The Amazing Technology Of Consumer Satellite TV
Scientific types may want to turn away. This is a very short, yet interesting, explanation of how does satellite TV work. Even though it has become very popular in the last few years, satellite TV has been around for a long time. The first satellite for TV was put into orbit in’62.
When it all started there were not a lot of satellites up and most people who wanted to get satellite television had huge gray satellite dishes planted in their back yards. There are still some of these around. They are usually about nine feet in diameter and when somebody wants to move the dish to get a different country’s programs it is a group effort. They originally came with remote controls, but those were lost several years ago so the dish gets turned manually.
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.
Once the satellites became more popular, providers started shooting satellites with transponders up regularly. These geostationary satellites orbit at the same speed as the earth so they don’t seem to be moving. This made reception even better and it was lots easier to find channels and countries because the satellites were identified. As people became more knowledgeable about where satellites were located they started creating their own programming guides. Those have now been replaced with the onscreen guides provided by the satellites.
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.
Cities had a problem with the little dishes because hardly anybody has an unblocked south view. That’s when they came up with “spot beams.” So, the satellites shoot a signal to the spot beam, that shoots a signal to the dish, that shoots a signal to a television. Okay, it’s way more scientific than that, but this is the short version, and you get the picture.
The system runs on radio signals that are sent digitally encoded. The guys figured out that they could send more channels through the same bandwidth using this strategies. This is why over five hundred channels are available at any time, twenty-four hours a day. Improvements and advancements continue to be made that are making the dishes smaller and more powerful. It’s actually amazing how the whole system works.
So, for unscientific types that were wondering how does satellite TV work, there you have it. A really complex system that works really well.
Want to find out more about Dish Network New Customer Deals, then visit our site on how to choose the best Dish Network Deals for your needs.
