WA Radio Scanner Users' Group

Hello all,

Does anyone know some information about satellite TV ? I have seen plenty of people have these big satellite dishes on their backyards (their reflector usually made of a black mesh kind of metal so they look transparent from the distance ) ... How do they work and why those TV channels are free ? The only thing that I know is that they are broadcasted via geostationary satellites such as Palapa D (for Indonesian TVs) ... Do you know who can I contact if I want to get one ?

This is a pretty cool website about them but not too informative

http://www.lyngsat.com/

I've dealt with the folks at Access Antennas before, and they do great work.

The big C-band dishes are mostly for non-English broadcasting, there's practically nothing free to air in English on satellite.

You can get simple satellite gear to receive ABC/SBS etc if you're unable to receive it with an antenna. The program used to be called Aurora but I think it's now called VAST.

Hello vk6hgr,

Yeah, thank's for the info on the 'Access Antennas' ... yeah, basically that's what I'm after the C-Band ... I just want to get the broadcast from Indonesia (Palapa-D satellite) just catching up with the TV shows and news over there. As with the receiver and the tracking mechanism ... I wonder how the device know where the satellites are ... I bet they just have to program in all of those informations and align the dish etc ... It will good if there is DIY info on it ... interesting to learn

Nosferatu wrote: I wonder how the device know where the satellites are ... I bet they just have to program in all of those informations and align the dish etc ... It will good if there is DIY info on it ... interesting to learn

Any satellite tracking program will tell you where a satellite is, provided you load it with certain data called keplerian elements which are easily obtained.

http://www.heavens-above.com/orbit.aspx?satid=35812

TV satellites are geosynchronous so they do not change position. Once you align the dish, thats it.