††Satellite television is television that has been relayed to our homes or to the transmitting station from a satellite. The satellites which relay television broadcasts around the world occupy a special orbit called a geostationary orbit. A satellite placed about 36,000 kilometres above the Earth takes the same time to complete one orbit of the Earth as the Earth takes to complete its daily spin. So the satellite will always be above the same point on the Earth. Cameras and microphones in the studio send electrical signals to the television station, which then sends the signals to a ground station. The ground station beams the broadcast, as radio signals, to a satellite overhead. The radio waves are beamed back to Earth, where they are picked up by domestic satellite dish aerials. These aerials send the sound and picture signals to television receivers. Alternatively, ground stations on other continents may collect the radio signals and send them to a local television station which then broadcasts the signals. Satellites were first used for transmitting television programmes in 1962.
