This is not the cheapest book you'll find on DBS satellite technology, but I have found no other books to date that go to the depths of detail that this one does, especially on MPEG2 encoding for satellite broadcast. Mr. Mead was there at the beginnings of DirecTV in 1990, and his years of experience show through in the vast amount of technical detail included in this book. From the discussions on modern satellite RF design, to error-correction schemes and conditional access encryption of transmissions, through the uplink facilities designs and subscriber decoding equipment, it's ALL THERE! Even the last two chapters of the book are devoted to "future" DBS technologies like MPEG4 and Global Broadcast Service.
This book will be on my reference shelf for some time to come!