Clickable image – Northern Sky View.
We’re camping in a very nice place in the Shenandoah Valley area of Virginia. It is a wooded area with lots of large trees. Unfortunately, for the reception of signals from space satellites, the trees attenuate the microwave signals from the satellites, and can make reception difficult or impossible.
The image above is our view of the Northern Sky where we would point our Starlink® antenna for internet access. After trying to access the Starlink constellation, the app on the phone reported that there was no access to the internet. Note that the orbits of the Starlink satellites are moving across the sky with the ground antenna attempting to lock onto and track the satellites as they move across the sky. The access failed and we finally gave up on using the Starlink at this location.
Clickable image – Southern Sky View.
This next image is of the southern sky from our campsite. In spite of the ominous presence of signal-impeding trees, we are getting good DirecTV satellite reception. I suppose that the stationary (geo-synchronous) satellites are visible between the branches of the lofty trees in that direction.
So, we’re watching our TV shows and enjoying them on DirecTV. As for internet access, we have a fallback position for secure access via our smartphone carrier. We pay a few bucks a month to have this backup and it’s doing its job tonight.