>I have Direct TV, which I setup myself. (I used to install commerical Satellite dishes) Even with precise alignment you will have conditions of signal fade when the Sun is in front of the satellite or if water laden clouds are between your dish and the satellite (snow, rain). Your dish is probably not putting out more than 5 or 10 watts in the transmit mode, so the same conditions that limit reception would probably limit transmission. Direct TV's dish is only 40cm across. It would help if the StarBand dish were at least 1 m across, or more.

It's 24x36, so it's a little under 1m.
According to them, only big storms should affect reception/transmission.
dk what the wattage is.

Out there, it's the best we'll get until we can get DSL or T1 service - by then, we'll probably have moved to an area that has it, anyway .:)

Thanks for the info!