The site allows you to track particular satellites, or view satellites that are in your particular bit of sky...
Even if a satellite is in line of sight with your location, however, it doesn't necessarily mean that you can get a signal from it. Many of the antennae on a satellite are directional. The rather wonderful SatBeams website shows actual satellite coverage maps for a selected satellite:
Where does SatBeams claim to get its data from? Is this a trusted source? Does the satellite tracking data site offer any explanation of where it gets its data from, and if so, how does this compare with the SatBeams site?
How can visitors to the Satbeams site particpate by contributing data back to it? In what ways might this user contributed data add value to the site or detract from it?
As well as satellite locations, it's also possible to find locations for other transmitters. For example, here's a geo-referenced list of UK television and radio transmitters.
(If you come across any related lists, such as a list of UK mobile phone cell masts, please post a link in a comment to this post:-)
1 comment:
Tony,
Thank you very much for posting good words about my website!
To answers your questions...
In general, I tried to collect the best sources for the maps. In most of the cases maps correspond to official maps posted by respective satellite providers on their websites. In case providers maps were not available I was looking for other sources like internet blogs, forums etc. Anyway, the maps are provided as theoretical reference and may not necessarily correspond to real situation.
Therefore coming to another question: how satbeams visitors could contribute? It is actually one of the main ideas, that users can post their reception reports stating what they can receive and where. This way we could match the actual reception reports with theoretical maps.
Finally I would like to say that we are working on the new website release that will have more functionality and possibilities for users to contribute. So stay tuned!
Best regards,
Alexander
www.satbeams.com admin
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