Subj : Re: TV Woes
To   : MIKE POWELL
From : Rob Mccart
Date : Mon Sep 29 2025 07:50:39

RM>> I was thinking more like as with satellite phones you can call
  >> from anywhere on earth if you have line of sight to the chain
  >> of satellites over the equator.

MP>It is difficult for me to get my head around geo-stationary, too.  I think
  >of the Earth spinning and of satellites moving.  Somehow, they get them
  >moving at the same rate of the Earth's spin, and sometimes makes small
  >corrections with thrusters, so they stay in the same relative area.

Yes, that string of satellites is known as the Clarke Belt, named
after the Sci-Fi author Arthr C. Clarke who suggested the idea in a
letter/article he wrote in 1945 called Wireless World, long before
the idea of satellites was even considered, where he suggested it
could be used to give world wide radio coverage.

A satellite 22,236 miles above the earth circles it in 23 hours,
56 minutes and 4 seconds, the same rate that the earth spins at so,
relative the the ground below, it doesn't move, but it does have to
be over the equator which limits access to far North and South areas
due to the curve of the earth.

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