TV Satellite disruption today? 24/8/2004

When we were watching TV this morning, at between about 12 and 1pm I think, we lost all satellite signal.
We are on Digital Sky TV in the UK.
I went to the technical menu and there was absolutly NO signal, ID transponder or anything. The weather was fine, though even during the heaviest rainstorms when we lose picture, we still get a signal reading and transponder ID.
This lasted for at least 1 minute, and then the system seemed to some back online. As they use a constellation of satellites, even if 1 went down I would still expect the others to be operating? Unless something affected them all.
Wondered if anyone else noticed this and what may have caused it, like maybe solar flare or something?

According to www.spaceweather.com... and by looking at the charts you can see that solar activity is low, so you can rule out a flare of any sort.

Definately not a solar flare my friend...
It could be some sort of automatic software download to your Digi Box or whatever they do to update it or maybe it was just something temporarily wrong with your Digi Box or Satellite that Sky uses(Astra?you could check it out on related website) i didnt watch any Sky Tv today so could'nt possibly say if it was just you or not (havent heard from any of my friends either i could ask them though)and i live in the UK so i dont know really but thought i would give you some ideas of what it could be.

Probably just the Sun in general.

Depending on Latitude n longitude, near springtime and autumn, there are normal Satellite outages..The "noise" from the Sun is more than enough to overcome the signal from the satellite, because the Sun is inline with the Geosynchronous Bird that you are "listening" to...It actually happens to me EVERY day, on a couple a channels, because I am to lazy to climb on the roof and realign my Dish..
Normally though, it's just twice a year for a few days in a row...

Check out the sun position tomorrow if it happens again..See if your dish is looking right at it...

Space


ps. I don't know how many times I've type the word "satellite" on ATS threads..But I never feel that I have spelled it correctly.LOL..It's just one of those words I guess..!

[edit on 24-8-2004 by spacedoubt]

i have had the tv on since about 10 this morning and i havnt noticed it go off. but it might of been during an ad break if it was only for a minute or so and i tend to take no notice while they on. could it be a regional thing ?? im on the isle of wight

Emm, I don't know, maybe it was just my box or something. I didn't move any cables or anything so it's weird. I just wondered if anyone else had experienced it there may be something up.
I can't remember exactly what time it was, I know it was during 'Buffy'