Satellites at CONUS slots

[gpflepsen]

I've always wondered this: How many satellites can occupy one CONUS slot? What is the physical seperation between multple satellites in a slot? I hear about additional birds being put into orbit with existing birds.

[Mike123abc]

Several satellites can put in the same slot. They usually are assigned an orbit location about .2 degrees apart. Satellites drift slowly out of orbit and are then moved back to their assigned location with thrusters. So, they are assigned a small area to move back and forth in.

You can go to http://www.lyngsat.com/tracker/america.shtml and see the satellites current reported position. For example today it is showing Dish's 61.5 at 61.43.

Small dishes see large swatches of sky as a single satellite. That is why DBS frequencies are 9 degrees apart. The larger the dish the smaller the swatch is, so if you use a large dish (16') you would actually have to start moving the dish slightly to see the different satellite signals in the same slot.

[Jacob S]

So the smaller they make the satellite dishes the more of the sky it sees? The cablevision's Rainbow at 61.5 that will be launched at the end of the year will have a 13 inch dish. I thought it would be the other way around since there would be less dish to view the rest of the sky but it must be the focal point being larger for the small dish or something.

How come can the bigger dish not get the slots just .10 away? Is it because it is not high power but low power? The shape of the dish?

[Mike123abc]

Think of it as a telescope. The more the magnification the smaller area you are actually seeing. You look up in the sky with just your eyes the moon is a small thing and you see the whole sky. You use a low power telescope and the moon takes up most of the image you see, but you see more details because it appears closer. Keep increasing the power of the telescope and before long you just see a single crater on the moon.