Re: [amsat-bb] Commerciat 2.4 GHz sats

["Edward R. Cole" <al7eb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>At 08:52 AM 7/15/02 -0500, Tom Busch - WB8WOR wrote:
>>XM-1 and XM-2, for the XM satellite service.  They are geosynchronous, and
>
>>you can find keplerians for them at http://www.celestrak.com.  Look in
>geo.txt.
>>
>>By the way, I plotted the footprint for these and it appears there is no
>>service in Alaska, but it seems to cover a big part of the Pacific Ocean.
>
>According to Nova, XM-1 (at 89.3 degrees) covers most of Alaska - except
>the western portion of the state).  XM-2 covers all of Alaska.  I will
>point out that the coverage may be pretty marginal as the angle is pretty
>low, but all of Alaska is in at least one of the footprints.

Jim,

Maybe if we (Alaskans) put a ten-foot dish on our car...he! he!  I really
know little about this radio broadcast service except from some of the
alarmist reactions from ham microwavers.

To put in perspective though:  early small-dish TV was available in Alaska,
but, of course the satellite was pointed at "Kansas...Dorthy"  not up here.
 So the foot print signals were so far down that it took a six-foot dish to
receive with...I guess that qualifies as "small-dish" since the old c-band
dishes had to be at least ten-foot for good reception.  Today they have
enough ku-band satellites that they have been able to re-point a couple
"old" ones our way so that 30-inch dishes will suffice!  Ain't progress cool!

I now return this bb back to its previously scheduled program!

Ed

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