THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 29, 1996 TAG: 9602290295
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B6 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
TYPE: Local Briefs
LENGTH: Short : 29 lines
Cable subscribers may experience brief periods of degraded or interrupted reception of satellite-delivered cable channels during the first 10 days of March, the result of solar interference.
Falcon Cable's Regional Engineer, Joel Sproat, says solar interference results when the orbital positions of the satellite and the sun move into one line.
When this happens, the more powerful rays of the sun subdue the satellite-delivered cable programming signals. During the periods of interference, cable customers may see an increasingly snowy picture which may progress to total picture loss for several minutes.
The number of days, times and durations of interference will vary from channel to channel, depending on the satellite from which they are delivered and the geographic location of Falcon's receive site.
Generally, however, the periods of interruption are expected to be approximately 10 to 15 minutes long. by CNB