There are loads of satellites orbiting the earth as you read this; some are being used for commercial purposes, some for military, some for scientific research and some even carrying IP packets for the Internet. What I want to concentrate on is the commercial satellites, mostly due to the fact that playing with military satellites would probably result in a situation involving rubber gloves - bad times.
Here are just some of the satellites that could potentially drop into your back garden right now.
Commercial satellites are used by the likes of news corporations like the BBC/ITV, etc. to broadcast a television signal from them to you. Your satellite receiver sitting by your TV knows the frequency and the stepping that needs to be tuned into to get say BBC NEWS 24 for example and moves your satellite accordingly (if motorised). Infact, it comes with configuration files with all the frequencies of each publicly broadcasting channel/service. Notice the word "publicly" used in the last sentence. Just because your satellite box has a entry for 11.263 GHz but nothing for 11.283 GHz doesn't mean no transponder exists at this frequency. Imagine your radio, you can manually step between say 91 FM to 107 FM, to say 92.3 FM. However, your satellite box doesn't allow you to do this - it has a pre-defined list of satellites for which it will grab a list of broadcasts (channels) from, etc.
Wouldn't it be kinda cool if we could tell our satellite box to manually step between *EVERY* step and frequency to see what transponders exist there.
Why would I want to do this? Simple... Broadcasters don't just use satellites to send stuff to your house, they use them for outside broadcasts. For example, a reporter out in the field somewhere with a portable camera - somehow they need to beam that raw signal back to HQ. These same satellites are also used to send those raw feeds back - just on another frequency or on another satellite altogether. If I could lock on to this satellite's transponder at any arbitrary frequency/step that I want, then I can grab that raw feed being broadcast from the satellite's transponder.
See where I'm going with this?
Imagine a boxing match happening in Las Vegas. This is obviously going to be a pay-per-view event and say SKY Sports would be broadcasting it. Normally, you would pay SKY to watch this event... the appropriate changes would be made to your satellite box and you would then be allowed to tune into it - the feed from SKY Sports HQ to your home. Now, think about this. Where is Vegas? All the way in the United States. This signal has to get to the UK somehow... and can you think of any possible communications medium to do this? You got it... via satellite! Damn you're good. ;o) This raw feed will be sent from the US to SKY Sports HQ via a satellite. If we can find the satellite and the frequency that is transporting this raw feed to SKY HQ and if we can hack up our satellite box, then we can lock on to the raw feed and watch the fight for free.
Now you see where I'm going with this. :o)
***TO BE CONTINUED***
Here are just some of the satellites that could potentially drop into your back garden right now.
Commercial satellites are used by the likes of news corporations like the BBC/ITV, etc. to broadcast a television signal from them to you. Your satellite receiver sitting by your TV knows the frequency and the stepping that needs to be tuned into to get say BBC NEWS 24 for example and moves your satellite accordingly (if motorised). Infact, it comes with configuration files with all the frequencies of each publicly broadcasting channel/service. Notice the word "publicly" used in the last sentence. Just because your satellite box has a entry for 11.263 GHz but nothing for 11.283 GHz doesn't mean no transponder exists at this frequency. Imagine your radio, you can manually step between say 91 FM to 107 FM, to say 92.3 FM. However, your satellite box doesn't allow you to do this - it has a pre-defined list of satellites for which it will grab a list of broadcasts (channels) from, etc.
Wouldn't it be kinda cool if we could tell our satellite box to manually step between *EVERY* step and frequency to see what transponders exist there.
Why would I want to do this? Simple... Broadcasters don't just use satellites to send stuff to your house, they use them for outside broadcasts. For example, a reporter out in the field somewhere with a portable camera - somehow they need to beam that raw signal back to HQ. These same satellites are also used to send those raw feeds back - just on another frequency or on another satellite altogether. If I could lock on to this satellite's transponder at any arbitrary frequency/step that I want, then I can grab that raw feed being broadcast from the satellite's transponder.
See where I'm going with this?
Imagine a boxing match happening in Las Vegas. This is obviously going to be a pay-per-view event and say SKY Sports would be broadcasting it. Normally, you would pay SKY to watch this event... the appropriate changes would be made to your satellite box and you would then be allowed to tune into it - the feed from SKY Sports HQ to your home. Now, think about this. Where is Vegas? All the way in the United States. This signal has to get to the UK somehow... and can you think of any possible communications medium to do this? You got it... via satellite! Damn you're good. ;o) This raw feed will be sent from the US to SKY Sports HQ via a satellite. If we can find the satellite and the frequency that is transporting this raw feed to SKY HQ and if we can hack up our satellite box, then we can lock on to the raw feed and watch the fight for free.
Now you see where I'm going with this. :o)
***TO BE CONTINUED***
UPDATE*** - visit "Satellite Feed Fun" here.