Several officials from the Cuban Company for Radio-communication and Broadcasting (Radiocuba) have warned that in the next few days, TV signal reception services for analog and digital terrestrial television could be affected in some parts of the national territory, mainly in coastal regions.

According to Radiocuba, those irregularities could take place as a consequence of the current atmospheric conditions in the region, which have been characterized by high pressure and clear weather that favor the formation of ducts in the troposphere —lowest part of the atmosphere—, through which TV signals are broadcast.

«Tropospheric ducts are layers that in certain times of the year and during relatively short periods suffer variations that turn them into ideal conductors that favor the spread of TV signals to far longer distances than usual. The main consequence of those tropospheric ducts are related to the fact that several signals from different broadcasting centers, regions or even countries come together around the same area, and so interfering local broadcasts and undermining their appropriate reception», Radiocuba explained.

According to the quoted source, digital television services will be the most affected ones, since analog television allows for a certain level of interference that sometimes is very evident in TV signal receivers; however, in the case of Digital TV, it does not allow such signal degradations, therefore, it is either displayed well or not displayed at all.

Those ducts are commonly strengthened during evenings and nights, when the soil starts getting colder, and they grow weaker at dawn with sunrise. The unpredictability and variability of this phenomenon, as well as its low probability rates (less than 5% of time) do not allow for it to be taken into account at the time of devising a radio and television broadcasting system plan, making it impossible for Radiocuba to come up with a solution for this problem and provide uninterrupted and quality services of radio and television signals broadcasting during the occurrence of such phenomenon.

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