Sun outage: Fall 2009

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techno935

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Jul 27, 2006
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Pompano Beach, FL
Getting underway today in the Southeast here for myself. Just a friendly reminder to those of you who "shadow survey" the area for dish mounting.

IMHO The best way to find your mounting locations based the sun's position in the sky. Enjoy it while it lasts. :D
 
I do not get it. with the motor all you need to do is point to your true south sat which rarely is exact , i mean , coincides with your exact longitude. in theory you could even just using usals locate any sat and it will still work for the rest. just that probably the true south sat or any closer one is the easiest to find.

Although I get the point of shadow surveying the area for a potential dish location for only an specific sat at a time what are you going to do the rest of the year then , wait 6 more months to find a suitable location?

In my opinion this sun outage will only be usefull to confirm that the LNB is dead center and only with prime dishes of course other than that and not being able to watch channels from that sat I see no other use or impact of this sun outages on sat hobbiests.

If you happen to be in the caribbean then forget about this and enjoy the sun at the beach since the temperatures are still above 32 degrees and up these days.

As usual I could be wrong of course.
 
I do not get it. with the motor all you need to do is point to your true south sat which rarely is exact , i mean , coincides with your exact longitude. in theory you could even just using usals locate any sat and it will still work for the rest. just that probably the true south sat or any closer one is the easiest to find.

....

I understand what you are saying, and you are right that you don't necessarily have to use the true south satellite, however it makes it a LOT easier if you do.
However I think you may be missing the point that while you don't need to aim the DISH at your true south sat, it is ABSOLUTELY necessary that the MOUNT be aimed to true south, and the sun can be a handy way of accomplishing this aim. I used to put a yard-stick along a flat surface of the mount/motor parallel to it's aim, and align this with shadows at local noon. However, it doesn't matter if you do this during the solar outage period or any other time of year. In fact you get best results in the winter when the shadows are long. You can use sats that are away from your true south to align your mount, but only if you motor the dish via USALS first then find the sat, via moving the whole mount on the pole, and this only works if USALS works on your motor. USALS doesn't always work, particularly if the motor's zero is off. If the zero is off considerably, the sun can be a great help in finding that sat. Plus, if both your south pointing AND your elevations are off, using the sun can at least get you pointed in the right direction, then you can find the sat with the elevation/declination adjustment.

Also, I've used the sun another way. Even after you have the mount aligned, the sun can be used to find satellites when using DiseqC-1.2 and/or a BUD motor/actuator). What I've done with an offset dish is to run a string from the LNBF up to the top center of the dish, then when the solar outage time comes, or the sat and sun have same azimuth, move the dish via motor till the string's shadow goes down the lnbf arm or across the center of the dish.
But yes, the main use is for site survey, to insure that you aren't blocked by a tree or something.

BTW, this is probably obvious to most, but if you look at the solar tables, such as those at the Naval Observatory, or astronomical programs, etc. You'll see that during the solar outage period, the declination of the satellites are approximately the same as the declination of the sun. Ie for most of us in north america, it's when the sun is about 5-6 degrees south of the equator, rather than around Sept 20-21 when the equinox occurs. Solar outages only occur at the equinoxes for people near the equator.
 
Since I'm such a cheap person, I'll use the shadow method twice throughout the year and document good locations for mounting in the future. So far....I've found one good spot to put a NPRM where the dish can see everything.

I'm just too lazy right now to make an install only to find out it's a BAD spot after the fact. All that work for nothing ya know.

I mean...early in the morning....I'm shocked to see the places in which I can put a dish and STILL see Hispasat. (30 west)
 
...I'll use the shadow method twice throughout the year and document good locations for mounting in the future...

...I'm just too lazy right now to make an install only to find out it's a BAD spot after the fact. All that work for nothing ya know....

Exactly. I've got such a narrow aperture, finding the best location for the most potential birds for my BUD is a must.
 
I do not get it.

Although I get the point of shadow surveying the area for a potential dish location for only an specific sat at a time, what are you going to do the rest of the year then, wait 6 more months to find a suitable location?

