Home :: TV satellite dishes

How TV satellite dishes work

There was a time when TV satellite dishes were huge and took up

your whole backyard. Also programming was scattered to say the least. Basically you would use your dish to pirate lots of obscure foreign networks and it was largely unregulated.

Fast forward to today where you can find small satellite dishes on top of houses everywhere. Especially in rural locations outside the range of cable companies. With multiple movie packages, sports packages, foreign programming, etc. TV satellite dishes are now turning television sets into the ultimate entertainment/multimedia experience.

In the following articles we'll explore how we get from the satellite in space to the TV in your living room, and everything in between.

Satellite dishes revolutionize TV

For the most part TV satellite dishes transmit signals much like antenna based broadcast TV, in that, they both are based on radio signals. Broadcast TV uses a large antenna, at a broadcast station, to send it's signal out to the masses. Satellite TV obviously uses satellite dishes orbiting earth, simple enough.

So what's the big deal you ask? Well in order to receive an antenna based broadcast you must be within a certain range. Since the broadcast antenna is actually here on the ground, the signal is affected by several limitations, like the Earth getting in the way for one. With the Earth being round it literally blocks the signal after a certain distance.

Also you rarely get a really clear signal from broadcast, unless you happen to live right next door to the station and there's not much interference, like trees.

Satellite powered TV gives you more

TV powered by satellite dishes was devised to combat the problems of broadcast. Since satellite dishes orbit the Earth, the Earth can't get in the way of the signal, which makes for a much wider audience range.

A somewhat unique aspect of satellite dishes is the fact that they travel around the Earth in a geosynchronous orbit, which means it takes 24 hours to revolve around Earth. So it keeps the same relative position in the sky in relation to the ground.

So your dish won't need to track the satellite all over the sky to get the signal. Once everything is lined up, no further adjustments are necessary, theoretically anyway.

Small TV satellite dishes bring two big companies into pay television

Like I said earlier, in the beginning, satellite dishes were expensive and big as the side of a house. They required constant adjustments and were used to pick up all kinds of live feeds, foreign stuff, and other random transmissions from satellites.

Today satellite TV has been streamlined to small 18" dishes and quality programming delivered through a Direct Broadcast Satellite provider. Now TV satellite dishes come as part of a programming package, set by the DBS provider, that bring hundreds of channels all designed to emulate cable TV as much as possible.

A couple of companies, first Direct TV and right behind them Dish Network, saw the deficiency in pay television market with rising price of cable and more important customer complaints, illustrated by Dish Networks "cable pig" campaign.

Direct to home satellite TV is now a five part system:

• Programming sources
• Broadcast center
• Satellites
• Dish
• Receiver

Well that's the nuts and bolts of how satellite TV works. In the following sections we'll take a closer look at each component used to bring satellite TV to life:

Guide to Dish satellite programming
Behind the scene look at how Dish satellite TV gets channels and programming.

Guide to satellite dish networks
Want to know more about satellite dish networks? Take a closer look at the alternative to cable tv.

TV satellite system
The satellite receivers role in the TV satellite system.