Spring can bring beautiful sunshine, flowers, and... TV outages?

Have you ever noticed audio distortion, pixelated video or freezing video on your cable TV? Maybe you've noticed it oddly happens twice a year.

Well, we can blame the sun for that.

Twice a year, right before the spring equinox and right after the fall equinox, the sun lines up perfectly with satellites that transmit cable signals. Radiation from the sun hits the satellite directly, causing interference and brief signal outages.

This occurs on and off for about a week during spring and fall, and it usually happens daily from 11.am. to 5 p.m. during this time frame.

Unfortunately, there's nothing the cable company can do about it but the interferences usually last only a few minutes at a time. Luckily, the sun outages don't impact internet and phone services.

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