Possible sort of...
I like working on computers and am fasinated by the wireless stuff a person can do with a computer.
And being a FTA hobbyist, I was thinking it would be nice if FTA would go wireless...
no long cable from receiver to dish...
Just set up dish, aim, stick wireless antennae on dish, go into house. and program...
Boy, would that revolutize the satellite TV world....
And make someone rich....
Indeed that would be great
Keep in mind that *each* (standard US) LNB covers 11.7-12.7 or so Ghz, which is a rather huge 1 Gigahertz wide slice of spectrum (it's converted down to about 0.95-2.15 Gigaherz / 950-2150 Mhz IF, but note it's still around 1 Ghz/1000 Mhz wide!)
There's no way the FCC is going to allow you (or anyone) to legally occupy a Ghz (1000 Mhz, or about 50 times wider than the whole FM radio band!) of spectrum for your wireless connection unless it's in the very highest reaches of the microwave spectrum (Think W band!)
I suppose you could use a small point-to-point radio link up at the highest reaches of microwaves and get away with it (it's not going very far!), but the up-conversion and down conversion would probably cost more time, money, and effort than it's worth and it would be of questional legality without an FCC license permitting it.)
And imagine if you had several LNBs and wanted the whole thing to be wireless. That would even be tougher. Now we're talking multiple Ghz of bandwidth. That's a lot!
However, when you think about it, of that huge 1000+ Mhz of spectrum, you're really only interested in one tiny little sliver at any given time -- the one you want to watch.
The solution would be to separate out the signal, or at least the transponder, of choice, and only transmit that segment wirelessly. That might be pretty do-able.
Turns out the data rate for digital MPEG II DVB-S isn't that high. A standard 802.11b/g wireless router could carry the data a few dozen or maybe a few hundred feet. Off-the-shelf hardware, and no FCC license required. This could be useful *if* someone created a remote controlled receiver, where the "guts" sit outside at the dish, and the indoor part is just a remote controller for the IRD.
Can't see any reason why you couldn't weatherproof a receiver and control it remotely, either.
My thinking is run AC out to the dish, put a Slingbox, wireless router, and IRD in a weather-sealed box, and use Slingbox on your PC to control the IR emitter and the IRD outside.
However, you'd have a point if you said that it's not really all that wireless since you're just substituting a power line run for a coaxial power run, and introducing a whole bunch of potential weather-related challenges to your hardware.
What's really needed is some sort of combination of LNB and integrated receiver and Wi-Fi. But even that needs power, so if you want to go wireless, that means solar or batteries at the dish.
