Sun outage: Fall 2009

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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.
Will have to investigate this further.

RADAR

My results are garbage now, eh? Somebody, do I have a pulse? :eek:
 
....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

What about the option called "PC Local Time"?

Does that possibly mean the time that is displayed on your computer? It seems to be the default so I wondered if that could be what it was. :confused:
 
I agree with pendragon. Have been following 30W these days and never saw a glitch with the Spain and Cuban Muxes yet the other TP have been affected somehow. The first signal to drop is always the DVB-S2 Uruguayan Mux , which BTW these days is in the clear again. It all depends on how high the C/N level is normally for a particular TP, after all the Sun RF radiation all it does is increase the Noise level therefore decrease the C/N or S/N levels.

I always use the default PC local Time option.
 
I always use the default PC local Time option.

When I brought the page back up, that's what I had checked. I re-did and confirmed some of my data, my results appear fine. :)

I was pressed for time when I read Radar's post and it made me wonder if I had clear line of sight between my two ears. :cool:
 
What about the option called "PC Local Time"?

Does that possibly mean the time that is displayed on your computer? It seems to be the default so I wondered if that could be what it was. :confused:

Phlatwound,

Don't be confused. The PC Local Time generates the accurate time. I was in a bit of a hurry and hadn't tried that option yet when I posted earlier. Actually, I was almost blind to it.

So, if your PC time clock is set properly, the PC Local Time option works perfectly.

I was concerned why there wasn't a Central Daylight Time versus the Central Standard Time zone option. Both are present for the other time zones. I got confused there and it further threw me when they added the British Time zones and the Central European Time zones. I just didn't have time to investigate it further before I headed out for work.

Last spring, I didn't notice this disagreement as the CST didn't begin until March 8th and the spring solar outage occurred between March 1st and 5th.

RADAR
 
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I guess I will have to admit that indeed the Sun Outages could be very usefull. Finally today , it was sunny and not only allowed me to confirm the LNB was dead center on the prime focus Dish but also I could verify the exact location of some sats in the sky behind trees and some other problematic locations.

Using the birdog Spectrum analizer I could see the noise floor raising and the C/N level going slowly from above 8 to less than 4 dB, therefore lost the signal completly.

I could also see that my Bell Dish did not lost the lock at all however as expected Univision on Galaxy @ 91 using a 1.2 Dish started to pixealate heavily for a few minutes.

I could also see that very strong TP's on sunny days are able to keep the signal ok despite the quality of the link going to almost the threshold however the same TP the next or the day before on a cloudy or rainy day will pixealate or loose the signal. Obviously due to the fact that on those bad days the S/N level is normally very low and since the Noise increases as a result of the Sun Interference the total S/N level goes below the threshold.

All this were known facts but if was fun to see it happen. I guess part of the fun with this hobby eh?.

Thanks to the OP for the heads up on this event thsi time around.
 
I guess I will have to admit that indeed the Sun Outages could be very usefull. Finally today , it was sunny and not only allowed me to confirm the LNB was dead center on the prime focus Dish but also I could verify the exact location of some sats in the sky behind trees and some other problematic locations.

Using the birdog Spectrum analizer I could see the noise floor raising and the C/N level going slowly from above 8 to less than 4 dB, therefore lost the signal completly.

I could also see that my Bell Dish did not lost the lock at all however as expected Univision on Galaxy @ 91 using a 1.2 Dish started to pixealate heavily for a few minutes.

I could also see that very strong TP's on sunny days are able to keep the signal ok despite the quality of the link going to almost the threshold however the same TP the next or the day before on a cloudy or rainy day will pixealate or loose the signal. Obviously due to the fact that on those bad days the S/N level is normally very low and since the Noise increases as a result of the Sun Interference the total S/N level goes below the threshold.

All this were known facts but if was fun to see it happen. I guess part of the fun with this hobby eh?.

Thanks to the OP for the heads up on this event thsi time around.

HDFan,

It is really clever to have this additional tool, even if it is only valid twice a year! I works pretty good.

Radar
 
Yeah , How clever?. I just might have burnt/damaged the center of my retina in my right eye yesterday after watching the Sun on a particular very Sunny day with the naked Eye. Anyways it is all my fault , even with Sunglasses I would have damaged my eyes anyways. Only a welder mask would have somehow protected my eyes and I had none.

Now I guess I will have to sell the HDTV and in the process change my user name to SD Fan since at least for a very small spheric center of the right Eye I can not resolve it very well (I can see like a very small Sun when I look into a white surface). As a cuban at least I can see the positive side effect , more cash to pay off some debt , lol.

