Satellites and Satellite TV

Satellite TV is a type of television service that is delivered to consumers through a communications satellite. The signal is then received by a satellite dish and fed into a set top box (also sometimes called a receiver) at the viewer's location. Satellite television services provide a wide range of television channels and other types of services, particularly to areas of the world that can't get services from terrestrial or cable television service providers, such as rural areas or remote areas.

Satellite TV is a fairly recent technological innovation that is continuing to evolve and improve. All satellite television operates under similar principles that guide the signal from the place of origination to their final destination in a viewer's home. Signals are first transmitted from an uplink facility that uses a large dish to send a signal to the satellite that is in orbit. Satellites that are used for television signals can be found in geostationary or naturally highly elliptical orbit above the earth's equator. Transponders on the satellite send the signal back to earth so that it can be received by the viewer's satellite dish. This step is usually referred to as the downlink.

At the point when the signal reaches the satellite dish, a number of processes have to occur simultaneously in order for the signal to be received successfully. The downlink signal has to be amplified when it reaches the satellite dish. The amplified signal then has to be fed into a receiver at the viewer's location. The receiver then needs to decode the scrambled signal in order for it to be viewed on a television.

The History of Satellite TV

In 1962, the first satellite television signal was sent from Europe to the Telstar satellite that was hovering over North America. The world's first commercial communications satellite was called Intelsat I. Nicknamed Early Bird, it was launched into orbit in 1965. The world's first national satellite television service was called Orbita, and it was established in the Soviet Union in 1967!

Satellite TV Today

Today's satellite dishes are far more advanced than those used by previous generation. In the past, downlink satellite signals were transmitted to the dish on the C-Band, which was full of interference and resulted in an extremely weak signal. Efforts to amplify the signal when it was received by the dish could only do so much, and the signal, while usable, was still nearly too weak to be transmitted to a TV. In order to use this weak signal, special expensive wires had to be used to connect the satellite dish to the receiver indoors.

These days, the most technologically advanced satellite dishes utilize low-noise block converters (LNBs) to convert the C-Band signal to a more useable frequency such as the L-Band. This range has less interference and better strength than the C-Band. When the original downlink signal is received, the LNB attempts to amplify the signal, while also filtering the block of frequencies in which the downlink signal is being transmitted. At this point, conversion occurs, allowing the signal to be transmitted to the receiver over traditional coaxial cables.