Interesting outage in Twin Cities

[Panavision]

Last night, I was watching America's Got Talent on NBC. About twenty minutes into the show, the picture began breaking up due to some pretty heavy rains over the Twin Cities and south. Since our state held a primary, the affiliate had a ticker running throughout the show. Once the storm got bad enough, the affiliate completely lost the net signal and there was black (the ticker stayed on screen and was animating all the while in pristine HD). After a while anchors cut in to explain that they'd lost NBC's signal. They showed the area radar and it seemed that there was a very heavy cell south, southwest of their station. Would I be off in assuming that they get their feed off AMC-1 Ku-Band? Or, that they have access to NBC's C-band, 8PSK feed, and the storm was just too much for 8PSK? Either way, the tiny cell passed soon after and the affiliate got NBC back.
Didn't NBC use only Ku-band for dsitribution a while back? I would think that even with the largest dish, Ku-band could be compromised in a storm. What do you guys think?

 

[ParaclipseCKu]

A very heavy rain cell would take Ku out first and potentially then C-Band. We have had a few instances at work where heavy rain in the area of the uplink took the signal off the air for a few minutes and this was C-Band.

 

[DiscoLoveGrapes]

We got an impressive amount of rain last night in the Minneapolis area, which I'm sure could have quickly killed more than a few satellite signals.

I used to watch local Channel 13 (WUMN, ex Equity Ku channel) and TBN's channel 25 to see how bad they were getting rain fade. If they were gone, you know downtown was getting storms.

 

[Larobpra]

I lost it last night as well here in northern NY. Was watching on CityTV 17.1 from the Ottawa region, switched to the analog feed on channel 65 (same station) and it was there as well as still being on the NBC mux on 72W. It was partly cloudy here but there wasn't anything between here and the towers that would have cut it off.

 

[Mr Tony]

I agree Disco
WCCO 4 went out at 10:00 and came back 45 minutes later
WUMN was out...they had a "no signal" on the screen
16 (EWTN) and 25 (TBN) I didnt check but assume they were out

It was crazy...got almost 5 inches about 5 miles NW of Mystic Lake

 

[DiscoLoveGrapes]

We're in for more Thursday and Friday night. Yuck.

I was actually surprised how much I could still receive last night on my 30" dish -- I watched a little election returns and still got most of 97 West during the downpours.

 

[ynnedibanez]

the nbc mux 0n 72w was breaking up for me last night during minute to win it.
i checked my sig and the quality meter was still peaking at 99 on the pansat, so i guess it must have been on the uplink side.

 

[B.J.]

I've seen our local networks lose satellite signals occasionally, but the thing that got me, is that while I generally watch the local channels via an OTA ATSC tuner, we also subscribe to DirecTV's local channels. During strong rainstorms, I'll often get signal breakup on my OTA signal, and switch to the SD DirecTV signal. Interestingly, I'll often see the exact same artifacts show up on the DirecTV signal as I'm seeing on my OTA signal. Curious, I put my TV on side by side PIP, with DirecTV on the left, and OTA on the right. Since my DTV goes through a TIVO, there's a several second delay, so I'd watch the OTA, see a bunch of video artifacts, then turn and look at the DTV signal, and I'd see the exact same digital artifacts. I had previously seen the DTV feed go completely out when my OTA went out, so I had assumed that they were receiving the same OTA signal I was, and I also thought that the reception problems I would have during storms was all on my end, due to some big wet pine trees nearby that would cause reception problems, however when I see the DTV signal have exactly the same digital artifacts, ie blocks at the same time in the same place, I decided that the rain must me messing with the microwave link between the studio and the transmitter site, and the artifacts are being generated in the transmitter site receiver.
At least that's my guess. But anyway, it's nice to see that the professionals have some of the same reception problems that we do.

 

[Mr Tony]

BJ
some markets Dish and Directv actually pick them up OTA and some are via fibre or something like a direct setup in the studio. I use to have Mankato, MN locals (well LOCAL...they are a 1 channel DMA KEYC 12 CBS and now Fox subchannel) and one time recently during a storm the transmitter actually went out. They said on air "I dont think we're on over the air anymore" and they thought it was out on all 3 systems (OTA, cable and D*.....this is before Dish added them in June) but I called them to say that they were still on Directv. OTA showed signal but black screen and "bad signal" on the TV.
Also they go off the air every day at 1:00AM and on OTA signal goes to 0 yet D* shows color bars or the station logo all night