Satellite TV Not As Free As You Might Think

By Kim Pascel

Satellite TV has been around since the early sixties. It is a way that you can watch television from receiving signals from a satellite in space. Satellites have been a source of communication for many years. Whether or not the government envisioned providing millions of homes with television reception when they first launched the satellite program is not known.

It is remarkable what people have done to get a better television feed. But if there is money to be made then the technology will follow. Before satellite TV was broadcast over radio waves. And before that we listened to radio for news and entertainment. And before radio it was the Morse code driven telegraph that kept people informed.

People used to keep up with the world series baseball games via telegraph. The message would come in from the person at the game and the game was actually shown on a large bill board with players moved to the various bases according to the telegraph reports. Now we have satellites in space to beam in images from across the world. If you have satellite TV you might catch the movie eight men out where they have the world series from the year 1919 to see how telegraph was used to keep people informed about the progress of the game.

And if you compare the satellite image with that from the cable company you will see a lot better image. This is because of the digital reception the satellite service provides. It is interesting to see your favorite shows in satellite broadcast. You can see some blemishes on your favorite TV stars and the glare off people who have no hair on their heads.

It makes watching the same old shows a new and fun experience. Most homes with satellite TV have a direct to home version. This means that they sign up with a satellite television provider, much like a cable TV provider. The stations like premium TV stations are broadcast up to the satellite in space and the providers systems captures that feed with its own satellite and then broadcasts that feed to its customers.

Customers need a satellite dish on their home to capture the feed from their provider. This means the satellite television provider does not broadcast the programs itself. It merely contracts with the broadcasters of the program feeds. The provider then acts a type of broker. The dish acts as a receiver. The ones that are installed on the homes of those who are satellite TV customers can only act as receivers.

You will still have to have a receiver on your TV to unscramble the feed from the satellite to your satellite dish. The receiver decodes the feed and then presents it on your screen. When many people think of this system they think of unlimited television reception. However this is not necessarily the case.

And in some cases this is true compared to the average cable television feed. However, there are so many governmental restraints on channel programming that if there was ever the idea of setting up a satellite and being able to tune into any far away station that idea is gone. In today's market of competition for monthly fees and licensing the satellite TV is a tightly controlled and regulated market. You can get a better picture quality but it is not the freedom of TV channel watching some might have hope for. - 29864

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