Millions of Israeli television viewers have endured a frustrating month of "frozen" satellite-feed pictures with no end in sight despite frantic efforts by the Yes satellite broadcast company to resolve the problem.
Yes uses the Amos 1 and Amos 2 communications satellites owned by SpaceCom, which has declared both to be functioning normally. Many Yes subscribers, mainly in northern Israel, are threatening to terminate their subscriptions.
The interference began shortly after the 6 September Israeli air raid on Syria, which, according to US and UK press reports, was made possible by Israeli use of an electronic warfare system that "blinded" Syria's state-of-the-art Russian-supplied air defence radar.
Some reports linked the satellite TV interference to the Israeli military activity, but this theory was discounted because the interference has continued. The Israeli Government seems as clueless as Yes as to the cause of the problem.
A second theory linked the interference to intelligence ships of different nations sailing in the Mediterranean, but governments quizzed by Israel deny that their intelligence-gathering could be causing the interference.
Finally, Israeli experts said on 9 October that the interference is caused by "a very strong source" the Israeli minister of communications says ministry experts hope to know the source of the interference in "a few days".
Source: FlightGlobal.com
