Solar flares hit radio and satellite services

gameboy

TURMOIL on the surface of the Sun is threatening the Earth with radio blackouts, grid overloads and satellite disruptions.

At the centre of the storm is a giant sunspot which is blasting out solar flares charged with powerful X-rays.

Energetic particles are pouring out, posing a risk to sensitive communication systems.

Sunspot 798, which at its peak has been five times larger than the Earth, has produced seven huge X-class flares since 7 September.

A solar flare is a massive explosion on the Sun that can release as much energy as a billion megatons of TNT.

One on Wednesday last week was rated X-17 on a scale which measures the intensity of flares, making it the fourth biggest on record.

Space weather forecasters at the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) say there is a 60 per cent chance of more X-flares over the next 24 hours.

X-rays can black out short-wave radio links to sailors and pilots and disrupt satellite navigation signals.

With solar flares come streams of particles which can cause severe damage to satellites and spacecraft.

Source: Scotsman

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Only he who does nothing, does nothing wrong.

Raihani

Where did you come across this information? At almost exactly that time I started having difficulties receiving Astra 2D (I live in Tuscany in Italy) and now I have totally lost all BBC and ITV Channels!!!! I never thought that it may have something to do with Solar Flares. I started looking at the LNB amongst other things but with no success. The problem is that the solar flares coincided with some terrible weather in Italy (or may be the bad weather was caused by the flares!..... so I naturally thought that some water had got into parts where it is not supposed to be or that the wind had altered the position of the dish. Do you have any further updates on the solar flares, is there a web site that you recomend? Are the flares still occuring and is their effect lingering on? By the way still no Astra 2D.

All the best
Simon R

gameboy

This information was taken from a newspaper article you can get up-to-date information here

Would like to think this wasn't your problem on what date did you lose Astra 1D?

Maybe someone here can help....

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Only he who does nothing, does nothing wrong.

Channel Hopper

A sunspot would not knock out just one of the transponders from the many on the satellite. It sounds like you have a badly pointed dish

For more sun observations

http://www.dxlc.com/solar/

and

http://www.ips.gov.au/Main.php?CatID...ctivity%20Plot

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