which part of the country has the best fta signals

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Techfizzle

Techfizzle

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Apr 18, 2008
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1.i still live with my folks, i plan out moving out in a year or so after i grad from high school, anyway, i have a couple places picked where i want to move to, but i was wondering which area of the us would have the strongest sat signals?

2. how good is signals in denver since its a mile above land?

3. Would someone be able to receiver sats at a longer area east, sa 20-40's west?
 
Techfizzle said:
1.i still live with my folks, i plan out moving out in a year or so after i grad from high school, anyway, i have a couple places picked where i want to move to, but i was wondering which area of the us would have the strongest sat signals?

2. how good is signals in denver since its a mile above land?

3. Would someone be able to receiver sats at a longer area east, sa 20-40's west?
Click to expand...

There is no right answer because it's mostly a give and take situation but I would say East of the Missisippi would increase your chances of getting Atlantic satellites , but then again that wouldn't guarantee you LOS .

Best case scenario would be a deck overlooking surrounding buildings or obstructions and a True Horizon to Horizon LOS .

An even better scenario would be that you can find a good job after High School and afford to live away from your parents ............:D
 
Just looking at the satbeams footprint information, it seems like you want to be East and South. For example, checkout Savannah, Georgia. You can easily see from 12.5°W to 148°W. 12.5°W is at 9.44° elevation and 148°W is 10.9°. Low, but not bad if you have clear line of sight.

There are a few beams on the Atlantic birds that hit GA/FL area as well as some of the East coast. 12.5/15/22/24.5/30/37.5 have coverage on Ku. C-Band would take more investigation, but often covers larger areas, just with weaker signals.

Also Savannah is in a strong area for 97/101/103/123/125 it looks like. Anyone in that area that can comment on picking up Atlantic birds?
 
gillham said:
Also Savannah is in a strong area for 97/101/103/123/125 it looks like. Anyone in that area that can comment on picking up Atlantic birds?
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I'm about 50 miles west of Savannah. Before permanently mounting my 90 cm Ku-band dish last year I took it out in the front yard and pointed it almost directly East through a gap in my neighbor's trees. I was able to pick up Telstar 12 at 15*. I remember my dish looked like it was pointing at the ground! :D

129* is as far West as I have gone. Anything West of that is blocked by my neighbors' trees. Not sure if there is any Ku band I could pick up past that even if there were no trees.
 
Techfizzle said:
1.i still live with my folks, i plan out moving out in a year or so after i grad from high school, anyway, i have a couple places picked where i want to move to, but i was wondering which area of the us would have the strongest sat signals?

2. how good is signals in denver since its a mile above land?

3. Would someone be able to receiver sats at a longer area east, sa 20-40's west?
Click to expand...

For the record Denver IS land.......but it may be a mile above sea level.

I think part of the enjoyment of FTA is in getting as much as you can with the area you are in. As already stated, I don't think there is one right answer to that question.
 
exactly...there is no right answer

The only advice I can give is if you want a lot of spanish programming either move near the border (for the Latin AMerica satellites) or out east (for Hispasat)

Here in MN I can get almost everything just fine. Satmex5 has a footprint issue but since I dont speak Chinese or Spanish that satellite doesnt mean much to me.
 
Here in the southeast, I've gotten excellent reception of just about anything worth pointing a dish at! :cool::up
 
I agree with the answer south east.

It seems like there is better stuff on satellites over the Atlantic than satellites over the Pacific.

West of 148W, it appears there is little to nothing to see from CONUS. (if there is, please let me know...)

I'd like to see Hispasat but it's below the horizon.
 
Lygnsat footprints show that a couple Asian sats beam at the west coast of North America, but they are all on C band.

NSS 9 @177W, Intelsat 701 @180E, and Intelsat 8 @166E all have at least 1 fta channel that beams to the west coast on C band.
 
guapoharry said:
I agree with the answer south east.

It seems like there is better stuff on satellites over the Atlantic than satellites over the Pacific.

West of 148W, it appears there is little to nothing to see from CONUS. (if there is, please let me know...)

I'd like to see Hispasat but it's below the horizon.
Click to expand...

Here in south New Jersey I can get from 15W to 129W on a motorized system with a 90 cm dish. I can get Hispasat, if you are Spanish speaking person there is a lot to see. Only English speaking (if you speak two languages your bilingual, if you speak one language you’re an American) not much to see from 15W heading west until you reach 72W. But I did catch the camel races on Hispasat.

If I take my test dish down to Barnegat bay I can get the one American transponder on 8W. It has two Arabic stations. I have a thread on it search for Atlantic Bird 2.
 
guapoharry said:
I agree with the answer south east.

It seems like there is better stuff on satellites over the Atlantic than satellites over the Pacific.

West of 148W, it appears there is little to nothing to see from CONUS. (if there is, please let me know...)

I'd like to see Hispasat but it's below the horizon.
Click to expand...

nss 9 at 177 west serves the west coast

intelsat 701 at 180 east covers a good portion of the west half of the us

GE 23 at 172 east covers a little of the west us, but is low in signal

intelsat 8 at 166 degrees covers a small part of the west cost but needs at least a 10 footer

those are the farthest west

this is the farthest east

amos 2 and 3 at 4 deg west
 
Techfizzle said:
this is the farthest east

amos 2 and 3 at 4 deg west
Click to expand...

There are no transponders beamed to CONUS on those sats, 8w Atlantic Bird 2 is the only sat that Far East with an American transponder that has two Arabic stations. Search the FTA forum for Atlantic Bird 2 I have pics.
 
huh? i thought you could pick up everything in a footprint since the dish only points one way in space
 
Check out lyngsat.com for those sats and check the beam heading. They all point to europe and the middle east no beam towards the CONUS. Click on the beam heading and you will see that the footprint is no ways near the USA.
 
Thanks, everybody.

Look at it this way: If you are on the east coast say, NY, NY... How many satellites are there with something you could watch east of your true south bird.

Then consider someplace on the west coast, say, San Francisco. How many satellites are there with something you could watch west of your true south bird...

Both of those places are about the same latitude, but there are a lot more satellites east of NY, (to the horizon) than there are west of San Francisco (to the horizon).
 
Techfizzle said:
how good is signals in denver since its a mile above land?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately a mile higher doesn't improve LOS by more than a negligible amount. With lots of luck and the right dish I can squeak 30W in Denver, but at 3 degrees elevation it's too much of a headache to bother with on a permanent basis. If the neighbor's grass gets too long I'm in trouble:) Anything farther west is a piece of cake.
 
Where I live in NY, it's a battle to point an offset Ku dish at 125°W or lower because of the elevation adjustments. Most dishes I own start at 20°. This makes my Primestar look like it's pointed at the ground.

I still haven't tried the upside down dish mount idea yet.
 
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