interest but also because it can be helpful in identifying possible causes

of co-channel interference. Bear in mind that the vast majority of the repeater transmitters aren`t included on this map, e.g Winter Hill`s repeaters.

Use in conjunction with the Channel Allocation Guides on our transmitter pages.

For further reading on transmitters see Wikipedia article.

Problems with your signal ?

Check on Transmitter work,

or phone reception advice on :

08700 100 123 (for BBC)

0844 881 4150 (for ITV)

0207 306 8333 (for C4)

0207 421 7270 or 0845 705 0505 (for C5)

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