Terrestrial & Digital Television Reception
Garw Valley
Report by the Clerk
There are fears that Garw valley homes will be let down following the switch from terrestrial to digital television reception.
Digital reception is currently unavailable in this valley (unless supplied via the Sky satellite and at a considerable cost.)
Analogue Television
The five ordinary TV channels, BBC1, BBC2, ITV1, and Channel 4 & 5 are broadcast on the UHF band using the analogue PAL (Phase Alternate Line) colour standard in the UK on frequencies between 471 MHz 847 MHz.
There have been over 900 television transmitter masts constructed between the 1950?s and 1990?s and almost all of these transmit the four terrestrial stations with each service having been allocated a specific UHF Channel number to be transmitted from the mast.
Some 50 of these masts are designated as ?Main Stations? and transmit at high powers in the order of 20,000 to 1,000,000 Watts effective radiated power. These main stations (Wenvoe/St Hilary in our case) reach the majority of the population, the minority being served from medium or low power relay transmitters (Llangeinor).
The UHF television band was originally planned in the 1960?s to accommodate four television services, the fifth channel being a great technical challenge because of the limits of radio spectrum space. Five TV (Channel 5) could only be allocated 47 transmitters (at lower power) and could only reach 80% of the UK population.
The lower power was necessary in order not to cause interference to existing transmitters.
The Move to Digital Terrestrial Television - (DTT)
The Freeview DTT service was established jointly between the BBC, Crown Castle International and Sky to bring multi channel reception to a wider audience and via the existing infrastructure of terrestrial television masts.
Freeview digitally transmits multiple television services in ?multiplexes?; BBC1, 2, 3, 4, BBC News, CBBC, CBeebies, and BBC Radio etc. are all transmitted together in the BBC multiplexes; ITV1, 2, 3, ITV News etc. are lumped together into another multiplex and other TV services such as Channel4, 5, Sky News arrive in further multiplexes.
A further service called ?Top-Up-TV is available via DTT and is a pay to view service providing a number of so called premium channels.
Many of the main terrestrial transmitters along with some of the larger relay transmitters already carry DTT but at a lower power; this is due to the severe lack of frequencies/channel space available in the UHF television band between channels 21 and 68, the vast majority of small relay transmitters cannot carry Freeview or Top-Up-TV because of this and this is what is holding up the expansion of DTT at present.
Less than half of the geographical area of the UK is covered by DTT signals yet up to 70% of the population is within reach.
This is because for economic reasons and the need for radio spectrum efficiency television, television signals must be concentrated on areas with significant populations.
With the current DTT network it was relatively easy to get coverage to the densely populated areas with jus a few dozen transmitters, but to bring coverage to the last 30 or forty percent of the population requires many hundreds more transmitters to be built and at great expense.
THE REAL CONSTRAINT TO DTT IS THAT THERE IS SIMPLY NO SPARE FREQUENCIES WHATSOVER AVAILABLE FOR THEM TO OPERATE ON.
It will not be until the current analogue transmitters are switched off that DTT (Freeview & Top-Up-TV) will be transmitted from all low power relay transmitters, and at full power from the main transmitter masts to provide 99% coverage currently available on ordinary analogue TV
The switching off of analogue TV is a political dilemma because millions of people could be left without any television and may be unwilling to pay for a set top box and for the cost for aerial upgrade or adjustment. It is not until this problem can be overcome or maybe until every home has bought into digital television that the analogue transmitters can be closed down altogether.
Analogue television must therefore be closed down for DTT to be expanded.
Ø TV viewers in Wales could switch off their analogue signals within three years.
Ø Ofcom has said that the UK can be fully digital by 2012 if it switches over region by region, therefore this switchover would need to start in 2008
Ø The Government has said that no firm decision on the timetable would be made until all consumer?s interest have been protected
Ø To continue to receive television after switchover, viewers in digital only regions will have to connect all their TV sets to a digital TV service, via Freeview, Cable or satellite. In most cases that would require them to purchase a receiver box and possibly upgrade their aerial.
Ø Each region is expected to take six months to convert, giving households time to switch to digital cable, terrestrial or satellite.
Further information: -
· Freeview Terrestrial is nothing to do with satellite TV. You will need a terrestrial TV aerial and a Freeview receiver. In good reception areas, any wideband aerial and Freeview receiver should work (but depends on local conditions). In fringe reception areas the choice of aerial and receiver may be critical. No viewing card is required and viewing is free. Covers 27 TV channels and 24 radio channels
· Top?Up-TV ? With a suitable terrestrial Freeview receiver and a Top-Up-TV viewing card it may be possible to watch additional programmes. Viewing currently costs around £8.00 per month.
· Free to Air (FTA) satellite ? means you can receive the programmes with a simple digital satellite receiver and a suitable size of dish with universal LNB fitted and aligned. You do not need a viewing card; you can use any Sky Digibox or any other digital satellite receiver. All BBC programmes are FTA. Viewing is free.
· Free To View (FTV) satellite ? As above but you can receive the programmes with a satellite receiver and a viewing card
· FreeSat from SKY ? BskyB will install a satellite dish and Sky Digibox with a card for a one off payment of £150.00. This is likely to be similar to the FTV system. Customers can choose to add on a Sky pay-TV service at a later date. It covers 120 TV cannels and 80 radio channels.
Llangeinor Transmitter ? Shutdown Schedule
BBC1 Wales ? analogue until 31/12/2008
Freeview from 02/10/2008
BBC2 ? Analogue until 02/10/2008
Freeview from 02/10/2008
BBC3/CBBC/ News24 ? Freeview from 02/10/2008
BBC4/cBeebies/BBCi/ Freeview from 01/12/2008
ITV-1 HTV Wales ? Analogue until 01/12/2008
Freeview from 01/11/2008
ITV2/3/ITV News/ Freeview from 01/11/2008
S4C ? Analogue until 01/11/2008
Freeview from 01/11/2008
E4/More4 Freeview - from 01/11/2008