HDFan,

I think you understand it just fine. The solar outages can provide a very precise location method in the event where a person has a LOT of trees and or buildings to work through or around.

Take for example myself and Walrus1957... We have many trees, especially at our cabins along the river. With the solar outage calculator, we can pinpoint where to locate a fixed point dish to peek through a very small window among the trees in order to view a specific satellite.

This works very good for a motorized dish also, but I believe you can readily discern the drawbacks. For some sites with many trees, fixed point dishes set and aligned very precisely is the only way.

Also, even if you have NO trees, this solar outage calculator may still be helpful in other instances. Case in point, my residence. I have a lot of iron in the ground or something that makes a magnetic compass go nuts. I can walk around my house and the compass heading will swing +/- 30 degrees. There is no way that this can be used to sight in a dish. I have to use either GPS or the solar outage calculator or a satellite image of the terrain with landmarks to locate true south or pinpoint a LOS for a specific satellite.

Even if you don't perceive that you need to use this tool, it is very informative just to see where the sats are in the sky (east/west and elevation).

As for what a person needs to do for the rest of the year, well... you have to use all of the other tools available and SWAG it!

RADAR
 
The main sun outage here today has been caused by the clouds. :rant: Still, I got some work done today, a bit ahead of the schedule, but at least it's a rough idea.

Other than a partly sunny Wednesday the rest of the week's forecast looks pretty grim.
 
GRRR 14 minute outage on a 6 foot dish If I had photon torpedos I would destoy the sun, so I wouldnt mis a minute of my fav show.
 
the same here, mostly cloudy. I will have to wait to saturday anyways , for most sats, since I work during the weekday. when I selected the location for the 1.8 m Dish pole I guess I miscalculated something since I can only get up to 135W although I only tried locking the signal for a few minutes. who knows, will see if it was my mistake. I also want to see how far from the edge of the tree branches 43W is. maybe next summer I try to convince the neighborg to trim it a bit.
 
Haha, the sun was out this morning, and threading the needle, 58W is mine! NHK World will be in my living room.

To techno935, for starting this topic and reminding me, I owe you a beer, or more appropriately, sake -- your choice. To Iceberg, I still owe you a keyboard, but that's another matter entirely.

Let's see what the sun has to say the rest of the day.
 
Last weekend, it seems that the sun was still a bit high on elevation.

When is/was the best day for this? (When does the sun track the Clarke Belt the best)
 
Depends on your latitude. For me at 41 degrees, its this week. Run the calculator and see what it comes up with.

The sun is only half a degree wide (as absurd as that sounds, any appearance of being wider is in your mind), but the beamwidth of your dish is probably over a degree.
 
OK. Like a lot of stuff, it depends. How do you tell from this calculator? Is there a better one?

Could it be on the day with the longest outage? (in this example, 10/6....)


Date | UTC | UTC | | MST | MST
mm/dd/yyyy | hh:mm:ss | hh:mm:ss | mm:ss | hh:mm:ss | hh:mm:ss
-----------|----------|----------|-------|----------|------------
10/02/2009 | 19:11:37 | 19:15:52 | 04:15 | 12:11:37 | 12:15:52
10/03/2009 | 19:08:59 | 19:17:54 | 08:55 | 12:08:59 | 12:17:54
10/04/2009 | 19:07:36 | 19:18:36 | 11:00 | 12:07:36 | 12:18:36
10/05/2009 | 19:06:51 | 19:18:51 | 12:00 | 12:06:51 | 12:18:51
10/06/2009 | 19:06:25 | 19:18:35 | 12:10 | 12:06:25 | 12:18:35
10/07/2009 | 19:06:28 | 19:17:58 | 11:30 | 12:06:28 | 12:17:58
10/08/2009 | 19:06:57 | 19:16:57 | 10:00 | 12:06:57 | 12:16:57
10/09/2009 | 19:08:10 | 19:15:10 | 07:00 | 12:08:10 | 12:15:10
 
yeah, the 6th. It was finally sunny today and 139W is definitelly behind the top of the roof of my neighborg. I got home late to check for 137W but have a feeling that one is also affected. I was limited on the potential locations for the BUD pole but I think that using Dishpointer I estimated that I could still get those SATS. I guess I miscalculated then.

