[hga]

Lately I've been checking out the real time reporting page for the DSN (http://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html), and frequently one of the three big dishes at Goldstone, Arizona, USA, Madrid, or Canberra is allocated to a satellite, but is not right then doing any communicating, presumably because it's waiting for the earth to turn enough to get line of sight.

Right now New Horizons is downloading at 2.11 kbs to Canberra, the max with both amplifiers transmitting with opposite circular polarizations. For a bit of comparison, Rosetta is talking to Goldstone right now at 104.86 kbs, with a received power 3 orders of magnitude stronger. And Voyager 2, which doesn't have much to say, is still plugging away with a smaller Canberra antenna at 159 b/s, and a received power about that of New Horizons.