LORAN

Long range communications technology has been around since World War 2. 99% of all long range communications today are through cables laid along the ocean floor. LORAN is most likely the Technology used for "satellite" TV, because none of the dishes pan across the sky and most are fixed around about a 45° angle. They don't point straight up. I have installed two dishes myself in the past. The instructions said to begin by pointing the dish southwest towards Texas. There was most likely a very tall land based tower somewhere in that area. So if you were to live in California then the instructions may have told you to begin by pointing the dish Southeast towards Texas? The dish then needed to be fine tuned by a special TV screen. I had to adjust the Y and Z axis until maximum signal strength was obtained. Plus or minus 1 notch in the wrong direction meant no signal, it had to be perfect. Knowing this, it would be impossible for it work if it was receiving a signal from a satellite moving thousands of mph across the sky. Also, the location of the dish could not be obstructed by tall trees or other structures.