A portable satellite dish is a satellite dish that can be taken along wherever you go. More than one company makes these dishes, and they come in different shapes and sizes. For example, XM Radio, a satellite radio company, made small, pen-like portable satellite antennas that were used on portable XM receivers. VuQube also makes a portable satellite dish called VQ1000. This product is used by people who like to watch TV while they are camping, or at their summer cabins. According to portablesatellitedishes.com, portable dishes such as the VQ1000 can even maintain signal through poor weather conditions, something permanent satellite TV dishes have trouble with.
Different satellite dishes work within different broadcast frequency ranges. C band satellite dishes work within the range of 4 to 8 gigahertz (GHz). Because of these lower ranges, C band satellite dishes are excellent TV antennas. However, C band satellite dish antennas are big and bulky. Nicknamed "Big Ugly Dishes" ("BUD") because of their size, C band satellite dishes are not very popular. Despite their size, and lack of popularity, C band satellite dishes are a less-expensive alternative to smaller satellite dishes such as those used by companies like DirecTV and Dish Network.
HD satellite dishes are very similar to non-HD, or standard definition (SD), satellite dishes in shape and size. The key difference is that HD antennas are capable of receiving HD signals while SD antennas are not. This is because the HD signal cannot be decoded by the SD satellite dish. HD satellite dishes also come in two forms: Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) 2 and MPEG 4. MPEGs have to do with the compression of data---the more MPEGs, the more data can be compressed and decompressed, and therefore the faster data will get from one place to another. Satellite TV providers such as Dish Network are doing away with MPEG 2 and moving into MPEG 4 only.