I still can not beleive how I could have been so stupid pretending to watch the Sun with the naked Eye knowing that even to watch Sun Eclipses you have to protect your Eyes. It has not been 24 hours yet but after so long I am more incline to beleive this could be permanent damage to the retina rather than just a temporary thing for the eyes to adjust back to normal light levels. Am I decreasing my inteligence after living in North America or what? Funny thing, I have asked my self this question , Why would someone put that object inside a Microwave? after reading about a microwave related accident in the news, guess what moron, the same applies to watching the sun with the naked eye.

After a week I will go to the eye doctor just to confirm of course since there is no solution to the problem. In the mean time at least let me adapt to the new SD vision , unbeleivable!.

BTW , It is funny that in some cases the Solar Outage does not affect completly the signal, one would assume that right behind the SAT , the RF Solar Radiation would be so intense that even the best aligned Dish would at least loose the signal for a couple of minutes. But that was not the case , or maybe it happened but I was not able to see it. During the week I was recording several shows from several sats to compare but maybe with Bell 82W & 91W it happened but I did not record the exact TP at the exact time it happened. who knows?.
 
Yeah , How clever?. I just might have burnt/damaged the center of my retina in my right eye yesterday after watching the Sun on a particular very Sunny day with the naked Eye. Anyways it is all my fault , even with Sunglasses I would have damaged my eyes anyways. Only a welder mask would have somehow protected my eyes and I had none.

Now I guess I will have to sell the HDTV and in the process change my user name to SD Fan since at least for a very small spheric center of the right Eye I can not resolve it very well (I can see like a very small Sun when I look into a white surface). As a cuban at least I can see the positive side effect , more cash to pay off some debt , lol.

I still can not beleive how I could have been so stupid pretending to watch the Sun with the naked Eye knowing that even to watch Sun Eclipses you have to protect your Eyes. It has not been 24 hours yet but after so long I am more incline to beleive this could be permanent damage to the retina rather than just a temporary thing for the eyes to adjust back to normal light levels. Am I decreasing my inteligence after living in North America or what? Funny thing, I have asked my self this question , Why would someone put that object inside a Microwave? after reading about a microwave related accident in the news, guess what moron, the same applies to watching the sun with the naked eye.

After a week I will go to the eye doctor just to confirm of course since there is no solution to the problem. In the mean time at least let me adapt to the new SD vision , unbeleivable!.

BTW , It is funny that in some cases the Solar Outage does not affect completly the signal, one would assume that right behind the SAT , the RF Solar Radiation would be so intense that even the best aligned Dish would at least loose the signal for a couple of minutes. But that was not the case , or maybe it happened but I was not able to see it. During the week I was recording several shows from several sats to compare but maybe with Bell 82W & 91W it happened but I did not record the exact TP at the exact time it happened. who knows?.

SD FAN,

My Momma always told me not to look into the sun, but Momma, that's where the fun is! Ha Ha!

Your not not supposed to look directly at it! :eek:

I don't usually have a problem with the signal dropping when using a Ku Band, offset dish. This year is the first that I have used a 1.2 M dish and I was viewing a weak TP on 101.0W and happened to notice the difference with the solar outage. I assume that it was mostly due to the weaker signal that allowed me to detect the solar outage. A higher power signal may have remained above the elevted noise floor caused by the solar radiation.

RADAR
 
Yeah I hear you, I guess I had the stupid at the highest level yesterday. Time to move on , not big deal.

It does not matter if it is a prime focus or an off set dish , even if it is a multiple LNB dish it will get affected the same way since the radiation will reflect off the dish in the same way the satellite signal does it.

You said you dont usually have a problem with the signal dropping through the Solar Outage , I guess you probably meant You do not usually see a problem with the picture nor the audio but if you check the signal level by pressing info on the receiver you will see it always drop and considerably to the minimum BTW, just that for some signals it does not drop below enough.
 
Yeah I hear you, I guess I had the stupid at the highest level yesterday. Time to move on , not big deal.

It does not matter if it is a prime focus or an off set dish , even if it is a multiple LNB dish it will get affected the same way since the radiation will reflect off the dish in the same way the satellite signal does it.

You said you dont usually have a problem with the signal dropping through the Solar Outage , I guess you probably meant You do not usually see a problem with the picture nor the audio but if you check the signal level by pressing info on the receiver you will see it always drop and considerably to the minimum BTW, just that for some signals it does not drop below enough.

Yes, most often I don't notice because the signal quality is high enough that I do not detect a change in the video or audio quality. If I had been monitoring the quality meter, I would have detected it.

RADAR
 
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