Solar gamma ray radiation sun spots affecting DTV reception???

[powerking]

Hey all,

I have noticed over the last few years of DTV reception, that I experience drop-outs of DTV channels and/or them breaking up. Just now with normally perfect local Boston reception, things went to sh*&% and other channels were the same. Around this time the sun came out really full bore. In the winter here in N.H., DTV reception is overall pretty good. Do any of you in the continental U.S. see this behavior over the calendar year? Right now I have no signal on any DTV (even local ~~ 30- miles) channels other than patchwork looking video with no audio. It's been about 30 min into this (I guess) solar event.

Tom (PK)

[Username1]

All kinds of things seem to effect reception. I'm 60 miles from NYC have a mountain
in the way, I get good reception from the channels still on Mid VHF, but the UHF ones
have different levels of Suck pretty much all year. They are working great now, Watching
The Presideo now on Movies! I think its UHF 33 5.2 NYC, later they promise to run the 1952
War of the Worlds, So I gotta stay up..... What surprises me is that in the winter when
there are no leaves, I loose most of the UHF channels. But in Summer they
come back. People use to say that the opposite would happen, So maybe its not the leaves,
maybe its the atmosphere..... Rain, bad storms seem to effect all my channels, but
they all have a good distance to travel.

I have instances with perfect weather and no signal on all channels, I have learned over
time that this problem is a bad connection somewhere. Luckily, most of my wiring
is along the floor & wall, and the screw connections need to be loosened, then tightened.
I think its oscillations in the grounds that cause the problems.... And of course, there are
a few chew spots in the wires left over from my little buddy, I just wrapped foil over and then
electrical tape since the outside was the only compromise portion.....


.

[jbattles]

i have noticed to the same thing here in the mountains of north ga. I am about 90 miles from atalanta and in fall ny signals level go- in fall or summer.

[old_tv_nut]

Originally Posted by powerking

Hey all,

I have noticed over the last few years of DTV reception, that I experience drop-outs of DTV channels and/or them breaking up. Just now with normally perfect local Boston reception, things went to sh*&% and other channels were the same. Around this time the sun came out really full bore. In the winter here in N.H., DTV reception is overall pretty good. Do any of you in the continental U.S. see this behavior over the calendar year? Right now I have no signal on any DTV (even local ~~ 30- miles) channels other than patchwork looking video with no audio. It's been about 30 min into this (I guess) solar event.

Tom (PK)

No signal at 30 miles shouldn't happen due to atmospherics. You didn't say what your antenna setup is??

Losing all signals indicates something else is wrong, unless your setup is on the hairy edge already.

Over the horizon reception is going to be affected by temperature strata (refraction) as well as diffraction over the horizon or hill in the way.

I'm 35 miles from Chicago with an attic antenna aimed that way. Chicago is perfect, and at certain times of the day I can receive at least one UHF from Milwaukee off the back of the antenna.

I have an amplified indoor antenna on one set on the second floor - no Milwaukee ever on that one, and some Chicago breakup in summer thunderstorms, which I attribute to shooting through the neighbor's house diagonally from me and the moving wet leaves of the even taller trees behind that.

[powerking]

Maybe were are just seeing an increase in solar flare activity???

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/nationa...ctronic/ngn4D/

Tom(PK)

[powerking]

Another article on the subject:

http://www.netnebraska.org/node/929962

By the way, there were/ no issue(s) with my antenna and amplifier system thereof during this "latest" dropout event. I tested the other LCD-DTV's and my DTV converter boxed RCA 35" and could not get any useable signal either.

Maybe I should start looking for a Predicta TV for backup in case of the mother-lode solar event yet to come wiping out all the "low-voltage" stuff in the house (LOL).....

Tom (PK)

[Zenith26kc20]

Haven't noticed any problems lately. I'm in New Orleans and I regularly watch the Biloxi stations (90 miles) and the Baton Rouge (55 miles) stations. I do have a monster antenna with an amplifier. The only time I get trouble is around sunset. After sunset they usually come back if the show weak signal. Also, not all OTA boxes or TV tuners are the same. The Insignia and Digital Stream are what I use.

[jr_tech]

Here is a decent site to check for current info about sunspots, solar flares:
http://www.spaceweather.com/
Although the sun has been pretty quiet for the past couple of weeks, it looks as if a little activity is now heading our way.
jr

[centralradio]

I remember back in the analog days in the 1980's that my cable company having major co-channeling with the NYC stations with some other stations a couple stations away.A couple from Baltimore MD were coming in around late night knocking out the NYC channels .

I cant receive jack here with the DTV signals unless I sit on top of the 60 foot pine Xmas tree on the side on my house with my 7 inch portable DTV.

[powerking]

Looks like we are having/have recently had a fresh batch of solar storms. Has anyone witnessed any weird effects thereof? I had a few DTV drop-outs around 12:30 PM EST today.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/weathe...ther/15415827/

http://news.discovery.com/space/astr...rth-140911.htm

Tom (PK)

[zenith2134]

I had no idea this was currently happening. I recall events from years past, however. Times when some forms of sat-communications were adversely affected due to solar activity.
Will be keeping a close eye on this.

[Robert Grant]

The recent solar flare event should have no noticeable effect on over-the-air digital TV reception.

The effect of solar storms on radio and TV has been less important as technology has changed with the decades.

The stereotype image of all radios and TVs suddenly becoming useless was always an exaggeration. While in the years circa 1925-1970 a good solar flare could affect skywave (ionospheric) propagation, it never did knock out local AM radio, VHF highband or UHF TV reception, and had a minimal effect on lowband VHF TV.

What it could do was harm or eliminate reception of radio signals from well beyond the line-of-sight. Radio and teletype news feeds to/from Europe and the Far East could suddenly go down without warning, and listeners in rural areas who depended on skywave reception of 50kW clears would miss radio for a night or two. If you lived too far from WSM to hear it during the day, a solar storm meant you would miss tonight's Grand Ole Opry.

Oddly, a solar storm could also being opportunities. Class IV stations (now Class C AM) would enjoy the same wide area coverage they had during the day into the night during a solar storm (as the skywave propagation would no longer bend the interfering signals of other stations back to earth).

One night I tried to tune in the Grand Ole Opry for my in-laws (born and raised in KY and TN). To my shock, I got Bogota, Colombia on 650 instead (the aurora scoured the ionosphere in the sky between Detroit and Nashville, but not the skies between Nashville and Bogota).

As for digital TV - the bigger risk to loss of programming would be harm to the satellites that provide feeds to some of the services seen on the subchannels (the Big 4 networks with their fiber optics would be unaffected) I guess aurora during a solar storm may bring interference to fringe reception of a DTV station that actually transmits on a lowband channel (very rare - most stations known as channels 2 to 6 are actually transmitting on highband VHF or UHF) as aurora propagation could bring co-channel interference.