Satellite TV Dictionary

Satellite TV is everywhere, and although we’ve become very accustomed to seeing dishes protrude from the sides of houses or spring up in back yards across the nation, there are still some words which hear, we might even use them when we’re talking about our personal satellite TV system, but we might not really know what we’re talking about. Let’s see if we can make things a little clearer.

Amplifier - contrary to what you may believe this doesn’t make the music louder, it makes the signal stronger so you get a clearer picture.

Antenna – this one’s pretty easy really, I mean, radios need antennas too. They are responsible for transmitting and receiving radio waves – such a big responsibility but they’re often so small.

Aperture – hmm, you might know that an aperture is an opening, but did you know that in satellite TV “speak” the aperture is the bit of the antenna which is exposed to the satellite for the signal.

Attitude Control – no, it can’t control unruly teenagers (more’s the pity) but this attitude is about the orientation of the satellite and its relationship to the sun and the earth.

Bandwidth – is what’s used to measure how much frequency you either have, or have the capacity for.  Lots of things are measured in bandwidth, from telephones (they don’t need much) to satellite TV systems (they need loads).

Bit – a bit is one single bit of digital information or data.

Bit Rate – is how fast the bits are transmitted and is measured in bits per second.

Codec – you’ve probably heard this one. It’s a system of coding and decoding in digital transmission.

Direct Broadband Satellite – or DBS – is the service which beams and broadcasts multiple channels, by satellite, directly to the antenna at your house.

Decoder – you’ll get one of these when you pay your subscription to the Satellite TV company. You see, they scramble all of the signals (otherwise you could catch them for free) and then, once you’ve coughed up the cash they provide you with a decoder to decode the signals, turning them back into watchable TV programs – clever.

Delay – you won’t have noticed this, it’s not like the delays we have to put up with when the bus is half an hour late or there’s a huge traffic queue in the bank, this is the length of time it takes for a signal to leave the sending station, whizz up to the satellite and back to the receiving station (your house!) – and it’s around a quarter of a second on a one hop satellite connection – crikey moses that’s fast.

Federal Communications Commission – FCC – the big boys in charge. This is the US Federal Agency which regulates all interstate communications and stuff like that.

Master Antenna Television (MATV) – is what might be used in a hotel or apartment block, to serve more than one TV set.

Multiple Access – means simply that more than one user can have access to the transponder – good if you’ve got more than one TV.

Satellite – well, all this talk about satellite TV, we’d better just clear up what a satellite is and what it does. It’s a very sophisticated type of electronic communications relay station which orbits the earth around 22,237 miles above the equator (I’m sure that number must be significant). Anyway, very importantly, it moves in a fixed orbit at the same speed of the earth (7,000 mph so I hope you’re holding on tight) from east to west, that way it’s always in the same place – kind of.

Scrambler – see decoder, you should have already read that bit, if you’re not hopping or skip-reading. No? Well go back and start again.

Splitter – not to be confused with a “spitter” because that’s something completely different and frankly disgusting! Anyway, a splitter doesn’t have any electronic components, it simply splits a TV signal on to 2 or more paths sending it to numerous receivers simultaneously.

Subsatellite Point – Every geostationery (not moving) satellite has it’s own unique “parking space” way above the earth, it’s called a subsatellite point.

Superband – we’re not talking Aerosmith or Bon Jovi, we’re talking about the frequency band which is used for the fixed additional TV channels and mobile radios in a cable system – it’s between 216 and 6000 MHz, just in case you’re interested.

Transmitter – transmits the signals (electromagnetic wave signals) for TV and radio into the atmosphere with an antenna. Sending them out into “cyber space” for us to “catch”.

TSS – Telecommunications Standardization Sector. This organization sets the world standards, working with the CCITT (Consultative Committee on Telephony and Telegraphy) and the CCIR (Consultative Committee on International Radio).

Transponder – now I know what you’re thinking, one of those toy cars which turns into a robot – no, that’s a transformer! A transponder is part receiver, part frequency converter and part transmitter package. Some communications satellites have around 12 – 24 on board transponders, but INTELSAT VI has around 50! There’s always someone who wants to be bigger and better than everyone else isn’t there?

Transponder Hopping – sounds like fun until you fall off! Don’t panic, you know I said that the delay on a single hop transponder satellite connection was around one quarter of a second, well, sometimes these signals hop around transponders extending it’s capacity because it has access to more than one “down-link” beams. They’re all hopping around like mad up there, not that you can see them.

Tweeking – it’s a great word isn’t it, “tweeking”? It’s certainly not used only in satellite TV speak either, and the meaning is pretty much the same whenever you use it – it means making little adjustments to optimize performance (the electronic receiver circuit in this case).