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TBS messed up

Started by Bigdog, Wednesday Oct 13, 2004, 02:00:22 PM

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Bigdog

I know they have mentioned sunspots that is affecting cable stations now, but TBS has been messed up for like 3 days, continously. Is there something else that is causing it?

tothemax


uplinkguy

During this time of the year, and in the spring, the sun lines up behind the satellites in space.  It only lasts a few minutes.

At this time, the satellites over the equator end up just in front of the sun as the earth rotates.  Satellite dishes and their LNBs get overpowered from the radiation of the sun for a few minutes as the sun passes directly behind the satellite the dish is looking at.

If a network channel originates as an analog channel on satellite before the cable system or directv/dish receive it, you will notice the picture of that particular network going snowy and then completely gone before it gradualy comes back a few minutes later.  Network channels originally uplinked digitally will have the pixilating signals like watching bad OTA digital channels.

Of course when the sun lines up behind the directv/dish satellite you are watching then they all go bad for a few minutes.

Smart networks plan for this and will uplink a game on two satellites at a time to get the game back to the network to cover for the one getting hit.

The sun outages are predictable and start with the east satellites in the morning and then hit the western satellites where most cable channels originate in the afternoon.

Here is one explanation from Panamsat: http://www.panamsat.com/global_network/solar_activity.asp

Bigdog

Well TBS has had these wavy vertical lines running through it literally for days. I've seen the other "sun problems" affect other channels but this seems different in both looks and duration. That is why I was wondering if something else was up with it...