How Does Satellite TV Work

How Does Satellite TV Work

Communication satellites revolutionized television viewing. In early 1990s, communication satellites enabled television viewers to receive televisions signals in remote areas and the new system started replacing the cable system. Satellite television enables television viewers to access innumerable TV channels and services without paying extra money for additional services and you don't need to spend money on high cost cables. The first satellite which provided such services was a Canadian geostationary satellite called Anik 1 and later on it gained popularity in other parts of the world.

So how does satellite TV work? To understand the working of a satellite television, you should know about transmission signals. Satellites move in elliptical orbits and the transmission antennas points towards the satellite. The dishes of the satellite TV have large diameter and it helps in increasing power of the signal. The dish of a satellite TV is positioned in way to be aimed accurately towards the satellites.

The satellites have device called "transponders" which gets the signals sent by the antenna and these signals are modified to match the frequency range of the transponders. Later the signals are retransmitted to earth and after undergoing through a process of translations required to prevent frequency interference, the signals are sent back to parabolic dishes.

The signals that reach the parabolic dishes are weak and it is amplified using a device called "feed horn". The device is mounted on the focal point of the dish antenna and the weak signals reflected from the satellites are collected and sent to "low-noise block down converter" which amplifies the signals. Low-noise block down converter also called LNB converts the transmission to match the L-band range of signals and the transmission takes place over the "intra facility link" i.e. the IFL which are the coaxial cables connecting cables to the indoor and outdoor equipments of dish antenna needed to send signals to reach the satellite receiver.

You may find that a satellite television uses connections of low cost cables which are connected to the television receivers and to the dish. Hence, when you are shifting channels, you get signals received from the satellite, sent back to the television. Satellite televisions work on signals sent and received by communication satellites and it provides services to many areas of the world where the terrestrial cable services cannot be installed.

In recent times, most of the homes use direct broadcast satellite also called as Direct -To - Home or DTH satellite service. Direct broadcast service term is also used for communication satellites which deliver DBS services and it is also called "mini dish system". The mini dish systems work on Ku and Ka bands of the transmissions and some even use the C-band satellites.

The transmission systems follow certain standards such as the DVB - S standard which uses certain security features to disallow reception of the signals by any dish antenna. Pay TV contents can be watched only by authorized users because to access certain signals you require proper reception equipments as the data stream is encrypted to prevent access to signals. Satellite providers use these measures to prevent unauthorized users from accessing signals and only subscribers of satellite services can get the signals.

This article about How Does Satellite TV Work hopefully gave you an answer and you can now even watch Satellite TV on your pc.

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