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How Satellite TV Works, Some Facts For You

Satellite television is everywhere these days, so much so we tend to take it for granted, but a lot of whiz-bang science and top-of-the-line technology and genuine know-how goes into bringing the latest movies, television, sports, music and more into the homes of hundreds of millions of viewers around the globe. Here are some amazing facts about your satellite TV you probably didn’t know.

Satellite TV Was Invented by a Science Fiction Writer

Most people remember the late science fiction genius Arthur C. Clarke for movies like “2001: A Space Odyssey” and head-spinning novels like “Rendezvous with Rama,” but only a few of them know he was also a radar operator for Britain in the Second World War and inventor of the communications satellite.

At the end of WWII, Clarke wrote an article for Wireless World magazine proposing a system of three manned satellites that could be used to create things like military intelligence and weather reports. Clarke also pointed out the satellites could also be used to broadcast transmissions originally sent up from Earth to wider audiences. He was wrong about the astronauts living on-board, but the satellites he envisioned are up there right now.

You Need Satellite TV because Earth Gets in the Way

The TV signals coming into your home have traveled a distance equal to more than three trips around the world by the time they arrive. The satellites that make it all possible must always be in the same place in the sky, otherwise you’d be continuously moving your antenna to catch them. To do that they must be at least 22,000 miles above Earth’s surface in the orbits Clarke imagined back in 1945.

The reason broadcasters can’t just set up antennas here on Earth is because the planet itself would get in the way. The signals that carry TV shows are directional, and if something gets in the way they get blocked. Even if nothing else cuts them, eventually the curvature of the Earth gets in the way of the signal, which is why it makes sense to bounce it off a highly complicated, computerized machine flying high overhead.

Your Satellite Antenna is a Modern Mathematical Marvel

The funny looking antennas that are almost everywhere these days aren’t shaped the way they’re shaped on a whim. The smaller “pizza box” dishes have that round shape to focus the signals that have traveled so far just to entertain you. The surface of that disk is curved so that the radio signals coming down from space reflect off that entire area and focus into a single spot, which just happens to be where the receiver is located.

The newer, wider antennas with their rectangular shapes are designed to take advantage of a clever trick satellite operators have devised. They can put two satellites so near one another they can both be picked up by a single dish, making broadcasting up to 500 channels in HD a reality no matter where you are on the planet.