A decade ago, few boats under 30 feet had a television onboard and few under 50 feet had more than a single tube.

But we Americans love our entertainment, and thanks to the advent of the space-saving, easily-mounted flat-screen television, these days you'll find an LCD in virtually every cabin of every boat from the mid-20's on up. Hop aboard a yacht in the 50-foot class and you're likely to find three to five screens placed strategically belowdecks.

But putting a television onboard is only half the battle, when it comes to watching tube on a boat – getting reception is the tricky part.

Sure, you can watch cable when you are in the slip. You can also hook up one of those disk-shaped UHF/VHF television antennas which go for $150 to $200 at a marine supply store, and get reception in many marinas or coastal areas located close to major population centers.

KVHModern satellite TV antennas, like the KVH TracVision M1, have been miniaturized to mount on smaller boats like this Sea Ray 260 Sundancer.But in our cable/Fios/satellite TV age, these simple antenna are the rabbit ears of the marine TV world. Ask yourself: will you really be satisfied with three or four snowy channels pulled down from the public airwaves? Of course not. And you can't cast off the lines and keep your cable hook-up, either.

While some traditionalists may snort at watching television while on the water, many anglers, skiers and cruisers want to keep up with sports throughout the day, watch news and weather in the evenings or indulge in something a little lighter at anchor. Many too have children or grandchildren, with more voracious needs.

The answer? Satellite TV.

SIGNALS AT SEA

So why is getting satellite TV so tough on a boat? On land, it's a piece of cake: point your dish at the signal, receive it and plumb it to the TV. No big deal. But a boat is always in motion. Point a dish at the satellite and the first time you hit a wave, it's knocked out of alignment and the signal goes kaput.

KVHThe M1, up close.That's why a serious marine TV antenna comes enclosed in a dome. Lift off the cover, and you'll discover a dish with a belt-driven gyro. Once the antenna "finds" the satellite signal, the gyro constantly moves it to keep it in alignment as the boat rocks and rolls. This system works pretty well with most satellite television broadcasts, such as the standard Ku-band signals sent down to Earth by three of DirectTV's five satellites, which have a relatively wide beam width. And through the years antenna manufacturers have managed to shrink the components down to a small enough size that boaters could mount these antenna on 20-something boats.

At 12-inches tall, with a 13-inch diameter, Intellian's i1, for example, weighs in at 9.4 pounds and doesn't appear much larger then a basketball. KVH's TracVision M1 is a tiny bit bigger at 13-inches high with a 13.5-inch diameter, but it weighs less at 7.5 pounds. Either of these will look and feel at home on the radar arch or hard top of a relatively small boat. Neither are exactly cheap, with an installed price of $3,000. But they are not too expensive for consideration, either.

INTELLIANThe WRS Algorithm allows the antenna to search for side-lobe signals, as well as those of the main-lobe.But before we get too excited about these small boat systems, let's point out one fact: reception coverage and quality is directly related to dish size. So although these smaller antennas will allow small boat owners to get reception in most places, most of the time, you can't expect to have coverage with one of these systems when you shove off on that voyage to cross the Atlantic. Coverage maps showing the areas where each of the different antennas can get reception are posted on the manufacturer's web sites: www.intelliantech.com and www.kvh.com.

GETTING HI

If we American boaters were satisfied with "regular" TV, this would more or less be the end of the story. But many of us are not. These days, if you don't have high-definition you might as well shut off the tube and (shudder) read a book. And although the i3 and the M1 work just fine with the Ku-band signals, the premier satellite TV provider, DirectTV, is moving all 130-plus channels of its hi-def programming to two Ka-band satellites. (Competitor DISH Network, with more than 65 HD channels, will remain the same.) You can view a table of options here.

INTELLIANThe Cassegrain design uses a sub-reflector to send the concentrated signals to the dish's feed.Unfortunately for us boaters, the Ka band is much narrower then Ku. That means your antenna is going to have to search longer and harder to locate the signal. Once located, it'll also be harder for the antenna to hang onto it. The bottom line? To get these HD signals you'll need a new antenna, one that's designed specifically for the Ku band.

