A Very Unscientific Answer To How Does Satellite TV Work
How does satellite TV work? There is a long version that is very scientific and a shorter version that is more interesting. We’ll stick with the shorter version. The very first satellite for TV was shot into orbit in’62. So, there has been a lot of advances made to the technology behind satellites since then. And, we have benefited from all of those advances.
Back then people who wanted satellite for their televisions had to use a nine foot dish that they put in their back yards. They were really big, ugly, and gave an incredible variety of channels from other countries that made them totally worth the effort. Some people still have those dishes in their back yards. When somebody wants to get channels from a different country they call the neighbors to help them move the dish a tad. There were remotes included with the dishes but those were lost years ago.
At that time, and for several years after, no one who owned the dishes really knew which satellites were plugged into which countries. So, you would move the dish until you picked up a country that looked good and watch it for a few days or months until you moved the dish again. Sometimes you landed on your own country, most times you didn’t. But, it was fun and all countries have unique television programs that aren’t seen in other countries.
The popularity of satellite television started to explode when people became aware of the channels and capabilities of the satellite systems. That’s when the providers of satellite television got busy. They sent up a bunch of geostationary satellites that orbit at the same speed as earth. So, they don’t move, well they move but not really. Anyway, the ability to pick up channels got lots easier and the reception got way better. Very cool stuff for people who had become addicted to satellite early on.
Cities had a problem because of the size of the satellites. Most city dwellers do not have an area over nine feet in diameter that they can put a big, grey, satellite dish. So, providers came up with an’” dish. These little dishes do everything that the big dishes did. They can be attached to anything and, as long as they are pointing south and are not obstructed, the picture that is received is great.
Problem was that most city dwellers don’t have an unobstructed view of anything. So, the next advancement was found in spot beams. Spot beams provide the answer to many problems. The satellite shoots a signal to the spot beam. The spot beam shoots a signal to the dish. The dish shoots the signal to the receiver on the television.
Because the whole satellite system runs on radio signals, the satellite guys found that it saved a lot of space if they encoded the signals digitally and shot all the channels across the same bandwidth. They now have signals available in both standard and HDTV format going out twenty four hours a day.
If you’d like to learn more about how does satellite TV work there are many websites that have all of the scientific information about each part of the system. However, sometimes a short version followed by a satellite broadcast movie is better.
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