1980's glory of analog cband satellite

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Sammughal

SatelliteGuys Family
Original poster
Feb 7, 2020
68
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Toronto Ontario Canada
Hey all, thought i'd share a few commercials of old cband satellite ads. I really wish I was around in the 1980's and owned a cband dish. It would've been a dream cometrue to watch analog wildfeeds. Have a fun look at these old commercials for nostalgia.




the satellite ranch commercial is my favourite. "With the purchase of a kenwood satellite system get a free sony E-Z beta VCR!"


Hope you enjoy! I just wish I was around to see the golden age of analog cband satellite and the era of good tv programming.
 
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TV Junkie said:
The good ole days... I was told that every hotel offered HBO because it was wide open and they could. You couldn't be the only hotel with a sign that didn't include HBO.
Click to expand...

Most of the hotels here in Mississauga all had cband satellites. Not one but two dishes sometimes 3 or 4 some of them are still up but a lot of them were removed. I can think of 8 or more hotels out here that still have old dishes up on the roof.
 
Ahh, the good old days. I had one of those perforated Radio Shack button hook, HH antennas. It was only an 8 footer. That was my first antenna.
 
Sammughal said:
Most of the hotels here in Mississauga all had cband satellites. Not one but two dishes sometimes 3 or 4 some of them are still up but a lot of them were removed. I can think of 8 or more hotels out here that still have old dishes up on the roof.
Click to expand...
Sure HBO on one dish, ESPN on another, etc... Remeber when the hotel signage started changing from HBO to read HBO / ESPN...?
 
Sammughal said:
Most of the hotels here in Mississauga all had cband satellites. Not one but two dishes sometimes 3 or 4 some of them are still up but a lot of them were removed. I can think of 8 or more hotels out here that still have old dishes up on the roof.
Click to expand...
I remember back in the early 80's when HBO made a big stink over people using a can style antenna to pick up terrestrial HBO feeds. HBO claimed it was illegal. Eventually they scrambled though.
 
hotel.jpg
 
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I have one of those radioshack receivers that doesn,t have much use on it. I am thinking about using it for a c-band dish mover for my fta. The receiver I now use has on screen programing and I have to keep changing my tv imputs to be able to check which satelite I am on. With the radio shack the information is on the face plate.
 
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Titanium said:
Yep, the "Good Ole Days" of analog C-band.

When the viewer couldn't tell the difference between a live C-band program and playback of the VHS recording... :rolleyes LOL
Click to expand...

Until the mid 2000s everything was usually recorded to tape and then played off tape anyways. Umatic and betacam were formats used in studios to playback content and they had racks of those machines for switching for segments and playing commercials before going for uplink. I have a few master tapes of the price is right on those umatic 3/4 tapes.
 
Sammughal said:
Until the mid 2000s everything was usually recorded to tape and then played off tape anyways. Umatic and betacam were formats used in studios to playback content and they had racks of those machines for switching for segments and playing commercials before going for uplink. I have a few master tapes of the price is right on those umatic 3/4 tapes.
Click to expand...
My point was... the video quality in the "C-band glory days" wasn't too glorious. LOL

Have hundreds of BetaSP and 3/4" U-matic masters from my film and video production days and the machines to transfer... Just haven't made the time for the project.
 
Titanium said:
My point was... the video quality in the "C-band glory days" wasn't too glorious. LOL

Have hundreds of BetaSP and 3/4" U-matic masters from my film and video production days and the machines to transfer... Just haven't made the time for the project.
Click to expand...
Sure looked a lot better than what I got off cable. And it was in stereo.
 
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TV Junkie said:
The good ole days... I was told that every hotel offered HBO because it was wide open and they could. You couldn't be the only hotel with a sign that didn't include HBO.
Click to expand...
HBO, ESPN, CNN, & WTBS were all on the same satellite (unscrambled). IIRC it was Galaxy 1. Combine those 4 channels with the off air antenna signals and your guests are happy. I think transponders 5, 9, 23, & 16 come to mind.
 
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