Abstract :
In the autumn of 1989 the UK´s four television broadcasting networks will become seven. From that date British Satellite Broadcasting will begin transmitting three additional networks from a geostationary satellite located at 31° West. With the arrival of DBS, future television broadcast receivers will need to cater for a new transmission standard as well as a new broadcast band. Eventually, new television receivers will be `satellite compatible´ and include all the features needed to display D-MAC signals from DBS transmissions. In the short term there is a requirement for an intermediate decoder/converter unit to allow DBS programmes to be viewed on existing terrestrial broadcast receivers. The concepts behind this unit form the basis of this paper