This leaves DirectTV subscribers with few options. But take heart. At the 2009 Miami boat show just a few months ago, Intellian introduced their new k-series k4 and k6 antennas, which utilize some new technologies that enable it to find and hold Ka band signals.

The first and most important advancement is tagged "WRS," or Wide Range Search algorithm. Traditional marine antenna find the satellite signals by searching for the main lobe of a signal, where its strength is the greatest. WRS, however, can detect a much lower signal strength which includes the signal's side lobes. What the heck is a lobe? These satellite signals are sent to Earth in a beam, which is also called a lobe. The center of the beam is the center lobe, and this is the potent signal which the Ku band antenna are searching for. There are also secondary beams – side lobes – that are much weaker but also much wider than the main lobe. Traditional Ku band antennas generally filter out these side lobes, because locking onto them would result in awful reception, if any at all.

WRS takes advantage of the side lobes by being able to detect them, and using an algorithm to figure out where it needs to point the dish to jump from the side lobe to the main lobe. That gives the antenna a much broader beam width to search for, resulting in much faster search times on start-up and channel changes.

INTELLIANIntellian is the first company to provide Ka band antenna sized for smaller boats.FOLLOWING THE SIGNAL

Cool stuff – it will enable the antenna to find Ka. But this still isn't enough to watch broadcasts in this spectrum, because after finding the signal, the antenna still has to hold onto it. And that narrower signal means an antenna needs a faster, more accurate tracking system. Thus, Intellian had to develop a new technology to meet this challenge. This one, they call DBT, for Dynamic Beam Tilting. Huh?

Just about everyone has seen satellite TV dish antennas, and will remember there's a little arm with a round item on the end, mounted right in the middle of the main dish. It's called the feed. The dish collects the signals and focuses them at the feed, which gathers them and sends them on their way to your TV. But in order to make marine antennas more compact and reduce signal loss, some (including the k series) are the "Cassegrain" style of dish.

These have a secondary reflector mounted in the center of the antenna, where the feed would normally be found. This secondary reflector gathers the signals focused by the dish, and bounces them a second time, to a feed located in the center of the dish. The general advantage of using the Cassegrain design is that it's easier to support the feed, and in this case, also allows Intellian to take a new direction when it comes to holding onto that signal.

SEA TELSea Tel's DTV04HD weighs over 200-pounds, but it puts Ka and Ku into one dome.Instead of constantly gyrating the entire dish to stay in line with the satellite signal, the k series moves the high-speed rotating sub-reflector, which constantly measures heading, pitch, and roll. The net result? The dish itself requires only subtle movements to keep the signal, while most of the real work is done by the sub-reflector. That means you get better tracking, plus the elimination of a gyro and compass, two expensive items usually required to keep the dish in allignment. That not only makes it able to track Ka but makes it able to do so at a lower cost.

Two antenna in the k series are presently on the market. The k4 is 21-inches tall, 20-inches around and 26-pounds. That's a bit on the hefty size for boats under 40 feet. It lists for $7,000, but remember that it's for Ka band only. If you want to get the regular Ku channels as well, you'll need to invest in a k4/i4 dual antenna system, which prices out around $11,000. Large yacht owners will go for the k6, which is 28-inches tall, 28-inches around, and weighs 44-pounds. This antenna costs a hair under $10,000, but again, you'll need a k6/i6 package that boosts costs to $15,000, if you want full Ka/Ku band service. Yacht owners who desire Ka and Ku in a single dome can go with Sea Tel's whopping-big DTV04HD, which, at 38-inches by 40-inches and weighs more than 200-pounds and is appropriate only for extremely large vessels.

And naturally, you will want both Ka and Ku so you can watch anything, at any time. Because whether you're at anchor, tied to the dock, or just putting around at idle, you won't want to miss that episode of American Idol. During the next cruise you might want to kick back and enjoy a movie starring Tom Cruise. And, of course, you'll need to have perfect reception while you're watching the Super Bowl.