Eastern Satellites

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icehanger

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Sep 23, 2008
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I am getting most of the Satellites in Western Hemisphere (Hope thats the technical term, if not please educate me) but when I try Easter satellites I get some signal no quality ( as Iceberg says signal means nothing) is it the case for everyone live in Midwest ? I am trying to get Intelsat 4 at 72.0°E or Eurobird 3 at 33.0°E. Is there a way I can check what satellites get for a particular region in United States.
 
Those satellites are on the other side of the planet.
Same as the moon being down below the horizon.
Same as the sun at night.
They're just not visible at all.
 
Hi, a real quick and simple way to get an idea of what you may be able to hit is to take your Longitude of 95 west and then + or minus 40.

Example 55 west to 135 west would be the easy ones.

This will give you the easy ones with steep elevation angle that should miss most trees Ect.

If you have a real clear view to the S.E. or S. W you should be able to hit + or minus 55.

That will get you started.

Hope this helps, DC
 
delt charlie,

That was a nice explanation. Do you mind to explain how that '40' figure came from.
 
delt charlie,

That was a nice explanation. Do you mind to explain how that '40' figure came from.

Hi, one day while aiming one of my fixed dishes it just popped into my head. The highest elevation is going to be your due south and there must be some standard amount + or minus on either side of due south that would still be high enough in the arc to be ease to hit. So I went to dishpointer.com and tried a few trial and error and came up with the 40 as a good average. The farther north (or south) of the equator you are the lower your elevation is going to be to start with so the 40 was just a good average that should work just about any place on earth. It even works way up in Alaska; however, because Alaska is so far to the north the elevation on any of the satellites is quite low and you would need a very clear unblocked view to the south.

About the only tricky part is if you live closer to zero or 180 longitude you would be able to cross over from the west to to the east satellites or vice versa.

If you take Anchorage Alaska for example the longitude is about 150 west if you add 40 to it you would get 190. If you subtract this from 360 you would get 170. That would be 170 East.

To make this as simple as I can just remember that after you add or subtract 40 from your longitude if you end up with less then zero or more then 180 you will have to do a bit more math to figure out what East or West satellites you can receive.

Hope this helps, DC
 
rule of thumb

I use a similar rule of thumb.
I go to one of the dish aiming calculators and input my location.
The satellite at your same longitude will be the highest one in the sky.
That's the one with the highest elevation.

As you go east or west of that satellite, they all get lower in the sky.
Any satellite about 20° elevation or more, should be easy to receive (assuming no threes, buildings, mountains in the way).
Satellites down to maybe 10° elevation will be tricky, but possible to receive.
Any bird below 0° elevation will be totally impossible to hit.

A good fringe example, would be folks living on the east coast of the USA.
Shooting over water, they could possibly catch a satellite down to a couple of degrees above the horizon, since they are looking across a flat terrain.

Another consideration is this:
To the observer (that's you), satellites 2° apart, located high in the sky, appear farther apart.
As you choose satellites down to your east or west, they appear closer together.
So, being able to pick out one bird of many, close to the horizon, may become difficult.
A larger dish with sharper aiming may be helpful.
Most motorized systems cannot accurately aim your dish as you get close to the ends of travel (east or west limits).
 
icehanger

since in your sign you posted that you are at 95W you should be able to get (with a good line of site) from 58W to 148W...I'm farther east (93W) but farther north (44.7) and that is what I can get
 
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