While a lot of planes have Wi-Fi today, there are still a lot of planes in service that have been outfitted with satellite TV. This was a popular option for planes in the late ’00s and early ’10s. Back then it was technically illegal to use a mobile device in the air. Luckily that rule has been recinded.
When you sit down for a long flight, your mind has a lot of chances to wander. You might be thinking, “how does satellite TV even work on a plane?”
It seems like it shouldn’t work at all.
After all, if you have satellite at home, you know that just moving the dish a fraction of an inch can make a huge difference. How can planes get satellite TV when they’re going 550 miles per hour?
Satellite TV on planes is both extremely complex and actually somewhat simple than you think. It’s similar to systems that give you satellite TV in a moving car, boat, or RV. The signal is tracked with high-speed computers and dish angles are adjusted in real time. But of course, there’s a little more to a typical system than that…
Let’s look at the simple and complex aspects
Simple
An aircraft system works just like a hotel system or fitness center system. You might have noticed that you have only a few dozen channels or less, and that’s because a headend system in the plane interprets the channels and sends them all to the seatback monitors. It’s not like your home where you have the whole spectrum of DIRECTV channels. This technology is very mature, with the basic parts of it going back 50 years.
Complex
Planes are constantly moving in three dimensions along six axes. They tilt far more than RVs do (at least you hope) and they move up and down at different speeds. This takes a lot of computing power to accomplish since it all happens so fast. A system has to work hard to make live satellite TV work in an environment.
Simple
Tracking the satellite isn’t as hard as you’d think because even if you’re 30,000 feet up, that doesn’t matter because the satellite is still 22,000 miles above you. Just like the things you see in the distance seem to move slower than the things you see close up, satellites move very slowly in relation to pretty much anything on the ground, even a plane moving at top speed. So, a satellite is easier to track than anything on the ground. Plus, there is no weather up there to worry about so weaker signals work better.
Complex
Satellite TV equipment must play well with other avionics. A satellite TV system must not put out any radio emissions that could potentially affect more important systems like navigation. This means even the electronics that control the system have to be specially designed. Not only that, it’s much colder up at 40,000 feet so the electronics must be designed to work consistently at temperatures that could potentially damage land-based satellite equipment.
When you look at satellite TV in the sky, it really is amazing, but with the even more amazing science we have today, it isn’t as hard as you think. In the meantime, if you’ve enjoyed watching DIRECTV or DISH during your flight, why not add it to your home, boat, or RV? At Signal Connect, we specialize in solving problems like how to get great entertainment no matter where you are. We do more mobile and marine activations than anyone else in the world.
If you want to know more, call us at 888-233-7563 during East Coast business hours. If it’s after hours, fill out the form below. We’ll get back to you, usually within one business day.
