Direct Broadcast Satellite

Television
• The idea of using satellites to provide direct transmissions into the home has been
around for many years, and the services provided are known generally as direct
broadcast satellite (DBS) services.

• Broadcast services include audio, television, and Internet services.

• DBS-TV originally started in US and Europe in 1980s using analog FM transmission in

the Ku Band. But, the market for DBS-TV started growing rapidly in 1990s after the
introduction of high capacity digital DBS-TV satellites.

• It was made practical by the development of low cost Ku-band antennas and
receivers, and high speed digital integrated circuits that incorporated QPSK
demodulation, error control, decryption and MPEG decoding.
• The 12.2-12.7 GHz band was set aside for exclusive use by DBS-TV satellites in
geostationary orbit so that high-power transponders could be used.

• The flux density at the earth surface produced by medium and high power
transponders used in the DBS satellites is in the range 105-115 dB W/m2 , which
allowed small receiving antennas (0.45-0.9 m) used for reception.

• Typically, a satellite carries upto 32 transponders covering part of the 12.2-12.7

GHz band . The available bandwidth (uplink and downlink) is seen to be 500 MHz
• A total number of 32 transponder channels, each of bandwidth 24 MHz, can be
accommodated. The bandwidth is sometimes specified as 27 MHz, but this includes
a 3- MHz guard band allowance. Therefore, when calculating bit-rate capacity, the
24 MHz value is used.

• The total of 32 transponders requires the use of both right- hand circular
polarization (RHCP) and left-hand circular polarization (LHCP) .

• Digitizing the audio and video components of a television program allows signal
compression to be applied, which greatly reduces the bandwidth required.
DBS-TV Receiver
• The front end of receiver is located at the antenna feed to minimize signal loss
and hence maintain the lowest possible system noise temperature.

• A polarizer is used immediately behind the antenna feed. It is set to receive

LHCP or RHCP by changing the voltage supplied to the low noise block
converter (LNB) unit at the antenna.

▪ The polarizer converts the circularly received polarization signal to a linearly polarized
signal in a section of waveguide and a linear probe in the waveguide converts the signals to
currents that drive the LNA input.

• The low-noise block that follows the polarizer contains a low-noise amplifier
(LNA) and a downconverter.
▪ The downconverter converts the 12.2- to 12.7-GHz band to 900 to 1400 MHz, a frequency
range where cable losses are lower than the Ku band.
• The user enters a desired channel no into the set-up box using an IR remote
control which is converted via a stored look up table in the receiver to an RF
channel frequency and polarization.

• The set-up box selects the channel desired by the user by filtering that channel
from the multiple channels received from the satellite, converts the signal to a
lower intermediate frequency, decrypts the encrypted signal, demodulates the
radio signal and sends the resulting video signal to the television through a cable.

• The lookup table in the receiver that relates channel numbers to frequencies, is
downloaded from the satellite on a regular schedule.
DBS-TV System Design
• The main factor governing performance of a DBS system will be the [C/N] of the
downlink.

• The selection of C/N margin is a design trade off between the outage level that
customers can be expected to tolerate, the maximum allowable diameter of the
receiving dish antenna and power output from the satellite transponders.

• The Ku band transmit beam is shaped to deliver more power to those areas that
suffer the highest occurrences of heavy rain so the outages are kept to an
acceptable level.
Error Control in Digital DBS-TV
• Digital DBS-TV transmissions typically uses a symbol rate of 20 Mbps using QPSK
which gives a bitrate of 40 Mbps.
▪ Error correction coding and control bits occupy 13-17 Mb and digital data occupy the remaing
23-27 Mb.

• The compressed digital video signal bit stream is first split into blocks of bits and
encoded with a Reed-Solomon linear block code.

• The coded bit stream is then interleaved and encoded again with a convolutional
code. The double layer of the code is called a concatenated code.
At the receiver, the recovered bit stream is first decoded with a Viterbi decoding
algorithm to remove the convolutional coding , and a limited number of errors in the
bit stream are corrected.
The corrected bit stream is then de-interleaved and a Reed-Solomon decoding
algorithm is applied.
Master control station and uplink
• Ground stations that provide the uplink signals to the satellites in a DBS system
are highly complex systems in themselves, utilizing a wide range of receiving,
recording, encoding, and transmission equipment. Signals will originate from
many sources.

• The many signals that are broadcast by the satellites are collected at a master
control station and uplinked to the satellites by a group of large antennas with
fade margins sufficient to overcome any expected rain fade.

The uplink station must transmit hundreds of signals to the DBS-TV satellites 24 hr
a day, 365 days a year. All of the signals must be converted to a uniform digital
format, compressed, and time division multiplexed.
One uplink antenna will transmit upto 16 RF channels to one DBS-TV satellite. Each
signal is a QPSK modulated Ku-band carrier with a symbol rate of upto 20 Mbps,
occupying a bandwidth of 27 MHz.
The bit stream drives a video exciter which generates the carrier typically at 70 MHz
and is then upconverted to the transponder input frequency in the transmitter.
Advantages
• Offers digital quality signals which do not degrade the picture or
sound quality
• Availability of satellite broadcast in rural and semi-urban areas where
cable is difficult to install.