Satellite antennas for New Generation buses.

We have commented in previous posts that the only possibility currently offered by the market to be able to enjoy live satellite television while the bus is en route is the installation of a satellite antenna that allows connectivity with the satellite while the bus is on going.

Although it is true that the number of options regarding satellite antennas that the market currently offers is not very wide, it is true that there is a model of satellite antennas with 4 characteristics that make them a little superior in terms of quality and benefits.

The first of these characteristics is their height. It is true that there is a wide range of antennas on the market with height measurements of about 35-40 cm, which depending on the height of the buses can be installed on the roof. Now, we already have available on the market some antenna models with a height of between 16-25cm that, on the one hand, improve the aesthetics of the bus since they protrude less, in addition to the fact that this reduction in height is also important in order to be able to be installed in a greater number of bus models.

The second of these characteristics has to do with the reception technology they use. Most of the antennas on the market use a rotating dish as a conventional antenna, which allows the amplification and reception of the signal. Above all, this type of antenna has one limitation, which is that it cannot work with satellite elevations greater than 60% at the reception point. This makes it impossible to use them in many countries in northern Europe, equatorial areas, the Middle East and Africa, since the position of the satellites requires antennas that can work with elevation angles greater than 60%. In this sense, the new antenna array technology allows work with elevations of up to 80%, which facilitates the use of antennas in almost all areas of the world.

The Third has to do with the automatic adjustment of the skew, being able to make trips of several thousand kilometers without having to adjust the skew of the antenna. This functionality is not present in all the antennas on the market and for long-distance buses it is interesting.

The fourth characteristic is linked to the number of antenna outputs that enable independent connection to several monitors inside a bus, being able to see different channels on each of them. Almost all antennas on the market have an output to a central monitor that distributes the signal to the other monitors, but there are already antennas that can include 2-3 independent outputs, making it possible to see different channels on different monitors on the bus.

The fifth characteristic is the possibility of receiving dual band and dual polarity, which makes it possible to receive all the channels of a certain satellite, unlike other antennas on the market that focus only on a certain band or polarity, restricting the number of channels that they can be received.