MSNBC - odd question about outages

[OKNancy]

Do any of you who have MSNBC on during the day have periodic outages? It freezes then goes black for me and it is usually around the same time of day - between 3 and 3:30 ???

[2naSalit]

1. I don't

have a teevee so I can't answer that but I have been listening to my usual NPR station that carried the BBC news hourly reports and an full hour at noon and it was not available today at all, dead air for the whole hour. It's still not there when the hourly update or whatever its called is programmed to run...? Hmmm. Maybe a round of hacking?

[Nite Owl]

2. Yes

It will happen several times then ok for a couple of weeks. Other channels seem ok. Don't know if it is on their end or my cable provider (Time Warner).

[No Vested Interest]

8. I sometimes have a problem

getting MSNBC and HLN, and some other "off-brands".

And, yes, I have Time-Warner, too.

[southernyankeebelle]

3. I have it. Believe it or not our power just went out a few minutes ago. I was getting

ready to call the electric dept., but it came back on. I live in a rural area and sometimes our power does go out but not long. It is usually a surge. If I were you I would start keeping track of it by writing down the date and times. It is strange if it is happening at the same time of the day.

[jeff47]

4. Are you using cable?

Cable companies have more channels than bandwidth - not every station will fit in the wire going to your house.

So what they've done is moved to "Switched Digital Video". Essentially, the cable company only sends out channels that someone is actively watching.

So what could be happening is they might still be running out of room on your local loop, and MSNBC drops. You re-tune to MSNBC and the cable box re-requests the station, and it comes back in again. Repeat until the cable network finds someone who left their TV on and doesn't re-tune to whatever they were watching.

[OKNancy]

6. yes, Cox cable

interesting. I could be the only person in Tulsa watching! lol

[AndyA]

9. You aren't alone, I usually have MSNBC on as well, and I have Cox

I know of at least a few others in town who watch it as well, so you're in good company!

[RC]

5. Maybe the sun behind a satellite, swamping out the signal?

http://www.radio-electronics.com/info/satellite/solar-effects/sun-solar-outages-basics-tutorial.php

When do satellite solar outages occur

For geostationary satellites, solar outages occur around the equinoxes, i.e. March / April and then again in September / October. At these times of year the Sun crosses the equator and it traces an arc that places it directly behind geostationary satellites.

[EC]

7. It does that when I'm

watching MSNBC International on RockinRooster's where it's from Germany...so maybe you're watching International?

[AndyA]

10. I haven't noticed this

From time to time, I have "tiling" where squares appear on the screen and the sound stops momentarily, but it's not a regular thing.

Have you tried rebooting your cable box? On mine, you just hold the power button in until the display starts flashing, then release it and the box will rebuild all of its information. It doesn't take long, but the program guide might not have everything listed right away.

If you haven't already done this, it might help.