A Very Unscientific Answer To How Does Satellite TV Work

There is a long, very scientific answer to the question, how does satellite TV work. There is also a shorter version that is way more interesting. We’re going to go with the shorter version and apologize in advance to the scientific types who will cringe when they read this. As far as most people thinking that dishes are new, well they are not. The first satellite for TV was shot into space in’62.

The old nine foot satellite dishes came with remote controls that were quickly lost. These satellites are still around because they have a forever life expectancy and work great. People who use them now just have the neighbors come over and help move the dish when they want to change satellites. They sit as a monument in most back yards. Big, grey, daunting. But, they have, and continue to, provide a superb picture on any television.

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.

So, as the popularity of satellite televisions grew they started shooting more satellites up that had transponders on them. They called these geostationary satellites because they are orbiting at the same speed as the earth so they aren’t really moving anymore than we are. This made reception easier to achieve and if you knew where a satellite was you could point the nine foot dish at the satellite and watch a different countries stuff. It was still pretty cool.

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.

So there you have it. The very unscientific answer to the question how does satellite TV work.

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