Satellite television is simply a wireless way of bringing television into your home. It is very popular because of the wide array of viewing options that you have with hundreds of channels to choose from. You have news programs from all over the world, children's programming to keep the children happy all day long and the latest movies for your enjoyment. You can also choose pay per view options, such as renting movies delivered right to your TV, sports packages such as hockey, baseball and football in addition to satellite radio channels.

Sometimes when you want to find out how satellite TV works, the explanation you receive is so technical that you are still no farther ahead. The simple part is that satellite TV is similar to radio in that it picks up a signal from a satellite orbiting the earth and delivers it to your living room. In order to receiver satellite TV, you so need to subscribe to one of the national providers in your country and have the system installed in your home.

You need to have a dish installed outside the home. This has to be outside because it needs an unobstructed view of the sky. It won't pick up the signals if there is anything in the way, even branches of trees, so you certainly wouldn't get any signals from inside the house. It also needs to be facing the South and once the whole system is installed then you have to align the dish. You don't have to worry about any of this though, because once you subscribe to a specific package the satellite provider sends and installer with the equipment to set everything up for you.

Along with the dish, you need a receiver connected to your television set. The receiver brings in the signal from the dish and decodes it so that you can sit back and watch television, However, you can only get one channel at a time from one receiver, so if everyone in the house wants to watch something different at the same time, you will need several receivers and several televisions.