funny thing today. I have been recording different shows from different SATs at the same time of the outage and today Univision on 91W was not affected but yesterday it was and supposedlly tomorrow and the 9th are the worst days for me. I can't find an explanation to this. only that ... maybe yesterday it was heavy cluody or raining and therefore already the signal level was low but today the Signal level was higher since it was not cloudy therefore the C/N or S/N level today unlike yesterday was kept above the receiver threshold. That makes sense but I was not at home to determine it 100%.
 
OK. Like a lot of stuff, it depends. How do you tell from this calculator? Is there a better one?

Could it be on the day with the longest outage? (in this example, 10/6....)


Date | UTC | UTC | | MST | MST
mm/dd/yyyy | hh:mm:ss | hh:mm:ss | mm:ss | hh:mm:ss | hh:mm:ss
-----------|----------|----------|-------|----------|------------
10/02/2009 | 19:11:37 | 19:15:52 | 04:15 | 12:11:37 | 12:15:52
10/03/2009 | 19:08:59 | 19:17:54 | 08:55 | 12:08:59 | 12:17:54
10/04/2009 | 19:07:36 | 19:18:36 | 11:00 | 12:07:36 | 12:18:36
10/05/2009 | 19:06:51 | 19:18:51 | 12:00 | 12:06:51 | 12:18:51
10/06/2009 | 19:06:25 | 19:18:35 | 12:10 | 12:06:25 | 12:18:35
10/07/2009 | 19:06:28 | 19:17:58 | 11:30 | 12:06:28 | 12:17:58
10/08/2009 | 19:06:57 | 19:16:57 | 10:00 | 12:06:57 | 12:16:57
10/09/2009 | 19:08:10 | 19:15:10 | 07:00 | 12:08:10 | 12:15:10


Any of the days here are good for checking the position of the sat.... They are all bad for polar mount dish users as all of these days cause them signal outages.

Hopefully, with all these days to choose from, you can catch a sunny day to pinpoint the sat position during the time window shown.

The day with the longest period of outage is best for checking the dish aim as it gives you more time (not much, but a little more) to evaluate the sat's position in the sky.

RADAR
 
I now have to state that the solar outage calculator works very well!

For the last few days, I have been experiencing a loss of signal from satellite AMC 4 at 101.0W. At first, I didn't think a great deal of it, but after several days, it seemed quite repetitive and always in the early/mid afternoon.

Today, I caught the precise time that the signal was lost and when it came back.

Then, I fired up the Sun Outage Calculator and entered all the data as precise as I could and had it calculate when the solar outage was supposed to occur for this satellite in my area.

The outage was synchronized within +/- 2 minutes!

I think the receiver held the signal lock longer as the outage approached and required longer to recapture the lock after it was over, but it was so doggone close!

There is a problem that I notice on this outage calculator. There is no option for CDT, only CST. I found that the time shown was precisely one hour ahead.
i.e. the outage occurred at 1:31:?? and the calculator showed 12:30:35. The receiver relocked at 1:38:?? and the calculator showed the end of the outage at 12:35:20. I am not sure of how to evaluate the error here. Since they did alter the date change for DST, the calculator may not be following this correctly.

Will have to investigate this further.

RADAR
 
In terms of actual outages, the times are only a rough guide. There are many factors in the link margin that may make it better or worse. For example, today had the best (worst) alignment for my particular location. I decided to watch the ebno on my 4DTV 920 through the transit of the sun through 127W. Normally the transponder in question is in the mid 9s on my 3.2m, but I watched it drop steadily until it was just about 4.0 at the middle of the outage period. No loss of lock and no glitches (at least that I saw). Another reason why bigger is better :)
 
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