Scanning the Skies
by GutBomb
The pursuit of knowledge and understanding of the way things work doesn't need to be limited to computers and telephones. We are being bombarded on a constant basis by microwaves from mobile phone towers, radio transmitters, television broadcast towers, and even from satellites thousands of miles above the Earth's equator. These satellites are the focus of this article.
Using a system that only costs about $300, you can explore the exciting world of satellite TV broadcasts from the comfort of your own couch (and the roof of your house from time to time).
Sports backhauls, news feeds, syndication uplinks, foreign programming, unbiased news, government propaganda, weather reports, Internet access, totally free (free as in beer and as in speech) programming, and most importantly, a greater understanding of how the broadcast world works are already being blasted towards you every minute of every day, so why not have some fun?
The Clarke Belt
Television satellites are all lined up along the equator of the Earth.
When seen from the Earth's surface, they form an arc across the southern sky known as the Clarke Belt, after science fiction pioneer Arthur C. Clarke.
The arc contains more than 80 satellites that usually have a name identifying them and a number that corresponds with the longitude meridian they are on.
For example, the main DISH Network satellite is known as EchoStar 6/8 and it sits in a geosynchronous orbit over the 110 degrees West longitude line. It is often referred to as 110w (read, "one-ten-west").
Broadcast Bands
There are three broadcast bands commonly used for satellite television distribution.
The Ku-band is the most common method of satellite broadcasting in the country. It is used by both major direct-to-home satellite services (DirecTV and DISH Network) as well as by independent satellite bandwidth providers.
Ka-band is a newer technology that has been used for years to distribute satellite Internet access and satellite radio but has recently started making inroads to video distribution.
Finally, there is classic C-band, which the major networks use for distributing their channel feeds to other satellite providers and cable companies. C-band requires very large dishes, the smallest of which are nearly 6 feet across.
Ku- and Ka-band signals can be pulled in with much smaller dishes, approximately 30 inches across, which are easily mounted on a roof or wall.
Video Standards
Much of the available video up there is now digital.
Over the past ten years, most analog video has disappeared on the Ku-band, but you can still find a bit available on C-band.
In the case of video distribution, digital does not always mean better. A good standard definition feed on C-band will almost always be better than a digital feed of the same channel because it is the master feed. By the time it reaches your cable or direct-to-home satellite system, it has been encoded digitally, compressed, and bit-starved to the point of looking like a pixelated mess.
Analog, however, is a huge bandwidth hog, and prone to interference, so along the way, things progressed more to providing digital feeds. An analog channel takes the same space as up to 20 digital channels, and when satellite providers can provide more bandwidth for channel distribution, they get more money from channel producers.
Analog programs are just regular NTSC feeds in North America, and can be picked up by cheap analog receivers.
In the digital realm, the possibilities of what you can find expand greatly.
So do the difficulties in initially finding the signal and the expense in getting proper equipment. The main digital standard used for satellite TV in North America is called DVB-S. Most of the world uses DVB variants for their digital television distribution, such as DVB-S for satellite, DVB-T for terrestrial, and DVB-C for cable.
In North America we use ATSC for digital terrestrial, and QAM for digital cable.
Equipment
The bare minimum setup you would need to get started is a satellite dish, a TV, and a satellite receiver.
The dish is usually a parabolic dish that sits on a mast, with an arm shooting out from the bottom, which holds the eye pointing back at the dish. This eye is called a Low-Noise Block Downconverter (LNB). There are a few types of LNBs available.
A DirecTV/DISH Network dish contains a circular LNB. Circular refers to the shape of the microwaves being beamed towards it. Circular LNBs pick up spiral-shaped beams.
These are beamed out at very high power, so the dish itself doesn't need to be very big to pull in the signal. Unfortunately, these LNBs aren't suited to picking up the really cool stuff out there, and the dishes they are attached to are a bit too small, usually between 18 and 20 inches.
For the cool stuff, you will need a linear LNB.
The term linear, like circular, refers to the type of beam it takes in. Linear beams are less powerful and more prone to weather interference, so they require larger dishes. A certain type of linear LNB that can attain frequencies slightly lower than a regular linear LNB is called a universal LNB.
The disadvantage to universal LNBs is that not all switches are compatible with them. There are plenty of newer switches, however, that work perfectly, and if you have a single dish system, then you most likely won't need switches anyway.
