If you have DirecTV or Dish Network, you need a large dish that has to be pointed at the satellite — which can be a real hassle if you live in an apartment and your landlord has restrictions. For example, in my community the dish can’t be attached to the building or placed in a common area, so the only way I could get hooked up was to use my downstairs neighbor’s dish, which is in the only acceptable spot I could have used.
However, my car has a Sirius receiver that’s about 3-4 square inches, and it works no matter which way the car is facing.
Is there some reason why the DirecTV and Dish can’t use similar receivers. They would be almost invisible on a building and might even work if placed on a window sill, which means that they could actually hook up more subscribers.
This was an interesting question! I headed on over to the physics forum and asked a similar question. Here’s the answer provided by superstar mgb_phys