Freeview / Freeview+ Coverage maps

Channel Hopper

Channel Hopper

Suffering fools, so you don't have to.
Staff member
My Satellite Setup
A little less analogue, and a lot more crap.
My Location
UK
There are plenty out there and I know each member will have a different preference, but which map have people found to have the most accurate reception coverage ?

I'm due to take part in a greater London tender for a number of proposed three storey buildings, where the roof has very little space for a dish or two (the designs have built in solar panels right to the edges) with just one skylight and two walkways for maintenance, plus a single pole just above a corner riser.

Thanks in advance.
 
None. They all claim "no reception" here.

Yet I have contrived to get three muxes from Bilsdale by virtue of catching reflections off a nearby hill which, unlike my house, is in line of sight of said tx.
 
I doubt any reception prediction map would, or even could, take into account reflection paths.
 
Quite. That's why a dose of healthy scepticism and on-site experimentation are valuable in many situations.
 
Lazarus said:
Yet I have contrived to get three muxes from Bilsdale by virtue of catching reflections off a nearby hill which, unlike my house, is in line of sight of said tx.
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If only we could use the same trick for satellite reception.
 
Captain Jack said:
If only we could use the same trick for satellite reception.
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Did that once, bounced off some windows off a skyscraper near Waterloo. Nobody believed I could get Screensport by pointing a dish to the north.

It was in the early 90's though.
 
uk freetv is fairy informative.
 
UK Free TV is quite interesting as a basic guide but the coverage maps aren't based on any real data and can be way off. For a lot of the main transmitters for example the transmission radiation patterns (which were obtained through FOI) were withheld so the coverage plot is complete guesswork on the part of UK Free TV.

I find the official digitaluk.co.uk checker to be alright as a basic guide to what transmitters are likely to be possible at a given address.

The best way to check is probably to get a simple log periodic antenna (they're wideband with good consistent gain figures across the band) and try it out yourself!
 
Adam792 said:
The best way to check is probably to get a simple log periodic antenna (they're wideband with good consistent gain figures across the band) and try it out yourself!
Click to expand...

Which is precisely what I am trying to avoid.
 
The maps on ukfree tv in my experience aren't great, the ones there for transmitters in Ireland (North & South) badly underestimate coverage even more so than Digital UK whose predictions I tend to find lean on a conservative side.
 
Wouldn't consider putting a quote in for central London without an onsite signal test.
 
Neither would I. This is more a preliminary check of around twelve sites (in and around South West London), the furthest being about ten miles from here.

I would use the information to plan a route with a long weekend checking onsite, with equipment in the company vehicle.

A couple of the locations are pretty well shielded from direct line of site to Crystal Palace, the Ham /Petersham border being one of them from previous experience.
 
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