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Our Center of Box predictions are used for fine pointing of earth station antennas.

In space, satellites are not stationary. They have a daily rotation movement following the rotation of the Earth and are affected by other factors from the space environment. However, they should remain operating within an imaginary box of a +/-0.05 degree orbital position in latitude and longitude. Center of Box predictions serve as a guide for antenna alignment correction.

We recommend that any adjustments are carried out when the satellite is located at Center of Box.

Use our antenna pointer application to calculate the azimuth and elevation of your antenna.

The calendar of sun interference is available here.

The schedules are in GMT time. If you require information about a specific location, please call our Customer Service Center.

Sun interference occurs when the sun crosses the Earth's equatorial plane and is aligned with the satellite and the antenna beam of an earth station. This causes a significant increase in the thermal noise of the antenna that interferes with its normal operation.

It is a predictable phenomenon which depends on the geographic position of the earth station and the position of the satellite. It usually only lasts for several minutes and is increased by a smaller antenna size, because its beamwidth is wider. 

The phenomenon occurs twice a year, during Equinox: from late March to early April (spring equinox in the northern hemisphere) and from late September to early October (autumn equinox in the northern hemisphere).

Eutelsat Americas’ technical standards are intended to ensure the quality of our service signals and to avoid harmful interference to networks operating in our fleet of satellites or our neighboring satellites.

Our standards include criteria for the allocation of bandwidth resources and power of the satellite segment as well as the requirements that must be met by earth stations to transmit to Eutelsat Americas’ satellites.