Thanks everyone for your most kind comments!
I started just like everyone here..... With an electronic addiction. Tin cans and string in 1st grade, AM and shortwave dxing 3rd grade, 65-in-one Radio Shack kits in 4th, Heathkit radios in 6th, CB radio with homemade inverted V-beam antenna and a Rhombic 300' TV antenna DXing in 8th, Amateur radio, longwave and tropo DX in highschool. First read about a C-band satellite being received at a home with a chicken wire dish as a senior in highschool and drove 200 miles to see a homemade receiver and flat panel reflector to receive one channel, HBO. I was hooked, but poor. No way I could afford a system or have a place suitable for installation. The first home sytem that I saw advertised was over $30,000.00!
My father's first system was $10,000.00+ installed and featured a manual tuner with rotary knobs and a motorized dish with separate manual east/west drive buttons and a mechanical pointer that showed the general direction the dish was aimed. I believe that the LNA was 140 degrees and would burn out at least once a year at $500 with a service call.
Boy has the industry changed! I can only imagine where the technology will be in another 30 or 40 years!