OS Grid Ref SK 809 233

Note, due to the new phenomenon of MUXICAL chairs you may experience problems with certain MUXES disappearing. First try rescanning your TV / set top box, do it manually if possible. If this fails to sort it check on transmitter work or call the reception advice phone numbers.
Also see basic digital fault finding

700MHz clearance occurred at Waltham on the 4 Mar 2020. It changed from a wideband to an A group on CHs 29 to 37. Most existing wideband aerials should continue to work, but, even more positively, those in poor signal areas now have the option to use an A group aerial and improve their signal.

Waltham transmitter subject list :- 

- Digital power output, aerial group and polarisation of Waltham transmitter
- Our TV aerial recommendations for Waltham
- Waltham’s graph (its transmissions v our aerial recommendations)
- Waltham’s channels/frequencies (including alternative transmitters)

Waltham television transmitter (TX) is a "guyed mast" structure 309m in height (see How High is High ?) and is situated 18 miles SE of Nottingham. The mast is identical to Mendip and Bilsdale. It was built by British Insulated Callender’s Cables (or B.I.C.C) who were responsible for much of the infrastructure built in this country from 1945 up to the 1980s. The company is still going but now called Balfour Beatty. The mast is a tubular structure to the top and has in internal lift, though this is out of use partly due to the accident at Belmont.
The transmitter was originally owned by the BBC before being sold off to Crown Castle then to National Grid Wireless and finally to Arquiva (sic). Waltham was erected in 1968, or to be more accurate the present structure was put up then. The original fell down in 1967 just before entering service !
Waltham broadcasts ITV Central and the relevant BBC Regional TV programmes from the East Midlands. Its population coverage is around 1.5 million people and many in Nottingham, Leicester, Peterborough, Lincoln, Derby and Mansfield are aligned onto it.

Note the huge increase in power after the 2011 digital switchover.

Being a main transmitter Waltham is horizontally polarised and puts out (up to) 50kW. Originally, for analogue it was a C/D group but with the advent of digital television it went wideband, before, in Mar 2020, becoming an A group. For those in reasonable signal areas (= most people) it will make no difference, but for those in poor signal areas swapping to an A group aerial will give a significant increase in signal (if you have an A group aerial obviously), see Waltham’s graph.
Waltham has has sixteen [including Nottingham] smaller repeaters to improve its coverage in poor signal areas.

There is one “Local” MUX allocated to Waltham (on CH26 to the 3rd March and on CH41 after that) which is mainly used for a local Nottingham TV station.

Blue sky at Waltham TV transmitter

Waltham’s pre DSO transmitting array. Note how the MUX 5/6 antennas were almost hidden on the NW face of the mast so as not to broadcast in the direction of Sandy (which is SSE), which would have caused co channel interference with Sandy’s pre DSO transmissions. Post switchover this isn’t a problem, so now Waltham’s transmissions are omnidirectional.

Picture showing the feeder cables which carry the Digital signals up to the transmitters. These feeders are about 6” in diameter and and over 300m long they are very expensive (tens of thousands of pounds each) and there are four of them, two each for the main transmitters and two for the reserve antennas. All the main constituent parts of any main transmitter are duplicated at (great cost one might add) so there is always a back up ready to use. Don’t forget these things provide TV pictures for huge numbers of people, around 1.5 million depend on Waltham.

This graph illustrates clearly how, post 700MHz clearance, some aerials, mainly C/Ds (but also possibly the odd wideband) may struggle to pull in an adequate signal. The good news is that swapping to an A group aerial will actually put you in a better position than you were before (i.e. better than a wideband on a wideband Waltham). This is because, watt for watt (transmitted power), A group signals [being a lower frequency] travel further more efficiently than C/D signals. Provided, of course, you have an aerial tuned to pick them up at peak efficiency, i.e. an A group aerial !

Waltham’s channels in relation to the UHF TV band and the gain curves of the aerials we recommend for it.

DM Log    Yagi10K    Log36    Yagi18K    Yagi18A    XB10A    XB16A

For Waltham’s frequencies see its channel allocation guide.