Well as I type this up I was trying to figure out how to say it. Well I guess the old "be blunt" works the best right?
I'm leaving as staff of Satelliteguys and honestly I'll probably leave the board as a whole. No I'm not moving to another board. I'm just bored with free to air and satellite in general. When I started with free to air in 2003 I got it to save 7.95 a month on my Bell ExpressVu bill. At the time the radio stations on there (some 40 Canadian stations) and the audio channels were in the clear and I was paying $8 a month for them. So I bought a FTA receiver for 60 bucks and hooked it up. Very basic unit. 10 TP entry, no way to move a motor, no channel editing, nothing fancy. You typed in the TP and scanned in all the channels on that transponder. But they came in. So I saved $8 a month.
Then I got a 30" dish and found out alot more was out there. Use to manually aim the dish at a few different satellites. Mainly was used for college hockey games. Upgraded the receiver to one with blind scan and wow that really changed what I watched
(also there went the $8 a month I was saving)
Got a motor and upgraded the dish (better 30" dish) and away I went. Stumbled upon a satellite that had a bunch of stations from around the country. Thought "why the hell would I need 6 different Pax (now Ion) stations or 5 WB stations?" Yes I had stumbled upon the Equity channels. Pretty much left a dish there for 5+ years. Also had some other networks on KU Band. Also found this crazy preacher named Dr Gene Scott on 93W screaming "Git on the Telephone". I could sit there watching him and usually ended up falling asleep. Still do that sometimes.
Memories I'll have
-finding the 1st sports feed on KU
-finding those weird channels
-stumbling upon the equity stations
-remembering how many people put a fixed dish at 123W. I mean it had 35 Equity stations, including the Tube, the Puerto Rico networks (just NBC, CBS, ABC), and UWTV
-The network changes by Equity. Seemed to be weekly for a while.
-LickTV...oh how that sounds soooo bad. But Equity called some stations that after they dropped the Pax affiliation
-UonTV...remember that? Where you paid to get your program on TV. And it seemed like everytime you turned it on there was the Sadoun infomercial, the guys on the 4 wheelers, or what looked like a wedding video.
-The baseball games on Equity channels. Some Sunday's there would be 3 or 4 games
-finding the sports feeds that very few people outside of watching it on a public access channel in a small town could see
-Ohio News Network. I dont know why but I dug this channel.
-74W being the satellite for sports feeds
-Telstar 4 at 89W blowing up
-AMC9 moving from 85W to 83W
-Dish moving all their channels off 105 and subleasing it to companies for sports feeds
-105W becoming the satellite for sports feeds (taking over at one time for 74W)
-gaining some network stations when Hurricane Katrina hit
-The infamous "What happened to Equity stations" threads every time rain went through Little Rock
-KUIL 64 from Beaumont, TX. Fox station that actually had decent programming on it
-The Tube leaving and being replaced with Retro Jams
-Retro Jams Sunday Night (the call in show) but the video list was very slim so you were limited on what you could ask for them to play.
-White Springs TV. Was on the furthest west KU satellite (129W) and could pick it up with a frickin pie tin and a tookpick
-the "test channels" that Dish would do at 148W. Always fun to see what Dish was up to.
-the whole PBS is moving from 87W to this new KU satellite at 125W and the threads we had on that
-finding a bunch of "secret info" on the move for the affiliates (still have those PDF's)
-on C-Band when the Alaska channels went in the clear for like 6 months. All 4 networks+PBS+My Network. That was the bomb. Allowed me to see Ted Sadtler and the Mattress Ranch commercials which I still laugh at to this day.
-the later timezone feeds of CW, My Network, ABC & Fox so if we missed a show it would be on later in the night
-RTN...Retro TV Network. The best thing Equity ever came up with (besides being on satellite).
-The chinese (I think) mux on 127W with the best channel name ever..."SNOT"
-RTN and their dispute with new owner Luken and the red screen of death when they got pulled frm the Equity stations...that and Equity posted Luken's cell number if you had any questions on why RTN was pulled
-RTN getting back up on 83W with a shoestring budget
-Unreliable Sources...a screwed up show sometimes. And before that an even MORE screwed up show
-Confessions. When those lonely women would call in and tell Gary that they cheated on thier husband with the milkman, the paper boy, The UPS man etc and wanted help
-the news channels from around the world like Al Jazeera English, Press TV, CCTV etc
I could go on and on
Then sadly we started losing some good stations.
-UonTV (ok not really sad. Nice concept but hey it sucked)
-KUIL drops the Fox feed and leaves
-Ohio News Network goes internet
-Then there is the whole Equity slow and dying death that actually we are coming up on the 2 year anniversary of Equity being sold and channels leaving. Actually it started earlier than that when they were losing affiliations and basically filled them with RTN (now RTV). Then the red screen of death and them scrambling to fill it with really old crappy public domain movies before settling on This TV and Tuff TV on some. Equity gets sold and slowly we lose what was left. Then 6/12/09 comes (the DTV upgrade) and kills more stations quickly because they were full powered.
Yes I know there is still stuff up there on KU Band like the news stations but honestly its nowhere near the "good old days". There's lots of college sports still up there but with college football, basketball and hockey done for the season there isnt that much sports on KU. The system may not move satellites for a few days at a time.
