30 Years Ago Today
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I strongly disagree with this statement since I just put up a 7.5 ft dish exclusively to get NASA for my family.Yes really . Its the 2000'$ any one setting up a cband nowadays is no hobbyist. They want one thing... power vu.....
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When I was a kid and we traveled anywhere on holiday, I'd be yelling from the backseat about motel choices about whether they had a satellite dish or not - my sole criteria. "Don't stop here - I don't see a dish". I remember on one spring break I knew if we stopped by a certain time that Wrath of Khan was going to be on. "Stop soon or we'll miss it!". Ahhh the memories of a TV addicted kid.
It was a 5 foot mesh dish (Radio Shack sold it). It was a nice setup in the day (especially with no cable nearby). You had the "basic cable" stations.
My dad got one in 83 and getting HBO in the boonies was awesome. It was a 10 foot dish with a big block down converter. The receiver was a drake ESR 324 receiver. I remember HBO test scrambled in the summer of 85 going full VCII in Jan of 86.
We bought a house in Oregon back in 1985 that had a solid 10 foot dish and a hand crank to change satellites. I don't recall the receiver but it had a rotary knob and slide rule tuning.
Either my wife or I would have to run all the way to the back of the property and move the dish while the other would watch the TV screen and shout when the correct satellite was tuned in.
Used to subscribe to that huge satellite weekly guide.
When stations started scrambling the first one we bought was CNN (or was it only HNN at that time?) to watch coverage of the first gulf war. It was also cool to tune around and find various back hauls.
Either my wife or I would have to run all the way to the back of the property and move the dish while the other would watch the TV screen and shout when the correct satellite was tuned in.
Used to subscribe to that huge satellite weekly guide.
When stations started scrambling the first one we bought was CNN (or was it only HNN at that time?) to watch coverage of the first gulf war. It was also cool to tune around and find various back hauls.
As Col Potter used to say, "Mule fritters!"Yes really . Its the 2000'$ any one setting up a cband nowadays is no hobbyist. They want one thing... power vu.....
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Didn't Dish start a big dish subscription service because of this (I mean echostar)..forgive my ignorance if I am incorrect
"Sidecar' descrambler.. I remember these. 120 degree LNA's also. All hooked to a Gillespie receiver. (All in my museum of obsolete 'stuff')
IIRR, Echostar operated a major subscription center. I remember them pushing their small dish system in the early days when trying to renew subs on a big dish system.
Sounds like it would be interesting reading sometime...anyone have any links or sites that tell the story?
I worked for Zenith in Plant Number One on the cable box R&D project for two weeks. Uncle Sam called. Said "cable boxes are not considered critical to the national interests." "You are hereby officially drafted!"
The old Zenith facility is still standing but it is in VERY poor shape. Heartbreaking what has happened to the huge plant and the surrounding neighborhood.
http://www.myantiqueradio.com/zenith/Zenith_Story.pdf
So, HBO wanted $12.95/mo back in 2016 for a single SD channel of movies and now they charge $15/mo for HBO Now with the whole library of HBO programs, specials, and Movies. I'd call that pretty incredible considering how other programming providers have raised their rates year after year.
Interesting topic and history lesson!
Interesting topic and history lesson!
That's how Charlie started. Peddling big dishes from a pickup. Not sure it was his pickup.
This is not hack talk, its just talk about a major milestone in the history of Satellite Television.
Well i did not mean to make anyone upset. I remember this day also. I thought talking about hacking was not allowed in this forum . But cpt. Midnight did hack the signal. Way back then.
There is wild feeds on a cband not just nasa channel. They come and go. We had cband sat when i was a kid. That is why im interested in it today.
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There is wild feeds on a cband not just nasa channel. They come and go. We had cband sat when i was a kid. That is why im interested in it today.
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There was also and old song about it too. Kind of a country song about cpt. Midnight. My old man had it on casette tape long ago. I found the mp3 while back. But lost it reformatting a windows xp computer/ hard drive
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Big difference in: Hey anyone have the latest codes, my xyz box went blank again and I am missing the super bowl.
and what this thread is about.
makes ya wonder why showtime is a free preview this weekend on direct tv.
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