Satellite Communication: Principle & Everyday Function
When you look up at the sky on a brilliant shining day, you may catch the sight of an aeroplane but very unlikely you see thousands of conscientiously engineered satellites, some very small as a ball and some as large as a vehicle spinning in orbit..Well, Maybe out of sight is one of the reasons we take satellites for granted though they play a very important part on everything we engage ourselves in, from communication, to the use of internet, weather reporting, broadcasting etc.
Welcome again to my blog as I take you through the basics of satellite communications.
Satellite: Image from Pixabay under CCO license
You would agree with me that communication with people has always been a major and important part of human existence, and as people live farther away from one another exploring more remote regions, communications within one another is found to even become more important.
Satellite Communications has proven to be the most important means of long distance communication today, it has really transformed the world into a global village. People all around the world have access to Internet and are able to access various TV channels in their homes using satellite Communication
What really is a Satellite? How does it function?
Follow up patiently and you will definitely have the gist:
The world satellite doesn't actually mean a machine or mechanical box that moves around the earth with solar panels attached at either ends but in more general terms, a Satellite is an object in space that orbits a planet. The moon for instance is a natural satellite while satellites launched to space to propagate communication are communication satellites which are the artificial or man-made satellites.
A communication satellite can therefore be described as an artificial satellites that provides communication links between various parts on earth. Satellite Communication plays an extremely important role in the global telecommunication system. Communication satellite are used in relaying signals that carry voice, video and data to and from one part of the world to another.
Satellites are launched into the space using space shuttles or rocket..Kudos to Engineers who play a good role in designing these satellites and getting them into orbit.. Satellite revolves round the earth due to gravitational force of attraction between the earth and satellites.
The main components of a Satellite consist of the solar panels that powers the satellite as it needs to operate 24/7 all year round and accompanied by high performance batteries for continuous operation when the sun is blocked by the earth, the antennas and transponders that receives and transmits signals and the engines that keeps the satellite in the right position at all times.
Basics of Satellite communications
Satellite Communication process begins with an earth station which send signals in form of high frequency to the satellite which receives and retransmit the signal back to earth where they are received by earth station in the area of coverage for the satellite.
Satellite communication involves four Processes:
I, An uplink earth station that transmits the desired signal to the satellite.
II, The satellite amplifies the incoming signal and changes the frequency.
III, The satellite transmits the signal back to earth
IV, The ground equipment receives the signal
Let's take for example a scenario of sending TV broadcast from one part of the world to the other,
TV broadcast signal is transmitted through a ground based satellite (uplink) to the satellite in space, the satellites boost the signals and sends it back to another ground equipment(downlink), a Satellite receiving dish. The transmission process from the earth is referred to as uplink while the transmission process from the satellite to the earth is referred to as downlink.
A satellite contains multiple channel referred to as transponders, they provides bandwidth and power over designates radio frequencies. Transponders are used for amplification of signals from the uplink which turns very weak due to the distance covered and converts the frequency of the received signals for retransmission.Transponder basically amplifies signals and convert frequency from uplink to downlink.
The rate at which Information can be transmitted through the transponder and how large the downlink receiving dish should be is determined by the bandwidth of the transponder i.e ability to receive and transmit signal. Communication satellite services primarily use three radio frequency bands;
1, C-band: it provides lower transmission power over wide geographical areas requiring larger ground equipment for reception.
2, Ku-band: This offers higher transmission power over smaller geographical areas and can be received with smaller ground equipment.
3, L-band, This is used for mobile applications, such as maritime and aeronautical communications, employing a variety of ground equipment.
Uplink frequency is therefore the frequency with which the signal is sent to the space and the frequency by which it is sent by the transponder is the downlink frequency
The signal retransmitted from the satellite reaches a lot more people as it sees a large part of the world and thus will be able to send this signals to many people. This forms the basis for digital television companies that send television programs through satellite.
In other words, a communication Satellite can therefore be described as relay stations that receives radio signals from one location and transmit to another location, communication satellites helps in relaying messages from one side of the earth to another
APPLICATIONS OF ARTIFICIAL SATELLITES
Satellites are vital devices that helps us comprehend incomprehensible geography of the earth. It provides high level of flexibility and mobility.Satellites maintains the record of superior performance over other forms of communication. Satellites are used for Weather reporting, research and development sector, military application and navigation using Global position system (GPS) technology which helps to determine the exact location one is anywhere in the world and also, driving to somewhere you've never been before comes easy with signals from satellite as a guide.
However, Satellites does the disadvantage by enabling security organisations to keep us under surveillance and disrespect our privacy. Also, satellites are expensive to build, place in the orbit and maintain thereby making the operational cost high.
CONCLISION
The Idea behind a communication satellite is quite simple; relating to voice, video and data communication, it involves sending data up to the space and transmit back to the earth for broader coverage area, then it is picked up by small satellite receivers (satellite dish) and transmitted where it is decoded by the use of a decoder and displayed on a connected television or computer screen.
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Hello! I find your post valuable for the wafrica community! Thanks for the great post! @wafrica is now following you! ALWAYs follow @wafrica and use the wafrica tag!
The advent of satelites is one thing that has revolutionized our world particularly in the area of communication. The fact that this tech is fast growing is even more fascinating as more possibilities are arising.
I find this a good read @olajidekehinde. Well done!
The invention of satellite remains one of the greatest achievements of scientists..Communication would have been so tedious and we would be stuck with the archaic way of communicating.
Well done..This is such a nice input
Try to improve on the text formattting though. Break the lines to improve readability
Wow.. I learnt so much here from natural to artificial satellite and their importance.. Its brilliant.
But, in some movies they always mention use the satellite phone, is there any difference with the normal phone since our communication is done with the satellite.
Satellite phones are other type of phone different from the normal cell phones, it uses satellites for its communication instead of mast as for the normal phones. Satellite phones have coverage all over the world unlike the cell phones that depends on the mast coverage area.
Ku-band, no wonder there's ku Africa on my dstv. Thanks for this eye opener.
Those guys are holding us to ransom. I wonder why their subscription is that high. Are they trying to recoup the cost of launching their satellites in one year? :D
I wouldn't know oh, sooner or later I'd stop using them all together. They don't have my favorite stations sef.
It's just too costly for my liking. Just that there no other equivalent option to switch to.
Just stream your TV on the internet. ☺ ☺
Data is still a bit pricey. Even the quality of service is poor across most ISPs. But it's still a viable alternative.
Ask @adetola about data, he gets them cheaply.
Ok. Thanks
Satellite technology is here to stay. I wonder what the world can do without those satellites.
Wonderful post sir. 👍
When I was like ten, I thought satellites are always human-made. Spent a lot of nights staring up at the sky trying to pick which of the blinking things that were a satellite. It was fun then; I wished I had a telescope then. Later I got to know that planets, even the Earth is a satellite; it orbits the Sun so its the Sun's natural satellite.
The article is informative. Thank you for taking out time to compile it. Take a look and correct some typos. Thank you.
Thanks
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