Dstv Signal Interuption Due To Sun Outage

Sun Outage simply explained is the effects caused on the home satellite receiver getting interference (Noise) from the sun instead of receiving a signal from the transmitter satellite up in the sky.

Geostationary satellites are located along the equator, 36000 km (22 300 miles) away from the earths surface.

Twice a year, this disruption occurs around the month of March and the second time around September. So, what really happens?

Given that the equator is offset by 22.5 degrees, the sun aligns itself directly with the satellite and earths receiving stations twice a year.

Since the Sun emits an ultra high amount of energy in form of heat and light, the receiving stations will receive a higher percentage of noise than useful signal. The difference in percentage is so big that the signal will be rendered useless when reaching the earth.

A few days before the alignment itself, the satellites will gradually start detecting the outage around the same time daily as the day itself nears. And after, the detection will gradually begin to fade slowly daily until the signal is finally balanced and no more interuptions are seen.

On your TV, at first interuptions will take as low as 1 minute and continue rising daily until it peaks to around 15 minutes. Then again the time will reduce gradually until after some days, the signal will stablise.

Can this be solved?

No, this is a natural phenomenon and cannot be solved by your installer or Multichoice. So don't call customer care, just wait it out, it will clear by itself.

Sun Outage affects all services that rely on satellite signals (Geostationery). This includes Zuku Satellite, Startimes Satellite and Azam Tv.