There's clearly something wrong with the transmitter/aerial when someone 2.3km from the masts cannot get reception on ArqB with a wideband aerial.

http://www.ukfree.tv/fullstory.php?storyid=1107051928 (scroll down to alan's post on Saturday 19 November 2011 at 2:47PM)

Really doesn't make much sense, I am further S and can be no more than 2 E of Bures, yet I have no issues.
Bures seems to be at river level. Is that a factor?
Or does that mean if I were slightly more E, I would get nothing?
My colleague is further S than me and he gets 63 ok.

Didn't you say in another post that you live on a hill? Definitely seems to be the case that the transmitter signal is easily wiped out by obstacles.

It is usual that the transmitter aerials have intentionally reduced radiation upwards and downwards. Perhaps Arqiva have got that wrong and most of the energy is heading towards Alpha Centauri!

Plausible, though my colleague is on Mersea Island, so at sea level!

Need some people from Chappel, Marks Tey, Tiptree, Kelvedon, Witham to post "somewhere" the reception they get.

Your postcode predictor says (like mine) that your Arq B reception should be better than Arq A. Yet (like mine) the reality is the reverse. There are too many reports of Arq B having disappeared to blame it entirely on duff receiving aerials.

Either there is something not right with the transmitter/transmitter aerial or the propagation model used for the coverage prediction is wrong. If the latter and the transmitter power has been determined by that model to avoid interference elsewhere, then surely the possibility of turning the wick up a bit more could be investigated.

CH 63 has been ok at my end today, although it is the weakest of them all. However I have been losing the Ch 54 MUX that has Sky news and Pick tv on. I thought it was co channel at one point, but doing a scan does not get me any other distant transmitters.

Strength is still 58% but quality 0. all other channels are fine including CH63.

MUX C (SKY news etc) Has been getting the dirtyist end of the stick on all three Anglia Transmitters recently, hopefully rectified on Tacolneston & Sandy on the 23rd Nov, but Sudbury has to wait until next year it seems........

I was also losing UHF 54 last night, but it seems to be back now (albeit at a slightly lesser quality than yesterday). As I've been typing this though, the quality dropped right down to nothing but it's back again now. It's been very foggy here for about 12 hours so I'm wondering if that has something to do with it?!

never had no problems with sandy so far and i live at what they keep saying is a fringe area

Undoubtedly: I'm getting the PSB muxs from Belmont and Sudbury but the big surprise is getting ARQB (and nothing else!) from Sandy. I don't normally get a whisper from Sandy...

The weather (lift/tropo) is definitely playing havoc with marginal signals...

*edit*
should've said - the new channels are fine one minute and then drop out (0% quality) for a few seconds/up to a minute and then reappear - to me that means I'm getting the different channels because of the weather - and there are a lot of drop-off on my normal weaker channels (Dave/MuxC on 68), which is usually caused by the same thing.

I can get ch 63 just in clacton useing a group E 14element contract ariel inside on 1st floor pointing it out of window,think we need to get this high out of way as it will muck up weak signals, weather is meant to turn more unsettled later this week so that will maybe sort things out.

Been playing with the aerial more on the wideband still unable to get channel 63 but channel 62 has light up

I'm in Trimley, just opposite Harwich on the other side of the estuary so about the same distance from Sudbury as Clacton. There is no higher ground bewteen me and the estuary. I have a 52 element wideband aerial I installed in June, external at height of 9 metres. New downlead going to low noise booster in the loft. Arq A is weak but receivable. Arq B is not. I've tried swinging the aerial around but no improvement.

UHF ch 54 is used by the transmitter at Goes, The Netherlands (Cornelisweg) for the Dutch PSB MUX http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Goes...lands&t=m&z=13 as are UHF 48, 29, 32 & 35. These are all 10kW vertical polarization. I can receive them here in Lincoln, at times (even today, Sunday). UHF ch54 & 35 are the only channels with free-to-air TV on them.
Although they are transmitted with vertical polarization, it can still knock about your reception of horizontally polarized UHF 54 from Sudbury, during "lift" conditions.

Chris.

To those worrying about reception of ch54, 63 or wherever you can always use this web page to see where other sources of interference might be (this is for ch54):

http://www.ukfree.tv/mapsofsignal.php?c=54&a=1

Further up the thread, someone in Suffolk/Essex was reporting Belmont reception. With the lift conditions, it's possible that you might be getting Waltham...

(the page isn't perfect because it show pre-DSO and post-DSO - not the current situation where Sudbury is post (mid?!) DSO, and Kent (a likely source of interference is pre-DSO)

Been in the loft and now getting Crystal Palace channel 22 is on 50% and Film 4 from this TX is 60% on Channel 29.

Yes, that's also very likely. If people are located to the south-east of Sudbury, they may well be getting interference from post-DSO D3/4 high-power signals at Waltham (UHF ch54, 50kW, horizontal polarization).

Chris.

Probably Tacolneston BBC1 Analogue... That's quite powerful @ 250KW.

This was channel 62 on Digital I think it had BBC channels on.

edit

Seems its not there any more cannot rescan it again.
The wideband is now set to CP London.

So not Arq A from Dover then ?

Just as a side thought:

My aerial set-up's a bit weird, as there's a wideband aerial on the top of a pole above my house, with a group A aerial beneath it, and an FM radio aerial (I think) beneath that. They were already installed when I moved here quite some years ago, so I don't know the story behind them.

Group A aerials only pick up UHF channels 21 to 37 I believe, yet Sudbury has always transmitted (as far as I know) on group B channels (35 - 53). Both the group A and wideband aerials on my roof are pointing to Sudbury. Has Sudbury ever transmitted channels on the group A UHF channels?

I can't see why the group A aerial would be pointing that way - surely it'd make more sense to point to Crystal Palace, which does broadcast on group A channels!

Are you sure it's a Group A ?

Channel 5 was on Ch 35 from Sudbury, so it might have been an attempt to get a decent signal for that ?

For yourself, nothing much in the way over the fens, you should get a great signal, in these parts, to the East - there are lots of Pine trees in the way! It seems the higher the frequency, the more the attenuation There are plenty of trees in the Tacolneston direction too - but it is a lot closer!