Solar Outage Time is less than a month away...

1880 Views 9 Replies 7 Participants Last post by Christopher Gould, Sep 17, 2008

Richard King

Discussion Starter · Sep 7, 2008

Here's a calculator that I found to figure when it will happen in your area.
http://www.satellite-calculations.com/SUNcalc/SUNcalc.htm
Fill in the required info and it creates a chart for you tellng you when you will be effected.

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Grentz

· #2 · Sep 7, 2008

Cool, thanks for the link.

This one is much easier to read/use than some of the others I have seen.

Looks like beginning of October for me in MN

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BobaBird

· #3 · Sep 8, 2008

Nice find, will add it to the EKB Solar Outages page.

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Richard King

Discussion Starter · #4 · Sep 8, 2008

BobaBird said:
Nice find, will add it to the EKB Solar Outages page.

As I would say when I lived in Minnesota, Gopher it.

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Richard King

Discussion Starter · #5 · Sep 8, 2008

Grentz said:
Looks like beginning of October for me in MN

Where in Minnesnowta?

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mraviator

· #6 · Sep 15, 2008

Newbie here needing to get satellite TV in a couple of weeks when I move to a new house (going with Dish I've decided...).....

How does the solar outage affect satellite TV reception?

Thanks

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dpeters11

· #7 · Sep 17, 2008

mraviator said:
Newbie here needing to get satellite TV in a couple of weeks when I move to a new house (going with Dish I've decided...).....

How does the solar outage affect satellite TV reception?

Thanks

Most people don't even notice it to be honest. Worst case scenario, you lose signal for up to 10-15 minutes, once a day for about a week. This happens in March and October.

What basically happens is that during this time the sun is exactly where the satellites are, and "overloads" the dish. No damage or anything, just loss of signal. I'm in Cincinnati and it happens about 2:30 or so, depending on the satellite. I wouldn't worry about it. On the bright side, if you are looking at getting satellite, it is an easy way (with precautions) to see if you have clear line of sight, since the sun will mark the approximate location of the satellite.

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Richard King

Discussion Starter · #8 · Sep 17, 2008

The interesting thing about solar outages is that you can sometimes track the sun across the sky as it effects the satellites that Dish or Directv receive from. Solar outages effect their receive dishes also, although, with the current generation of more powerful satellites this is less of a problem than it used to be. The typical symptoms are static lines across the picture, starting as barely noticeable and increasing as the sun moves closer to the center of the focal point then fading again. With my old C-band dish I could track the sun across the sky and watch each successive satellite fade out and back (if I really wanted to). :lol: I haven't actually checked for solar outages in years on my Dish system, but I know a few years ago it was quite noticeable.

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NorfolkBruh

· #9 · Sep 17, 2008

I used to track the outages via my old C band dish too but then my grandma (a wise ole 95 year old lady!) asked me what I was doing and I told her. She gave me the weirdest look and said, "oh yeah... I do the same thing only I go out on the porch! You youngin's!" Then walked off just shaking her head! lololol

Norfolk

Richard King said:
The interesting thing about solar outages is that you can sometimes track the sun across the sky as it effects the satellites that Dish or Directv receive from. Solar outages effect their receive dishes also, although, with the current generation of more powerful satellites this is less of a problem than it used to be. The typical symptoms are static lines across the picture, starting as barely noticeable and increasing as the sun moves closer to the center of the focal point then fading again. With my old C-band dish I could track the sun across the sky and watch each successive satellite fade out and back (if I really wanted to). :lol: I haven't actually checked for solar outages in years on my Dish system, but I know a few years ago it was quite noticeable.

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Christopher Gould

· #10 · Sep 17, 2008

i have had D* for 10 years and i have only seen the sorry solar outage card come up one time.

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