Why do so many businesses have weird satellite dishes?

Something I've always wondered about - why do so many businesses have odd shaped satellite dishes on their roof? They're usually rectangular, with rounded ends - not like anything used for consumer TV or internet. I've seen them on McDonalds, Jiffy Lube, lots of gas stations, etc. What the heck are they for?

Those are for data transfers. It ties them in to corporate nets.

They're called VSATs (Very Small Aperture Terminals). Gorn is correct, they're for data transmission. Very popular for linking point-of-sale systems back to the home office.

That's interesting...why don't they just use the internet since it's nearly 2008? :thinking:

Also used for credit card machines. Ever noticed the difference between small business who's credit card swipe has a dedicated telephone line that has to dial up with the old school modem communication sounds as it processes your transaction, where larger businesses' credit swipes are almost instantaneous? It's much harder to hack a site to satellite to central office connection versus a regular internet connection.

easier to do satellites, in the hotel business sometime you can't get highspeed where you are located and satellite is the only way unless you spend tons of money to have a feed ran to you.

I have a slightly off topic, yet related question.... How do all those chain restaurants get their radio signals? I know they have special subscriptions they buy that gives them dozens of different commercial free music to play, but how do they GET those signals? I often wonder this in relation toremote areas or before the internet became prevalent to spread broadband.

Background music systems have used dedicated phone lines, sub-carrier fm, satellite, and even custom made 16 2/3 RPM 9" records. Here's a site with some interesting history of the past machines and methods.

havand said:

I have a slightly off topic, yet related question.... How do all those chain restaurants get their radio signals? I know they have special subscriptions they buy that gives them dozens of different commercial free music to play, but how do they GET those signals? I often wonder this in relation toremote areas or before the internet became prevalent to spread broadband.

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Many of them use the same satellite radio system, which is really where satellite radio was born. It just took them years to shrink the receivers down so that everyone could enjoy the technology, and XM and Sirus radio was born.

You can roll your own SCA receiver adaptor here...

I know Kmart and Big W in Australia have there own in house radio that comes via a satellite link.
Norm

So they can communicate with the NSA.

They are off-axis fed parabolic segment antennas, the off axis feed reduces the side-lobe interference on transmit and noise level on receive. I worked on the original program in the late 80's during a lull in my main project. I did the test procedures for the antenna, wind load calculations, pointing program and field installation manual. I also worked on the auto-testing program for the hardware. Our Marketing department shot itself in it's remaining foot and we never landed enough customers to make it profitable. The parent company sold the program to Hughes, lock, stock and barrel, including most of the design staff. I stayed on to finish my main project and the company made my an offer I couldn't refuse. Took the money and ran...