A spot beam, in

telecommunication Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than tha ...

s parlance, is a

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioiso ...

signal that is specially concentrated in power (i.e. sent by a

high-gain antenna A directional antenna or beam antenna is an antenna which radiates or receives greater power in specific directions allowing increased performance and reduced interference from unwanted sources. Directional antennas provide increased performan ...

) so that it will cover only a limited geographic area on Earth. Spot beams are used so that only

Earth station A ground station, Earth station, or Earth terminal is a terrestrial radio station designed for extraplanetary telecommunication with spacecraft (constituting part of the ground segment of the spacecraft system), or reception of radio wave ...

s in a particular intended reception area can properly receive the satellite signal.{{cite book, first=Michael Olorunfunmi, last= Kolawole, title=Satellite Communication Engineering, Second Edition, publisher =

CRC Press The CRC Press, LLC is an American publishing group that specializes in producing technical books. Many of their books relate to engineering, science and mathematics. Their scope also includes books on business, forensics and information tec ...

, year=2013 , page=43 , isbn=9781138075351 One notable example of the use of spot beams is on

direct broadcast satellite Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location. The signals are received via an outdoor parabolic antenna commo ...

systems such as

DirecTV DirecTV (trademarked as DIRECTV) is an American Multichannel television in the United States, multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California, El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary ...

and

Dish Network DISH Network Corporation (DISH, an acronym for DIgital Sky Highway) is an American television provider and the owner of the direct-broadcast satellite provider Dish, commonly known as Dish Network, and the over-the-top IPTV service, Sling TV ...

that deliver local

broadcast Broadcasting is the distribution (business), distribution of sound, audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic medium (communication), mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio ...

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication Media (communication), medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of Transmission (telecommunications), television tra ...

via satellite only to viewers in the part of North America from which those terrestrial broadcast stations originate. Spot beams allow satellites to transmit different data signals using the same frequency. Because satellites have a limited number of frequencies to use, the ability to re-use a frequency for different geographical locations (without different data interfering with each other at the receiver) allows for more local channels to be carried, since the same frequency can be used in several regions.

References

Radio