C/P How to calculate what size dish you need for your location
You can use this chart to help find out what size dish you will need by looking at the footprint of the satellite your trying to receive. Just look at the footprint image for the satellite your wanting and find where you are on the map. Then take the EIRP value for that area and look for it on the chart and see what the recommended dish size is.
For example, I live in Tampa Florida and I would like to view KU channels on Telstar 5, By looking at the footprint map I can see the EIRP value for my area is 48 which means I should have at least a 65 cm dish (25 inch dish). Since I have a 75cm dish (31 dish) I'm good to go.
For most of the continental US you can use a 75cm dish. Fringe areas may need a 90cm or larger dish depending on which satellite your trying to obtain signal from. You can use this chart to double check to see if a 75cm dish will be large enough.
EIRP - Abbreviation for Effective-Isotropic-Radiated-Power
Ku Band - the frequency range from 10.5 to 17 GHz; in satellite communications, the frequency band 13.75 to 14.50 GHz for transmission, and 10.7 to 12.75 GHz for reception
great info white halk i tried every dish and lnb there is on the market trust me,from southern cali on odd tp's cannot get the signals jump from 0-25% and thats it for nimiq2 82w.