Living in London

The dish is not nearly as horizontal as it looks. They change the focal point to try and maintain the reflector in the horizontal plane. This is why the detector (LNB) is at the bottom of the dish, not in the middle. This prevents the dish from becoming a convenient place for birds to nest and where leaves, snow etc. will accumulate. It also makes it a lot easier to fix to walls. The design of these dishes varies. Go further south and they change the focal point again. It is only where you get a lot closer to the equator that you have to use a classic parabolic type of dish because the satellite is directly overhead.

Thanks Desmond. This makes a lot of sense.

In California, where there wasn't any snow, the LNB tended to be in the middle of the dish and the angle pointed up towards the sky above the equator. Now that I look closer at the pictures I see that the LNB is way off centre. Very cool.

Live and learn.