Solar Outages

If you are experiencing fluttering or inconsistent radio transmission during live broadcasting, it may be due to solar outages.

The interference is caused when the sun is in direct line with a communication satellite and the sun’s radiation overwhelms the satellite signal.

A solar or sun transit out is an electromagnetic phenomenon wherein a station downlink is temporarily unable to receive a satellite signal due to interference from the sun as it passes behind the satellite.

Solar outages occur on a predictable schedule and affect downlinks in the U.S. for about ten consecutive days, for as much as six minutes a day, twice each year.