If you have more than one LNB that you want to connect to your receiver, then you will need to obtain a switch. The best switches to use are called DiSEqC switches. (I have no idea how to pronounce this out loud. I say "diz-e-q-c," but I am probably wrong.)
You can hook four LNBs into the switch, and then just run a single cable down to the receiver.
The LNB I prefer is called the Invacom QPH-031 and you can pick it up for about $80 at any of a number of shops on the Internet. It can pick up both circular and universal beams and has two outputs for each. An LNB this fancy is not necessary, however; a cheap $15 universal LNB would be fine for a beginner just getting started.
The dish is an important consideration.
A small 18-inch dish won't really do for us, because there are only a few channels available to us legitimately without subscribing to or decrypting an encrypted signal. (This is possible, but not the focus of this article.)
Ideally, the best dish to get started with would be 30 inches or larger. I opted for a Fortec FC90P 90 cm (36-inch) dish. The dish will come with a mast that you can mount on your roof or on a wall, the reflecting dish, and the LNB arm, but you will have to supply the LNB yourself. This dish will set you back about $100, including shipping.
The receiver is where stuff gets really fun, at least for me.
I personally have two receivers. The first is a digital DVB receiver, and then I loop out from it to an old analog receiver.
For digital, you have many choices, and unfortunately the market is a bit saturated right now, because these digital receivers can also be used for not-so-legitimate purposes.
If you only want to be legit, I recommend the Pansat 2500A receiver. Though it is now discontinued, there are tons of them available on eBay for about $50 to $70. It has a very reliable blind-scan feature, which is essential for finding wild feeds.
If you are looking for analog, you may have a much harder time finding a receiver, because they are old and rare. I recently found an analog satellite receiver from the 1980s with which you can just dial up the entire map of frequencies for only $32 shipped.
I didn't have a C-band setup so there wasn't very much to find, but the things I did find were pretty interesting: some soccer, college basketball, an outdoor ice hockey game played on a pond, and an FBI training video. Any analog satellite receiver from the Uniden SUPRA line is highly recommended.
Finally, the last piece of equipment you really won't want to live without is a dish motor.
This motor will tilt and pan your dish automatically, so you don't have to go up on the roof every time you want to look at a different satellite. A motor can be found online for about $100. You put your dish on the motor, put the motor on the mast, and point the entire assembly to the satellite closest to true south from your current position.
Once you peak your signal there, you can use a feature of the Pansat called USALS that will automatically track the other satellites across the Clarke Belt based on that initial true south positioning. It's amazing to see it in action. My motor of choice is the Stab HH90.
Let's Scan the Skies
Here is where the magic happens.
You've got your system all set up, your dish is pointed to true south, you've got your USALS all set up, and you've got your remote in hand.
The fun in this is figuring it out, so this won't be a how-to. To point you in the right direction of satellite positions, I recommend www.lyngsat.com, a listing of satellites around the world and the channels that they contain.
Using your receiver, you will tell your dish to point at a specific satellite based on its position (such as 97 degrees West) and blind-scan it.
"Blind-scan" will find all channels on the satellite, including full-time channels, data feeds, radio channels, and Wildfeeds.
Wildfeeds are on-the-spot news reports that are being sent back to the network, which include times when the reporter is "off the air" while their hair is being fixed, they practice their lines, or have candid conversations with the camera crew.
You may also find training videos that are broadcast to government agencies and schools around the country.
If you're a sports fan, you'll love the sports Wildfeeds, which are direct from the stadium broadcasts before they go back to the network. You'll sometimes find these without graphics, commercials, and, more rarely, even without the annoying commentators!
News feeds show up a lot on SBS6 (74w), NASA TV is available on 119w with a circular LNB, and PBS has some network feeds on AMC-3 (87w).
Aside from Wildfeeds, among the other programming available on these satellites (especially 97w) is a ton of foreign programming. You can get an international perspective on news, hit Bollywood movies, sports that aren't normally aired in this region, and just a huge dose of international culture.
The real fun is exploring, so I'll leave you to it!
Conclusion
There are tons of things waiting for you to find them up there.
Finding something strange and interesting gives me an awesome feeling, and I feel better knowing that I've explored the system enough to gain a greater understanding of the satellite world as a whole.
For more information on the topic, check out these great links:
Shout Outs: sxtxixtxcxh, trollsb, my lovely wife Hypher, and JemsTV who helped me out with this article.