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As you know last week we made a change here at SatelliteGuys that some liked and others didn't. Today we hope to meet both opinions in the middle with our new Prefix system for our FTA Satellite Receiver Support Forum! More on the new Prefix system in a few minutes, but first I want to talk more about why we made the change last week.

The change was actually a long time coming, and is something I personally have been thinking about for quite awhile now. In talking with our members (and they know who they are... I am not going to name names.) they felt uncomfortable in our FTA section talking about equipment that was / is not sold by our Gold Sponsors. This is the kind of thing I do not want for SatelliteGuys, I want all members to be able to comfortably discuss ANY legitimate Free To Air Receiver here at SatelliteGuys.

As you might have seen our Gold Sponsor list has been shrinking and this has done on purpose by myself. Every week we receive inquiries from companies wanting to be be SatelliteGuys Gold Sponsors, I have turned all of them away leaving money on the table because I didn't want any more Gold Sponsors. After doing this for over a year I finally got the nerve to talk to Brian from SatelliteAV, and a few weeks ago I let him know my feelings and let him know that I was dropping the SatelliteGuys Gold Sponsor program entirely. I honestly had to do this on Pins and Needles as I didn't want to offend Brian and SatelliteAV nor any of the other Gold Sponsors. My reasons for wanting to get rid of the Gold Sponsor program was to make SatelliteGuys more independent going forward, these companies have been EXCELLENT supporters over the years and I did not want them to feel slighted in any way. When I told Brian the news I did not know how he was going to react, but to my surprise and relief he was very supportive in the move. One thing that I love about Brian is he is a satellite technology lover first and a satellite sales person second. He understands for the hobby this is a great thing and a big move forward. And in all honesty having his sponsorship and dedicated forum here has probably lost sales from other venues. I talked to Brian on the phone the other day and to me it sounded like a weight was taken off of his shoulders as well. He is a guy who is here to support the Satellite Community not just his own products and is a true friend to the entire FTA Industry. I should also add that move has NOTHING to do with money, if you know me you know I don't operate SatelliteGuys to make money... and they also know that I personally am the first to reach in my own pocket when we don't have enough ad revenue / Pub Memberships to cover our server, bandwidth, equipment and software fees. So in the beginning of 2014 you will see the Gold Sponsors go away, why 2014 you might ask? Well I have contracts and the sponsors are paid up through 2014. I am a man of my word and will honor the contracts I have in place.

And that is the HONEST reason for the changes made. Its good to finally have that off my chest.. I wanted to say it before but did not want to offend anyone.

Now the next question that will come up is why don't we just add a sub-forum for each FTA satellite maker, and while it is possible there are technical limitations in us doing that as well, with the main problem being the "Forum Exclusion System" that we use. The Forum Exclusion System allows members to remove forums from the forums listing that they don't want to see. This exclusion system only lets users hide so many forums. We are now to a point where we have so many forums that people will not be able to hide many of the forums they don't want to see.

The Solution is now in place and it will work going forward in the Satellite Receiver Support forum and that is when you post a new thread in that forum you will be asked to select a receiver maker prefix for your message. When your message is posted it will show that receiver makers name in the topic such as "[TRAXIS] How do I add a new satellite location?" While not quite as good as individual forums it will make it easier for members to find what they are looking for. I do plan (as time warrants) today to go through older messages and give them prefixes.

The current Maker Prefixes are as follows - Amiko AZBox Captiveworks Coolsat CNX Digiwave Fortec GEOSATpro Golden Media Openbox Optibox Pansat Sonicview Traxis Viewsat 4DTV OTHER. To make it impartial they are listed in ABC order. Missing makers can be added as needed. It should be noted that we are only interested in supporting the North American Free To Air Market and will only be offering support for boxes used here in North America.

One more thing I should point out, while I am trying to open it up for everyone to discuss all makers of FTA Equipment there is one thing I will NOT support here at SatelliteGuys and that is discussion / promotion of what I am calling the "Raindeer" (Yes its spelled wrong..) service. I can not in good conscience allow promotion of this service here while someone that I consider (aka my feelings) has hurt the industry and ripped off so many people over the years is a part of this new company. I will not name the person but I am sure most know who he is and know why he has been banned by almost every FTA forum out there. I do hope that other forums join us in taking a stand against this joker by preventing discussion of this service as well. If this person was not involved with the project then I would consider allowing discussion, but for now I can't. This includes supporting the Cisco Receivers used by this service as well.

And there you have it. Open, honest and hopefully to the point.

Thanks everyone for your support!