Our spring sun outages are predicted to happen sporadically from February 27th – March 10, 2023, beginning in the most northern parts of the US and working its way south.
What Are Sun Outages, you ask?
Twice each year, broadcasters (radio and tv) may experience some degree of interference due to sun outages, caused by a phenomenon known as “solar satellite interference.”
These brief outages occur when the sun passes directly behind the geostationary satellites orbiting earth. When the sun is aligned with a transmitting satellite, solar radiation emitted by the sun disrupts the satellite’s signal and causes a brief signal outage.
The good news? As a broadcaster, you’ll only deal with sun outages twice a year – spring and fall – and the actual amount of time you may face a sun outage is very brief.
Another positive. We’ve noticed that the newer geostationary satellites — the ones recently launched in response to the co-sharing of satellite space with 5G — are so powerful that we typically see little to no outage on the larger satellite carriers.
But if you are experiencing a loss of lock for more than a couple of minutes for several days, it’s probably NOT caused by sun outages. You should check your antenna to make sure it’s properly aligned.
To calculate your specific sun outage times, go to our website’s resources page for a link to a sun outage calculator