Sun Outage?

[Lone Gunman]

Say, I'm having problems with KRBK recordings at 1 to 2 pm eastern time daily and was thinking it might be the Sun Outage again that's causing it?

 

[lfp302]

It is getting to be that time of year. Depends on location and which bird.

 

[RimaNTSS]

Biannual periods of Sun outage are nice times to check whether your antennas properly placed and maybe need some relocation.. It is also possible to do some experiments. Good site to see dates and times of the outage is here.
I've recorded strength of signals from 12 satellites (in Ku band) 2 days ago. From all the data (> than 5000 independent measurements) build this graph. Vertical axis is signal strength in dB, horizontally- time. Had some fun

 

[lfp302]

GOOD JOB!

 

[bpalone]

I have not checked if it should be happening at my location, but on 101 and 107 is happening at about 12 noon MST. Have gone out and looked at shadow of feed in dish and is dead on center. I am a bit West of you, but could very well be the case. Go take a look at the dish, if the shadow is in the center (prime focus) then the sun is the culprit.

 

[RimaNTSS]

Have gone out and looked at shadow of feed in dish and is dead on center.

Correct, I also went out and took picture of the antenna at maximum time of the outage.

 

[Lone Gunman]

What's been happening is I set it to record the Cops Reloaded show on KRBK @ 1pm Eastern and the past few times it hasn't recorded all of it and what's there is pixelating and it just stops recording?? I'll try to remember to check today to see if the shadow is near the center of the dish.

Thanks

 

[Lone Gunman]

Well, just went outside a few minutes ago and took this picture around 1:55pm. So this explains it. I guess I could take that plastic piece off that the old feed horn cover fastens to and see if that "might" stop it?

 

[Titanium]

I don't understand what removing the feedhorn cover support will do? It is RF neutral and shadowing the center of the dish. The shadow in this photo indicates that the sun is directly in line behind the satellite.

The DVR recording is stopping due to loss of signal as the sun passes directly behind the satellite position. The noise generated by the sun is stronger than the satellite signal.

 

[. Raine]

I'm getting sun outages here, yesterday and today.

Today I was watching MeTV on 99W and at 2 pm lost all signal. Switched to MeTV on 101 and after a few minutes, lost that, switched back to 99, which was still pixelating a bit, but came completely back in a minute or so.

Went outside to check and sure enough, dish was lined right up with the sun.

 

[Lone Gunman]

OK Brian, I guess there's nothing to help that but time then!

 

[waylew]

When the sun the sat and the dish are all lined up,the sun always wins.Nothing you can do about it except wait till the earth moves further along in it's orbit around the sun,and when fall comes,rinse and repeat.
And here's a calculator that's easy to use,
http://www.satcomresources.com/sunOutage

 

[armadillo_115]

Did some blind scanning this weekend searching for any new channels ITC. I was blind scanning 125W C band yesterday afternoon and it must have been during a sun outage.Very few transponders came in. I checked the Evine channel which usually runs 80-85%. It was at 40-45% and a bit blotchy. I let it set there with the signal meter on...and watched as the SQ slowly rose back up about 10 minutes later. Kinda cool watching the signal come back...it was like my dish was growing back to size.lol

BTW: I never found anything new ITC worth reporting...just a few feeds.

 

[Comptech]

Did some blind scanning this weekend searching for any new channels ITC. I was blind scanning 125W C band yesterday afternoon and it must have been during a sun outage.Very few transponders came in. I checked the Evine channel which usually runs 80-85%. It was at 40-45% and a bit blotchy. I let it set there with the signal meter on...and watched as the SQ slowly rose back up about 10 minutes later. Kinda cool watching the signal come back...it was like my dish was growing back to size.lol

BTW: I never found anything new ITC worth reporting...just a few feeds.

Me too, I was looking for feeds on 83W my true south sat around noon and had no signals at all. Moved the dish to other sats and all was fine. then I remembered this thread and 15 minutes later 83W was lit back up.

 

[riz-la]

From 3w to 15w