Sun Feb 19, 2017 9:02 pm
#1520259
gaznav wrote:Surely the comms sats are near the horizon and so the dishes would point towards the horizon like my Sky dish?
Assuming geostationary, then yes, between the horizon (more likely 15 degrees or more) and 28 degrees above the horizon, depending on the position of the satellite. This also puts the beam out towards the azimuth rather than the elevation. But satellite comms are generally at much lower power than the HF "beam towards the horizon" stuff. If they're tracking low earth orbit satellites rather than geostationary then they could be anywhere in the 180 degrees of the sky.
Your Sky dish looks more horizontal than it is actually receiving from by the way, as it's an offset feed and only using part of the parabola. The beam is still probably no more than 27 degrees above the horizon.