On Sun, 4 Nov 2001, Brett Frankenberger wrote:
Well, actually there is a caveat: the distance to the satellite is never exactly 22500 miles. Depending on whether the orbit is measured from the surface of the earth (which is obviously the case for regular non-geosynchronous satellites) or the center of the earth (which I think is done with the 22500 mi figure) the satellite is either farther away or closer, depending on the location of the observer and the orbit of the satellite. The difference is substantial: up to 4000 miles.
geosynchronous orbit is 22500 miles from the *surface* of the earth.
well sorta... it's ~35787km above mean sea-level which is around 22,366 miles. That altitude is about 42164km above a point represting the earths center of gravity on the equitorial plane. there's a copy of the wireless world (1945) article by arthur c clarke here: http://www.lsi.usp.br/~rbianchi/clarke/ACC.ETRelays.html the actual distance from you to the sattelite will vary based on your location but the distance from the point over the equater where it sits to the sattelite will remain constant...
-- Brett
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