Why Not A Northern Satellite?

[ledalinol]

Im just wondering if anyone can tell me why DirecTV cannot put a satellite to the north. Seems to me they are excluding half of the apartment dwellers in the country who do not face the south.

 

[qman]

Geosynchronous satellites (ones that appear stationary to us on the earth) orbit the earth at essentially the equator. They are all in the south if you live in the northern hemisphere. You could move to South America?

 

[ledalinol]

Call me crazy, but it would be easier for me to move to the southern side of the building... lol. I was just wondering why they didnt have a sattelite to the north.. I miss my DirecTV.
:river

 

[boba]

Actually Russia used to and may still have satellites to the North. The problem was they had to be tracked and it took three satellites to give 24 hour coverage.

 

[da_smush]

DirecTV's satellites only target north america. I guess with a big enough dish/amplification, you could get a pretty weak signal from Brazil or something. I'm definitely not the expert.

 

[mike123abc]

Sirius Radio has satellites to the north... It takes 3 of them though to provide coverage as they go behind the earth. http://spaceflightnow.com/proton/sirius3/001130sirius.html