FEers don't believe in satellites as the existence of satellites can be used to disprove that the earth is flat . Satellites can take pictures of a round earth and FEers don't like to see them. For FEers, those pictures are fabricated. Geostationary satellites are even worse. In order for an object to be geostationary, the object must orbit around the earth at the same angular velocity as earth's rotation and at a certain altitude above the equator such that the centrifugal force due to the orbital movement is equal to the gravitational force.
An object cannot orbit a flat earth while remaining stationary above it. Furthermore, geostationary orbit is at 22,000 miles from earth, way above the FE sun. So satellite existence simply doesn't fit into FE model.
FEers say GPS works based on Loran (LOng RAnge Navigation), a terrestrial radio navigation system. Radio can travel long distance in FE model because the earth is flat. FEers also say that satellite TV works based on transmission towers. Dishes don't get signal from a geostationary satellite but rather from a very tall tower somewhere.
But how tall can these towers be? And where are they exactly located? Before answering my questions, I will show you some pictures taken in some places near the equator for you to ponder.
Everyone who lives where I come from is used to this kind of scenery. We all believe that satellites do exist since birth because the proof is everywhere around us. So yes we are all born REers.
So there you are and I guess now it's time for me to listen to you
EDIT 28/08/2013: Thank you for all of you who have participated and those who have attempted to give explanation. For others, you are more than welcome to read through pages of comments posted here so far but I'd also like to provide below a summary of what have been discussed. By this summary, at least I expect you to avoid double post, or to complete a half-baked hypothesis proposed by others.
Only two reasonable hypothesis have been proposed so far by FE proponents:
- Some sort of stratellites exist. They are caught up in the wake of the UA, causing them to circle the Earth just as the celestial objects. Flaw: the dishes don't move so those stratellites don't circle the Earth neither. They are stationary. Unanswered questions from this hypothesis include why they don't circle the Earth like other celestial objects and why they have to be above the equator (and most of the time above the ocean)
- Equatorial towers sending the signals upward and to get the signals bounced back by ionosphere. Flaw: there is what we call critical angle and critical frequency. Only the lower end of HF signals (in the order of MHz) can be bounced back to Earth by the atmosphere. The higher the frequency the lower the incidence angle has to be for the signal to be bounced back. Moreover, those dishes are designed for GHz signals, way above bounceable HF signals. One unanswered question from this hypothesis is that in most cases those towers would have to be in the middle of the ocean.
I really hope that one of you can give at least one flawless hypothesis for the benefits of other flat earthers. I do not include baseless arguments in the list above. They don't count as hypothesis as they simply fail observation such as
- Those dishes are rain water collector. → the photos show dishes which are clearly made of meshed material
- Those dishes are solar power dishes. → solar power dishes are always shiny to reflect solar radiation
- The feedhorn of the dishes are actuality tiny black holes used as "light magnets" to pull signals from space. → you don't observe anomaly around the feedhorn
- And finally, satellites simply don't exist without any further explanation. → this is an attitude which I cannot accept in this thread
EDIT 29/08/2013: The new readers may find that some passages are difficult to follow. This is because one poster, sceptimatic, has decided for some reasons unknown to me to remove all his posts from this thread. Although most, if not all, of his posts are generally low content but this irrational deletion makes some conversations -- especially those that replied to him without quoting -- are hard to understand.
I apologize for this but it was out of my control.