I know of a user that has the dish mounted horizontal with no motors and they have been getting good performance in the pacific nw leading me to believe we must have satellites straight above but i was a little south of seattle over the fourth and observed a fellow next to me and his dish was at an angle. It seems odd. What have you guys seen for the dish point direction? Has it been straight up?
It is a totally different game than many previous satellite systems you may be familiar with due to the sheer number of satellites currently in orbit, which will only grow, and them not being geosynchronous. There is no one black and white complete answer, but a lot of factors that play into it. You can see the current positions of satellites using one of the third party sites such as
https://satellitemap.space/ which can help visualize what is going on.
On one hand, yes, there absolutely are satellites straight above-ish in the PNW (until you go too far north). But there don't have to be for it to work pointed straight up.
I'm not sure if calling it a "dish" is technically accurate (note: starlink does call it a dish), at least in the traditional sense where a dish is shaped to transmit a signal in a specific direction, as it is a "steerable" phased array that can transmit over something like an 80 degree swath. So even if it isn't pointing in the "right" direction it can still work just potentially less well, or with more interruptions or using more power, or being less tolerant of having obstructions in the way, or sub-optimally in other ways. So where it is pointing is only one small part of what satellites it is actually talking to. It can, and needs to, switch very rapidly between satellites as they move into and out of view and I believe it can also transmit to and receive from multiple satellites at once.
Exactly where the dish physically points depends on location, it points northward in most places in the northern hemisphere partially to avoid interfering with other geosynchronous satellites (ie. always in the same relative place, you point your old school dish at them and you are set). Currently on the west coast of Vancouver Island, near the current coverage limits, it has a more easterly bias than in Seattle. That isn't due to where the satellites are, since they keep orbiting, but is because currently a satellite has to be able to talk directly to a ground station to deliver service and the nearest ones are in the Seattle area and Ketchikan, I believe.
The full set of logic about where it points when is not publicly known so there could be other optimization related reasons that are about making the best use of Starlink's resources, currently satellites and ground stations but soon to also be laser links between satellites. There are spectrum licensing restrictions on what angles it can transmit at so even if it technically could work in a specific orientation, it likely will refuse to send signals certain ways.
Recently, there are reports of it automatically positioning itself to point straight up if used in motion but they are quite anecdotal. I've experienced the same thing but, again, only anecdotally.
Heck, mine was temporarily working pointing "the other horizontally" when I lowered the mast it was on briefly to do some maintenance.
This is also how it can work, to varying degrees, swinging at anchor without it physically tracking to the "ideal" angle. It makes no attempt to continuously reposition itself as the boat swings. Folks disable the motors and point it straight up to reduce blips, which are especially noticeable for videoconferencing but not necessarily an issue for streaming, web browsing, etc. The (not yet released) $$$ maritime version will be a "flat panel" which presumably will have no motors at all. They are initially releasing the maritime service with existing dishes before those are available.
