The WOW! Buzz

Picture the earth as viewed from orbit, blue oceans, white clouds and landmasses fill the image. Cue in the satellite and imagine it is floating in space across the field of view.   This communication satellite is quietly transmitting radio frequencies down to the earth to a receiving satellite dish.  The satellite dish interprets these RF signals into the pictures that are broadcast to and displayed on your TV set.  All is good, except for a couple of times a year when the Sun runs intereference.

Twice a year in February/March and September/October, for about a two week period, the orbitol positions of the satellite and the sun line up.  The satellite dish on the earth receives signals from both, but the sunrays are more powerful and interfere with the satellite signal causing a condition commonly known as solar fade.  Most common symptom are pictures with tiling, freezing, fuzziness, sparkliness, or even no picture (black.) 

The good news is that the degredation in picture quality or loss of picture is brief, usually lasting no longer than 15 minutes a day during the two week periods.  So, if you see that your TV picture isn’t looking quite as good as it normally does, give it fifteen minutes or so and and see if it clears up on it’s own.  If it’s sun outage related it will; if it’s not, it won’t and you will want to give us a call.