[Wolves] OT: Freeview in WV postcode area

[Adam Sweet]

Hi all

We were talking about Freeview in the WV postcode area
a while back and I thought I'd let people know how
I've gotten on.

With quite a bit of research, I have managed to get it
all working great first time. As people might know,
most of us use the Sutton Coldfield transmitter in
this area. Where I live, Coven Heath, but also true of
most of Wolverhampton, we shouldn't be able to get
Freeview and in fact, where I live is a particularly
bad signal area for analogue TV.

With the help of a map and some software to show the
relief of the land between here, Sutton Coldfield and
the Wrekin, I worked out that we didn't have line of
sight for Sutton Coldfield, but we could see the
Wrekin, with the difference in distance being trivial.

I needed a wideband aerial, Triax Unix or Televes are
the best. I bought a Triax Unix 52, though the
equivalent Televes aerial would do (I don't know which
model). The wideband part is v important, also known
as group W. In some cases you may also need a higher
gain aerial, a signal booster or what is known as a
masthead amplifier (I have a signal booster).

The bearings for Sutton Coldfield are 102 degrees
which is where all of your neighbours aerials will be
poiting and the Wrekin is 277 degrees which is almost
180 degrees in the opposite direction.

I rang several aerial fitters for quotes, which
started at £85 to £125 for the aerial I bought and
most wouldn't tell me what aerials they used. I got my
aerial from Ebay for just under £20 and also bought a
chimney lashing kit (£30).

Below are the websites I used for research.

Really good site with most of the basic details you
will need to know:

http://www.radioandtelly.co.uk/freeview.html
http://freespace.virgin.net/john.cletheroe/freeview/

This site explains the way things are and why
regarding Analogue/Freeview signals, it helps it all
make sense:

http://www.arar93.dsl.pipex.com/mds975/Content/dtt.html

Details about channels and what multiplexes they are
on:

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/terrestrial/mux/

A website with technical details (it's a cgi not a
Windows exe):

http://www.wolfbane.com/cgi-bin/tvd.exe

Transmitter details, the latter 3 links are specific
for Sutton Coldfield, Wrekin A and Wrekin B:

http://www.ukfree.tv/transmitters.php
http://www.ukfree.tv/txdetail.php?a=SK113003
http://www.ukfree.tv/txdetail.php?a=SJ628082
http://www.ukfree.tv/txdetail.php?a=SJ628083

Those of you living a little more Dudley way might
think about Brierley Hill:

http://www.ukfree.tv/txdetail.php?a=SO916856

You can get a Freeview box for £30 from Asda, but you
might want to pay a little more for one that has a
slot to put in a 'Top-Up TV' card so you can buy some
extra channels like UK TV Gold and ahem, the pr0n
channels.

Hope that helps someone. Any questions feel free to
ask, but all of my knowledge comes from the above and
some mapping/land relief software (Windows, not
mine...)

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