User’s Guide
6-1
Appendix A: Glossary
22 kHz
A control signal used for DiSEqC or for switching frequency bands.
Band
Part of the radio frequency spectrum occupied by a signal. Ku band satellites transmit in
distinct frequency bands. Digital satellite receiving equipment often represents the
receivable Ku spectrum as a low band (10.75 to 11.7 GHz) and a high band (11.7 to
12.75 GHz).
BER
Bit Error Rate. The percentage of bits that have errors, relative to the total number of
bits in a transmission.
Broadcast
A transmission made widely available to the general public. The signal does not not
have a specific target. For example, when a conventional radio station broadcasts a sig-
nal, the signal blankets every antenna in the area of the radio station.
Block
The 188-byte DVB MPEG Transport Stream packet.
Carrier frequency
Electromagnetic radiation that is modified to represent broadcast information for trans-
fer across distances. See Modulation and Demodulation.
Converter
Also called the LNB (Low Noise Block converter). The device in the dish antenna
which amplifies the radiation (the Ku band signal) from the satellite and converts it to an
intermediate frequency (from 950 to 2,150 MHz), before the signal reaches the digital
receiver. A Universal converter can receive signal from most European satellites.
Database
See Satellite Database.
dBW
Power value in decibels of the signal broadcast by the transponder at the center of its
footprint. The higher the value, the smaller the receiver dish can be.
Decibel (dB)
Logarithmic measurement used to indicate increase or decrease in signal strength.
Demodulation
The reconstruction of original signal from radiation that has reached the end user’s
reception equipment. This commonly occurs in the broadband receiver. See Modula-
tion.
Digital broadcasting
Broadcasting system based on the mapping of images and sounds to binary data formats.
In Europe, the DVB standard is used.