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CBS uses sun spots as an excuse for swiching from Kansas/Mizzou game

N

nd2023

Banned
The CBS affiliate in Kansas City switched from the dramatic final minutes of the Kansas/Mizzou basketball game to the Michigan/MSU game. Fans were outraged in the Kansas City area. The general manager of KCTV said that the "sun spots" knocked out the satellite feed of the game.

Right...

The "sun spots" knocked out the feed at tip-off of the other game. What a coincidence! It's more likely a board op somewhere screwed up and they're covering it up.

On the KCTV facebook page, irate viewers are still complaining. No one believes the sun spots excuse. Welcome to sunspotgate!

On a related note, many years ago I actually kind of did blame "sun spots" for being late to a dinner date. There was an e skip opening and I lost track of time when I was scanning the FM dial. It was a really good opening with the MUF reportedly reached TV channel 8 at times. She forgave me when I showed her my e-skip log that I made in the car. Blame the sun spots for that!
 
This is about the time of year that sun outages occur with satellite signals, so that might be the real explanation. However, the networks always plan for using alternate satellites during those times, so it is a mystery to me why KCTV wasn't able to use an alternate feed.

I think the "sunspot" explanation was from someone who only had a vague idea of what they were talking about. Hopefully not an engineer, who should know better.

What time of day was this?
 
Mediafrog+ said:
This is about the time of year that sun outages occur with satellite signals, so that might be the real explanation. However, the networks always plan for using alternate satellites during those times, so it is a mystery to me why KCTV wasn't able to use an alternate feed.
Click to expand...

Absolutely, we're in the sun outage week.

Of course, the satellites used for radio and TV are geostationary -- they always appear at the same place in the sky. For about a week in early March (and another week in September) the sun appears at the same place as the satellite.

The sun is a VERY powerful radio transmitter! It very much overpowers any satellite us mere humans have managed to orbit.

So for a few minutes every day during a week-long period, satellite signals are wiped out.

The usual fix is to provide a parallel feed on a different satellite. Satellite B will be in front of the sun at a different time from Satellite A; once the outage passes on A, you switch back to A and let B take the fade.

The March outages are around 1-ish PM CT. It varies depending on which satellite and where in the country you are.

Why there was a problem in Kansas City I have no idea.
 
It's just very suspicious that the "sun spots" occurred at the exact time Michigan/Mich. State was going to tip off. You would think the general manager would use the proper terminology of solar interference, and educate the viewers about it on the day's newscast. Instead, he uses the vague "sun spots" excuse and expects the viewers to be gullible. Some viewers looked up the sunspot activity and it was normal, so that discredited that excuse.

Kansas City lies on the border between Kansas and Missouri so they have both sets of fans complaining. It was also a very important Big 12 game, and almost had a "Heidi" style ending. The Topeka affiliate had no problems with the "sun spots" and kept the Kansas/Mizzou game till the end. Since Kansas City and Topeka are only 50 miles apart, some people could get both affiliates, and they noticed Topeka's CBS affiliate didn't lose the feed. Further discrediting the sun spots excuse, since it should have affected both stations.

Some people watching the game in bars left without paying their tabs to hear the end of the game on the radio. Funny how the "sun spots" didn't take out the radio feed too.

I feel like it was a human error which may or may not have been caused by solar interference somewhere. But they're putting the blame entirely on the "sun spots" in hopes that people wouldn't blame the station. However, I'm sure back in the days before cable was widespread, there would be e-skip interference which occurs suddenly and the local station is wiped out and replaced by a station 1000 miles away. And that truly can be blamed on sun spots.

Their Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/KCTV5?ref=ts is a classic PR disaster. It's even worse than Mayor Bloomberg's page the day after the huge blizzard. Don't mess with sports fans!
 
w9wi said:
The March outages are around 1-ish PM CT. It varies depending on which satellite and where in the country you are.
Click to expand...

With several satellites in use in the US, the outages will happen earlier in the day for satellites stationed further east, and later for those further west.

Also, the "sun transit" period (not "sun spots"), occurs early on the further north you are, and later as you go south -- viewers in Florida and Hawaii, for instance, will see the effects of sun transit a few days later than those living in the midwest -- and those in Canada and Alaska would already have their sun transit period wrapped up.
 
Nick said:
It's just very suspicious that the "sun spots" occurred at the exact time Michigan/Mich. State was going to tip off.
Click to expand...

Well, it's not as if CBS has any control over where the sun is :)

Funny how the "sun spots" didn't take out the radio feed too.
Click to expand...

Chances are the radio feed is carried over a different satellite. So there would have been a sun outage, but at a different time.

However, I'm sure back in the days before cable was widespread, there would be e-skip interference which occurs suddenly and the local station is wiped out and replaced by a station 1000 miles away. And that truly can be blamed on sun spots.
Click to expand...

Actually, that can't be blamed on sunspots :) , there is little correlation between sporadic-E and sunspots. We don't know what causes E-skip, but most experts believe the trigger is in Earth's atmosphere.
 
I'm not sure how we ended up with two threads, but KCTV has admitted responsibility. They did not properly prepare their engineering staff for the solar outage.
 
I'm glad to read there was an explaination. As a Mizzou alum living in Los Angeles, I thought CBS had cut away from what was a 15 point game to show the 'regional' action from the Oregon v. Arizona game.
 
I saw something mentioned about having farmed out Master Control to Atlanta, which made the outage happen at a slightly different (and, more disastrous) time. Also, maybe Atlanta didn't have the backup (different orbital slot) satellite available to them.
 
As I posted on the other thread about this subject, the correct name for what some of you have erroneously referred to as "sun spots" is actually sun fade. I understand what causes it, but those of you who are engineers have already explained it a lot better than I could ever have.
 
This sunspot discussion reminds me of the original web address of the Baltimore Sun newspaper: sunspot.net. Posters on its mbs were called Sunspotters.

Sunspot.net is now baltimoresun.com , but some of its mb posters call it bs.com. IYKWIM. But that's a topic for OTA.

ixnay
 
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