[nickrulercreator]

If satellite radio, satellite tv, etc is really just coming from a source on the ground, why can you not receive signal when an object, such as a building, tunnel, bridge, etc is blocking the receiver? Regular AM/FM radio works in those situations, should Satellite radio not also work?

[KevAmiga]

Doesn't work because;

a. The signal is generally of a very high frequency. "Mobile phones operate at 800–900 and 1700–2100 MHz. Iridium Communications satellite phones use frequencies between 1616 and 1626.5 MHz to communicate with the satellites." Higher the frequency, the more line of sight it becomes,  same with HF vs UHF/VHF. AM radio is MW, even lower than HF, and AM/FM is the lower portion of VHF radio.

b. The signal is coming from above, a Satellite.

But - you already knew that

[Pete Svarrior]

Regular AM/FM radio works in those situations, should Satellite radio not also work?

A poor comparison, to say the least, given the completely different frequency bands. A much more elegant way of illustrating this is by comparing stratellite radio to 2.4GHz Wi-Fi. For the curious, you can then amp your experiment up a notch by also comparing it to 5GHz Wi-Fi. Can you, the reader, guess what will happen to the higher frequency signal when it encounters obstacles?

[Treep Ravisarras]

Yes poor comparison, it would be better to think about ‘satellite’ tv.

Why does ‘satellite’ tv only work when I aim my dish at precisely the single spot in the sky?

I don’t know what’s up there. I don’t want to believe in satellites but FE theory doesn’t really give me any serious answer. What’s up there that enables me to watch Formula One on the weekends

[frankmejias]

Reflection, refraction, diffraction, scattering, absorption and free space path loss. All anomalies that plague almost every wireless transmission. It has nothing to do with where the transmission is located (terrestrial or not) but everything to do with the make up of the surroundings and transmission/receive path.

[nickrulercreator]

Reflecting on this question, I agree it was probably poor. Though, Treep still raises good points as well.

[Treep Ravisarras]

Reflection, refraction, diffraction, scattering, absorption and free space path loss. All anomalies that plague almost every wireless transmission

Are you referring to atmospheric effects? Are you aware that that theory states that these change a fair bit over time? You should be aware. If this were causing the mystery I would expect to have to change my dish all the time, say it starts to rain or heats up during my Formula One race, I loose signal and I need to change the angle of my dish to find the new reflection/refraction/diffraction angle.

But no, it’s always there, the source for my tv show, always at the precise single spot in the sky. What’s up there?

P.s. absorption and path loss obviously are irrelevant as they just cause a slight reduction in the amplitude of the received signal. I’m not sure why you bring these up as they clearly don’t help FE theory. Pls don’t mention these again as it just makes us look silly

[Treep Ravisarras]

Anyone know, what's up there? 

[xenotolerance]

the short answer for satellite tv is, there are multiple satellites, and the dish isn't super directional

see wiki to start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_dish

[inquisitive]

the short answer for satellite tv is, there are multiple satellites, and the dish isn't super directional

see wiki to start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_dish

Dishes are very directional and point to one satellite usually..

[xenotolerance]

Oh yeah, totally right. Satellites used for tv are geostationary, according to this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_television, so one dish can point in one direction to one satellite and get signal.

I made a couple of bad inferences before. There are multiple satellites, but any given dish is pointing at just one.