Starting this next Thursday Sept. 27, residents in Baja will begin to experience short periods of satellite TV interference and Internet service
disruptions as the sun passes behind the belt of communications satellites on its journey south for the winter. These outages will affect
satellite-based services in Mexico, Canada, and the US, including Dish Network, DirecTV, Shaw Direct, HughesNet, Starband, SKY, and also many cable TV
channels. No need to call your service provider; the outage will pass.
These outage periods will occur each day for about 8 days over Baja Sur and Norte, beginning Sept. 27 in the Los Cabos region, and eventually reaching
Tijuana, starting on October 01. Depending upon which satellite you're using, these interruptions may begin anywhere from 9 AM to 3 PM, and last from
5 to 12 minutes per satellite. This twice-yearly outage cycle will be repeated in March 2013 when the sun once again returns northward.
Here is a link to a Sun Outage Calculator you can use to compute outages in your area:
there may be a full on outage anyway if Maid Miriam has her way! but thanks for the heads up for sure.Mula - 9-23-2012 at 06:42 AM
What about cell phone service providers?
Will that service be affected also?BCSTech - 9-23-2012 at 08:42 AM
Cell phone service should not be disrupted. Cell phone services are point-to-point ground-based, and they don't use the geo stationary satellites over
the equator that are affected.elizabeth - 9-23-2012 at 08:58 AM
"as the sun passes behind the belt of communications satellites on its journey south for the winter."
"when the sun once again returns northward..."
So Copernicus and Galileo were both wrong...it's the sun that moves, not the earth!
Just joking...I understand it makes it a little easier to visualize.Bob and Susan - 9-23-2012 at 10:46 AM
we are actually experiencing this already in the afternoon...
3pm to 6pm
by sundown its fine
the mornings are good tooBCSTech - 9-23-2012 at 11:02 AM
Quote:
Originally posted by Bob and Susan
we are actually experiencing this already in the afternoon...
3pm to 6pm
by sundown its fine
the mornings are good too
Doesn't sound like sun outage if it's lasting for three hours...BCSTech - 9-23-2012 at 11:04 AM
Also, too early for your area. Check the calculator.Bob and Susan - 9-23-2012 at 11:17 AM
actually last year we never saw a change...i really wonder if we will notice something this year
Distance Between the Sun and Planets
BCSTech - 9-23-2012 at 04:00 PM
I posted this as a rely in the OFF TOPIC area, but thought it was too cool to miss...
Along the sidewalk in front of the Smithsonian Museums on the National Mall in Washington DC, there is a "Journey Through Our Solar System," visual
demonstration of how far apart the planets are from the sun and from each other, and how truly tiny earth is compared with the rest of our solar
system.
As you walk down the sidewalk, you pass by scale representations of the sun and planets. The two women in the foreground below are standing near a
representation of the sun, the size of a grapefruit. The person in the background is standing in front of a representation of Mercury, an
almost-invisible speck. The earth, at the next-to-last pole on the left, is 23 paces from the sun, and displayed as a dot the size of the tip of
ballpoint pen. Mars is at the last pole on the left in the photo, and is an even smaller dot on the display.
After the four inner planets, the distances become truly enormous. The entire exhibit spans about 2,000 feet down the sidewalk, and takes about 10
minutes to walk the whole solar system.
It was astonishing, and ... humbling.
Bill Nye also did a pretty compelling demo of sizes and distances in this video:
