Andrew Glasbrenner expunged (glasbrenner@mindspring.com):
Probably a good pointing spot would be where XM and Sirius Point their antennas - just about on the Canadian Border close to Winnipeg- Manitoba 73 Robin VE3FRH.
Probably not if we care about covering the Southern Hemisphere. We really don't know enough even to speculate, but this likely won't be a spot beam like the Ku and C band transponders use. Range will be less than AO-40, so the earth is a fairly big target still.
I guess it comes down to what we expect the groundstations to have for gain.
If we assume an AO-40 class station, it probably won't make a difference. If we're talking about some sort of handheld data device, that may be different. We don't need quite the same amount of gain that XM radio or Sat TV would require, from the groundstation perspective.
-Steve N1JFU