Tellytrack’s Dieter Wohlberg has responded to a Sporting Post query as to whether or not solar outages are getting worse and impacting on our Tellytrack reception.
A solar outage – also called a sun transit or sun fade – is an interruption or distortion of geostationary satellite signals caused by interference (background noise) of the sun, when the sun aligns directly with a satellite and the earth station it is receiving or transmitting data to.
Herewith the response from Telemedia.
Dieter says that they are the best in the business and do all of Tellytrack’s contribution and distribution feeds. They are also responsible for most global sporting feeds used by Superport etc and other international sporting and news broadcasters.
The problem will not be worse than normal, unless you are counting in milliseconds.
The outages will be in the region of 1-10 minutes and varying depending on where the dish in located in the county.
This event happens once in March/April and again in September/October every year to every satellite.
The event on DSTV will affect all the DSTV channels, it is not limited to Tellytrack only. It will also happen on Yamal, Measat and OVHD.
There is nothing anyone can do to avoid this.
All the satellites we use for Tellytrack are east facing satellites so the events will occur in the morning before live SA racing begins.
Viewers should only experience disruption in the mornings which may affect the Aussie racing.
Below are tables showing when the outages are expected for DSTV, Yamal and Measat.
The DSTV viewers in Johannesburg will experience the problem:
Date Begin Peak End
September 8 08:58 09:01 09:04
September 9 08:56 09:01 09:06
September 10 08:55 09:00 09:06
September 11 08:54 09:00 09:07
September 12 08:53 09:00 09:06
September 13 08:53 08:59 09:06
September 14 08:53 08:59 09:05
September 15 08:54 08:59 09:04
September 16 08:55 08:58 09:01
The DSTV viewers in Cape Town will experience the problem:
Date Begin Peak End
September 5 08:59 09:01 09:02
September 6 08:56 09:01 09:05
September 7 08:55 09:00 09:06
September 8 08:54 09:00 09:06
September 9 08:53 08:59 09:06
September 10 08:53 08:59 09:06
September 11 08:53 08:59 09:05
September 12 08:53 08:58 09:04
September 13 08:54 08:58 09:02
The Yamal viewers in Johannesburg will experience the problem:
Date Begin Peak End
September 8 09:58 10:02 10:05
September 9 09:56 10:02 10:06
September 10 09:55 10:01 10:07
September 11 09:54 10:01 10:07
September 12 09:54 10:01 10:07
September 13 09:54 10:00 10:06
September 14 09:54 10:00 10:05
September 15 09:55 09:59 10:03
September 16 09:57 09:59 10:01
The Measat viewers in Johannesburg will experience the problem:
Date Begin Peak End
September 7 07:18 07:22 07:27
September 8 07:16 07:22 07:28
September 9 07:14 07:22 07:29
September 10 07:13 07:21 07:30
September 11 07:12 07:21 07:30
September 12 07:11 07:21 07:30
September 13 07:11 07:20 07:30
September 14 07:11 07:20 07:29
September 15 07:11 07:20 07:28
September 16 07:11 07:19 07:27
September 17 07:12 07:19 07:25
September 18 07:14 07:19 07:23
