Manuvaidya,
There appears to be several issues that are not familiar to you. We may have to take each one in a case by case discussion.
First item regarding the ability to receive North American (US or Candadian signals) or western European satellite signals from your location in India is not gong to be possible in most instances. As Satellite AV stated, the curvature of the earth does not allow this. Your satellite antenna (dish) must have a direct Line Of Sight (LOS) to the satellite in space. If a satellite is roughly 75 degrees or more further east or further west from where you live, you won't be able to receive a signal from that satellite as the earth will block the signal. Therefore, if you know what your site longitude coordinate is, you can roughly tell which satellites in the sky that you have a direct LOS to.
There is another obstacle here beyond the LOS issue. The problem being that even if you do have a direct LOS to the satellite, the antenna array or the transponders may not be aimed in your direction, so you still might not be able to pick up anything from the satellite if the company that owns the satellite is not "beaming" the signal in your direction.
The only way you can receive US or North American TV transmissions (via satellite) is if the signal is being picked up by other ground based antennas and retransmitted to another satellite and "hopped" across the globe and then re-transmitted via a downlink by another satellite in your location. I am sure that they do this, but not for very many channels.
You might be able to pick up some eastern European satellites in India, but I wouldn't know which satellites those would be without researching this on Lyngsat.com or some other source and then judging it all based upon the latitude and longitude coordinates of where you live.
When you start to discuss encrypted channels, you get into an area of legality. Here in North America, there are several satellite service providers which encrypt their signals. In order for us to view them, we must pay them a subscription fee in order for them to allow us to "descramble" these signals. Otherwise, we would be either unable to view these channels or else we would be viewing them illegally (theft of service). I have no idea what the laws are in India, but I am pretty sure that it is fairly the same idea the world over. Most signals are not simply FREE unless the government pays for it with your tax money and provides it that way or if a religious or educational organization receives monies through donations or grants to put it out there for free for you to view. Here on this forum, we do not condone anything illegal, so keep that in mind, no matter where you reside.
Another problem that someone in North America may have in assisting you with your setup in India, is that the satellites that serve your area may use different downlink frequencies and transmission modes. Some of the equipment that we use here, may not function for you and vice versa. People in Europe use the PAL system and most of their televisions are based on that, whereas we use NTSC formats, so that is another problem area. What receivers and LNBFs and setups that we may discuss here, may not be applicable to you, except in general theory.
For channel lists and satellite lists, you should consult with Lyngsat.com and SatCoDX and SatBeams.com. Take some time to research these sites and read some of their "tips" that will help you discover what satellites are available to you. They are usually really good sites and they may be even better for you than they are for us.
Navigating these sites takes some time to get used to. I can only recommend that you just start clicking on different items on their web page and see what they all lead you to. It is almost a maze or a labyrinth and I couldn't explain it any easier than just telling you to browse around on them and play.
I might also recommend the forum "Austech.com" as that is based in Australia. They have a section on their forum for satellite information. Not near as detailed as what we have here, but it would be more geared to your geographic location. That might help you out with some specific questions. Just remember that those folks down under will be looking at satellite angles backwards, reverse and upside-down from your point of view, since they are in the southern hemisphere.
I hope that this information has been helpful to you. We can get you headed in the right direction here, but you will have to research the really intricate items that are specific to your location in India on your own, mostly. Since we cannot test and confirm what data we would find from our standpoint.
Good luck Manuvaidya! Please keep us informed of what you find along the way with your endeavor.
RADAR
