How does satellite TV work?

Satellite television is a system for transmitting television signals from transmission centers to consumers using artificial Earth satellites as an intermediate link.

Since 1962, when the first television signal was transmitted by satellite, it has become a better alternative to terrestrial television.

And although more expensive and sophisticated equipment is required to receive TV programs from television satellites, the picture quality and much wider capabilities overshadow this disadvantage.

The principle of operation of satellite television, for example, from the well-known Viasat company, or any other operator, if you do not deeply delve into its technical features, is quite simple.

Just like with terrestrial television, there is a ground-based transmission center that broadcasts TV programs from various channels. Only in this case, it does not transmit the radio signal directly to consumers, but converts it into a digital form and transmits it first to a television satellite.

The satellite, in turn, receives the signal from the transmitting center and transmits it back to Earth to consumers. Since the satellite moves in a so-called geostationary orbit (its speed is equal to the Earth’s rotation speed), the signal is transmitted constantly to the same territory and can be received by a fixed antenna.

The principle of signal reception by a satellite dish

The antenna is a metal disk of parabolic shape concave inward. Due to this shape, all radio signals that hit the surface of the antenna are reflected and concentrated in one point. Another important element of the receiving part is installed at this point – the converter (head).

The converter collects all the radio signals falling on its receiving part and then transmits them to the receiver (satellite tuner) using a shielded coaxial cable (like a conventional antenna cable).

The receiver receives the radio signal from the satellite dish, converts it into a form understandable for the TV and feeds it to the TV receiver input.

It is noteworthy that thanks to such transformations, it is possible to preserve the original (high) quality of the TV signal. In addition, one satellite can receive and transmit several hundred television, radio and Internet channels at once.

In addition, the use of digital conversion and encoding of some channels allows TV providers to charge consumers for viewing them.