Satellite Television - How does it work?

Why do we have satellite television? What's wrong with the terrestrial broadcasts that we have enjoyed for five decades or more? Well the real benefit lies in the fact that you get more channels. You get more channels because satellite broadcasts are able to utilise more bandwidth than conventional terrestrial systems and can therefore fit more separate channels into the space allowed. Another competitor for your viewing time is cable television of course. Cable has some benefits in being more reliable perhaps but it is also limited by the fact that you must live somewhere where the cable companies are willing to connect you up.

Sattelite television is very important in areas where it isn't possible to install cable and the terrestrial television reception is weak or non-existent. Both systems use radio frequency signals to transmit and they travel in straight lines. That means that for broadcast television, which is transmitted and received by land-based antenna, the natural curvature of the earth will break the signals' direct line of sight. It also means that other land based obstacles like mountains and trees are likely to interfere with the TV signal and cause some weakening and distortion.

Satellites that transmit TV are placed in orbit over 22,000 miles above the Earth and they rotate around the planet once every 24 hours and in the same direction that the Earth is rotating in. Because the Earth rotates once every 24 hours and the satellite moves around the Earth at the same velocity in the same direction, the satellite always stays over the same point on the surface. The satellites are said to be in geostationary orbit. Because they are high in the sky a satellite beams signals over a wide area of the planets surface. The satellites are also in communication with each other so that they can relay the same broadcast to all satellites in orbit over different parts of the world. This is how we are able to get TV live from anywhere on the Earth and view it at the same time as everyone else on the planet receiving a signal from a satellite. When you think about it it's a pretty amazing feat of technology.

When satellite television was first introduced the dishes required to receive the signal were very expensive and people were able to set them up to receive programmes that were not really intended for everybody to see. Nowadays people tend to subscribe to a 'Direct Broadcast Satellite' (DBS) provider such as DirecTV or Dish Network in the US and Sky in the UK. These providers are able to select programs and broadcast them to people as set packages, for example the 'Family', 'Sports' or 'Movie' packages. Cost will depend on which one you choose to buy.

Satellite TV companies generate revenue from their networks in a number of ways. There are three main methods that are in general use today.

Advertising

Advertisers pay to have their promotional material shown during the transmission. They generally pay more to have their adverts shown at peak times. I don't know anyone who likes to have the advertisements distract their entertainment but it does pay for part of it.

Regular Subscriptions

Users pay a monthly fee to receive a channel or group of channels. In actual fact you pay for the means to decrypt the signal that you receive. There is no way to stop anyone from receiving a signal transmitted from a satellite so they encrypt the signal to make it impossible to view without the special equipment and secret codes needed to unscramble the signal.

Licence Fee

If you live in the UK and you possess equipment capable of receiving TV signals then by law you have to pay a licence fee. Note that you don't have to ever use the equipment to receive and view TV; you just have to possess it. The revenue from the licence fee pays for the British Broadcasting Company or BBC and in return we don't expect to see advertising or encryption on any BBC channels. This was a good idea in the early days of broadcasting and helped to produce high standards all over the world. My personal opinion however is that now the licence fee serves no purpose other than yet another tax we have to pay and I feel that the BBC should now stand on it's own two feet. I doubt if that's going to happen anytime soon though.

Free satellite TV is available when the broadcaster uses only advertising to pay for the content and network.

Five main components are required to make this system work. In order to get the programmes from the producers to the customer they all must be in place and they all must be working correctly. It is in fact surprising that it works at all.
Distribution

Distribution

The DBS provider distributes programmes but they don't create them. They are in the middle between the consumer and the programme sources.

Satellite Television Provider

Signals from the broadcast centre sources are received by the provider and transmitted to the network of satellites in orbit.

Satellites

Satellites receive the signals from the centre and rebroadcast them back to the land.

Receiving equipment

Equipment normally provided by the DBS to allow you to receive the signal from the satellite above. A receiving dish must be professionally installed somewhere on your property.

Decoding and viewing

A box near your TV will take the signal received and decode your chosen channels into a form that you can watch.

I bet you never imagined that there was so much going on with your satellite television. It is in fact a technological marvel and it provides us with high quality up to date entertainment and news from all over the world. The technology of television has made great strides in such a short time.

Article Source: http://neoarticle.com

Steve is a software engineer and keeper of Sattelite Television www.sattelite-television.thegrandfatherclock.com