#HarryB Posted October 2, 2020 Report Share Posted October 2, 2020 Alternatives ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mexbound Posted October 2, 2020 Report Share Posted October 2, 2020 Two times a year (March and October) the Sun is lined up directly behind the sateliite and us (the ground). This causes the satellite signals to go out for about 15 mins between 2pm and 3pm in the afternoon. 1 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sea Posted October 2, 2020 Report Share Posted October 2, 2020 Mine is too. For about an hour or two in the afternoon particularly. It must be that time of year when the signal gets wonky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mexbound Posted October 2, 2020 Report Share Posted October 2, 2020 A sun outage, sun transit or sun fade is an interruption in or distortion of geostationary satellite signals caused by interference from solar radiation. The effect is due to the sun’s radiation overwhelming the satellite signal. In the northern hemisphere, sun outages occur before the March equinox (February, March) and after the September equinox (September and October), and in the southern hemisphere the outages occur after the March equinox and before the September equinox. At these times, the apparent path of the sun across the sky takes it directly behind the line of sight between an earth station and a satellite. The sun radiates strongly across the entire spectrum, including the microwave frequencies used to communicate with satellites (C-band, Ku band, and Ka band), so the sun swamps the signal from the satellite. The effects of a sun outage range from partial degradation (increase in the error rate) to total destruction of the signal. The effect sweeps from north to south from approximately 20 February to 20 April, and from south to north from approximately 20 August to 20 October, affecting any specific location for less than 12 minutes a day for a few consecutive days. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Greenwood Posted October 3, 2020 Report Share Posted October 3, 2020 Very interesting......but why hasn’t it happened in previous years....?...these ..” sun outages “ a new thing....? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickS Posted October 3, 2020 Report Share Posted October 3, 2020 Happens twice a year, every year. 2020 has been a bummer year but sun 'outage' can't be attributed to this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Semalu Posted October 3, 2020 Report Share Posted October 3, 2020 You can follow sun activity here: https://spaceweathernews.com/ and here https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/alerts-watches-and-warnings Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cedros Posted October 3, 2020 Report Share Posted October 3, 2020 9 hours ago, Ian Greenwood said: Very interesting......but why hasn’t it happened in previous years....?...these ..” sun outages “ a new thing....? It has happened in previous years to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happyjillin Posted October 3, 2020 Report Share Posted October 3, 2020 Experience it every year since we came here. It ain't new. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pappysmarket Posted October 3, 2020 Report Share Posted October 3, 2020 14 hours ago, Ian Greenwood said: Very interesting......but why hasn’t it happened in previous years....?...these ..” sun outages “ a new thing....? No Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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