The Spot beam reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Spot beam

A spot beam, in telecommunications parlance, is a satellite signal that is specially concentrated in power so that it will only cover a limited geographic area. Spot beams are used so that only earth stations in a particular intended reception area can properly receive the satellite signal.

One notable example of the use of spot beams is on direct broadcast satellite systems such as DirecTV and DISH Network that deliver local broadcast television via satellite only to viewers in the part of North America from which those terrestrial broadcast stations originate.

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