How Does Dish TV Work?

Dish TV

The DISH Network is a satellite television service that provides programming to customers throughout the United States. It's based in Colorado and first started doing business in 1996. Today it is one of the two primarily satellite television services in the country, the other being DirecTV. Both services work according to very similar principles, using orbiting satellites to send sharp, clear television signals to their customers.

Satellites

Satellites are an extremely efficient means of broadcasting because they can cover a wide area and because they don't suffer from the drawbacks of land-based broadcasting. Television signals beamed from a station tower on Earth have a limited range because the curve of the planet gets in the way. The signal goes in a straight line, and while comparatively small objects like trees and buildings won't stop it, the planet itself causes it to bounce off. Enter the satellite. With an orbiting broadcast apparatus, the signal travels in a straight line up and then in a straight line back down, skirting the difficulties of living on a round planet.

Dishes

In the early days, DISH Network satellite dishes were large and very bulky. They took up a big chunk of property and required periodic adjustments in order to stay in sync with the satellite. As the company flourished and technology improved, DISH Network developed an easier way of functioning. Dishes can now be very small--no more than a couple of feet wide--and don't require any adjustments. The satellites are fixed in geosynchronous orbit--moving with the Earth and remaining fixed in a certain portion of the sky--which means the dishes work just as long as they stay pointed in the proper direction.

LNBs

The LNB stands for "low noise block," and it's the device on the end of your dish's arm. The signal from the DISH Network satellite bounces off of the dish itself and into the LNB, which filters out any ambient noise and amplifies the signal so that it can be divided into channels. DISH Network uses MPEG-4 compression, which was originally intended for computers and can hold more data than other kinds of compression. The LNB helps expand that into signals that can be read by the receiver.

The Receiver

The DISH Network receiver interprets the signal from the LNB into a format that can be viewed by your television, while allowing you to switch between individual stations. DISH Network receivers also provide other options, such as DVR hard drives, which allow you to record and store programs for later viewing, and parental controls to block adult shows from children.