Everyone has heard of satellite TV. Today numerous people have small satellite dishes that sit on top of their houses or even at the side of their house on a short pole. Today satellite TV is very efficient a small dish of approximately 12 to 18 inches in diameter can get your hundreds if not thousands of channels. Satellite TV providers offer package deals that are similar to their competitors, the cable companies. So how does a Satellite TV work, you may be wondering.
In the early 90s satellite TV began its journey on the technology highway. The first satellite dishes that were for consumer home use where tens of feet in diameter, that is what you call a big dish! They were too big to fit on houses so they would sit in the yard. The purpose of the dish was to catch radio waves that are transmitted by satellites that orbit the earth in a geosynchronous orbit, basically the satellite will remain in the same location in the sky but continue to orbit at the same speed the earth is rotating.
So we know that there is a satellite in space that orbits the earth. How do the radio waves get started? They start at a programming source where programs are turned into radio frequencies, then they are projected towards a satellite that then redirects it to a broadcast center that is like a database. They store the programs until use where they are then sent back to a satellite that transmits the radio waves at the dish that is located at your place of residence, from there it is then passed into the house to the receiver that turns it back into regular programming for your TV. That is the process of satellite TV in a nutshell.
The broadcast center is where your programs come from. When you sign up for your service you were given options to how many channels you wanted and possibly which channels you most desired. The broadcast center is where all of the satellite information is received they will then section out which channels you are paying for and send them on to your place.
So now you know how the programs make it to your house, but just how does a satellite dish work? A satellite dish is a type of antenna. There are typically two parts to the satellite dish the feed horn and the parabolic, which is the bowl shaped part. When you want to change the channel there is a signal that is transmitted though the feed horn and into the parabolic. There the signal is more focused and sent in a moderately thin beam to the satellite that then directs a new channel in your directions.
When receiving transmissions your dish collects the signal and focuses it towards the feed horn that then gets transmitted into the house to the receiver. Basically it is just the reverse of sending the signals.
Satellite TV is thought to be better than cable because of its abilities of receiving high definition programs. The clarity is crisp and clean, the down fall though is satellite TV is often loss during bad weather due to weather interference. A Clear view of the sky will produce the best possible receiving capabilities.