Best Guess ?

[Channel Hopper]

This is apparently the television station for the town of Vorkuta in Russia. The dish is supposed to be receiving signals from a satellite to rebroadcast onto ther UHF band for the residents.

The issue is with the latitude of the town, 67.3 degrees north, meaning the geostationary arc for reception would mean the dish would be pointing close to the horizon, not at the (estimated) 40 degrees or so in the picture. So, are the broadcasts received from a non-geostationary satellite, or is the dish being used for something else ?

Btw the last Molniya launch was in 2003 according to the link below

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/molniya3.htm

And according to Satflare, the orbit decayed last year

http://www.satflare.com/track.asp?q=27834#TOP

 

[Channel Hopper]

Ah, the previous launch in 2001, containing Molniya 3-52, is still in a stable orbit.

http://www.satflare.com/track.asp?q=13012#TOP

 

[hvdh]

That link to Norad 13012 is Molniya 1-52 launched 1981, not 2001?
But anyway, apparently quite a few more Molniya are still alive: http://www.uhf-satcom.com/molniya/

By typing "Molniya" in the name box, a complete list will appear here: http://www.celestrak.com/satcat/search.asp
Status "D" means decayed.

As an example, the last Molniya 1-93 launched 2004, orbit since July showing hardly any longitude drift.
Funny looking curve!

 

[Analoguesat]

Ah the Molinya orbit satellites. A counter intuitive orbit for satellite tv reception!