Geostationary Dish Look Angle Calculator

How this is worked out

A geostationary satellite sits above a fixed point on the equator (its "orbital longitude") at an altitude where its orbital period exactly matches Earth's rotation, so from the ground it appears motionless in the sky. This tool uses standard satellite-communications spherical geometry: the angle between your location and the sub-satellite point gives the elevation (how far up from the horizon to tilt the dish), and a hemisphere-aware bearing calculation gives the azimuth (compass direction, measured clockwise from true north) to point it. A negative elevation means the satellite is below your horizon and can't be reached from that location, however the dish is aimed.

Frequently asked questions

Why does the dish point roughly south in the UK?

All geostationary satellites orbit above the equator, so anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere has to look generally southward (and generally northward from the Southern Hemisphere) to see one — the exact bearing then shifts east or west of due south depending on how far the satellite's orbital longitude is from your own.

Is true north the same as magnetic north here?

No — this tool's azimuth is measured from true (geographic) north. A magnetic compass reads magnetic north, which differs from true north by your location's magnetic declination (a few degrees in most inhabited places, more near the poles); professional dish installers usually use a sun or GPS-based method rather than a compass alone for this reason.

Related tools: Coordinates Converter, Bearing & Azimuth Converter, Orbital & Escape Velocity Calculator.

Source / Last verified: standard satellite-communications look-angle geometry (as taught in satellite engineering references such as Roddy, Satellite Communications, and university course notes, e.g. Georgia Tech's ECE6390 propagation notes), using a spherical-Earth model with a geostationary orbital radius of 42,164 km and Earth radius 6,378.137 km. Read/checked 1 October 2026: this tool's elevation and azimuth were cross-checked against an independent ECEF vector calculation (station and satellite as 3D position vectors, elevation and azimuth from the local horizon frame) and matched exactly throughout the visible range; a London dish pointed at 28.2°E (a commonly used European satellite slot) comes out at about 25° elevation, 145° azimuth (south-east-ish), consistent with the low elevations UK installers commonly report for that slot.