I want to thank everyone here who calls the free to air section of Satelliteguys home. I've learned a lot here from y'all and tried to give that knowledge to folks starting out. I want to thank Scott for giving us this area as our own little playground. When I first got into FTA all there was for us was the "general satellite area" and really nobody posted. But Scott made a free to air section for us and it expanded beyond that simple area into what you see now with separate sections for C-Band, 4DTV, PC Cards, a software and manual download section and an area where we can shoot the breeze on non-technical FTA stuff. He asked me to help run this area and I had fun doing it.
There is an old saying "Do what you love until the desire to do it is gone". Well sadly the desire is gone so its time for me to move on. Its been fun guys .
-Berg
I'm leaving as staff of Satelliteguys and honestly I'll probably leave the board as a whole. No I'm not moving to another board. I'm just bored with free to air and satellite in general. When I started with free to air in 2003 I got it to save 7.95 a month on my Bell ExpressVu bill. At the time the radio stations on there (some 40 Canadian stations) and the audio channels were in the clear and I was paying $8 a month for them. So I bought a FTA receiver for 60 bucks and hooked it up. Very basic unit. 10 TP entry, no way to move a motor, no channel editing, nothing fancy. You typed in the TP and scanned in all the channels on that transponder. But they came in. So I saved $8 a month.
Then I got a 30" dish and found out alot more was out there. Use to manually aim the dish at a few different satellites. Mainly was used for college hockey games. Upgraded the receiver to one with blind scan and wow that really changed what I watched
(also there went the $8 a month I was saving)Got a motor and upgraded the dish (better 30" dish) and away I went. Stumbled upon a satellite that had a bunch of stations from around the country. Thought "why the hell would I need 6 different Pax (now Ion) stations or 5 WB stations?" Yes I had stumbled upon the Equity channels. Pretty much left a dish there for 5+ years. Also had some other networks on KU Band. Also found this crazy preacher named Dr Gene Scott on 93W screaming "Git on the Telephone". I could sit there watching him and usually ended up falling asleep. Still do that sometimes.
Memories I'll have
-finding the 1st sports feed on KU
-finding those weird channels
-stumbling upon the equity stations
-remembering how many people put a fixed dish at 123W. I mean it had 35 Equity stations, including the Tube, the Puerto Rico networks (just NBC, CBS, ABC), and UWTV
-The network changes by Equity. Seemed to be weekly for a while.
-LickTV...oh how that sounds soooo bad. But Equity called some stations that after they dropped the Pax affiliation
-UonTV...remember that? Where you paid to get your program on TV. And it seemed like everytime you turned it on there was the Sadoun infomercial, the guys on the 4 wheelers, or what looked like a wedding video.
-The baseball games on Equity channels. Some Sunday's there would be 3 or 4 games
-finding the sports feeds that very few people outside of watching it on a public access channel in a small town could see
-Ohio News Network. I dont know why but I dug this channel.
-74W being the satellite for sports feeds
-Telstar 4 at 89W blowing up
-AMC9 moving from 85W to 83W
-Dish moving all their channels off 105 and subleasing it to companies for sports feeds
-105W becoming the satellite for sports feeds (taking over at one time for 74W)
-gaining some network stations when Hurricane Katrina hit
-The infamous "What happened to Equity stations" threads every time rain went through Little Rock
-KUIL 64 from Beaumont, TX. Fox station that actually had decent programming on it
-The Tube leaving and being replaced with Retro Jams
-Retro Jams Sunday Night (the call in show) but the video list was very slim so you were limited on what you could ask for them to play.
-White Springs TV. Was on the furthest west KU satellite (129W) and could pick it up with a frickin pie tin and a tookpick
-the "test channels" that Dish would do at 148W. Always fun to see what Dish was up to.
-the whole PBS is moving from 87W to this new KU satellite at 125W and the threads we had on that
-finding a bunch of "secret info" on the move for the affiliates (still have those PDF's)
-on C-Band when the Alaska channels went in the clear for like 6 months. All 4 networks+PBS+My Network. That was the bomb. Allowed me to see Ted Sadtler and the Mattress Ranch commercials which I still laugh at to this day.
-the later timezone feeds of CW, My Network, ABC & Fox so if we missed a show it would be on later in the night
-RTN...Retro TV Network. The best thing Equity ever came up with (besides being on satellite).
-The chinese (I think) mux on 127W with the best channel name ever..."SNOT"
-RTN and their dispute with new owner Luken and the red screen of death when they got pulled frm the Equity stations...that and Equity posted Luken's cell number if you had any questions on why RTN was pulled
-RTN getting back up on 83W with a shoestring budget
-Unreliable Sources...a screwed up show sometimes. And before that an even MORE screwed up show
-Confessions. When those lonely women would call in and tell Gary that they cheated on thier husband with the milkman, the paper boy, The UPS man etc and wanted help
-the news channels from around the world like Al Jazeera English, Press TV, CCTV etc
I could go on and on
Then sadly we started losing some good stations.
-UonTV (ok not really sad. Nice concept but hey it sucked)
-KUIL drops the Fox feed and leaves
-Ohio News Network goes internet
-Then there is the whole Equity slow and dying death that actually we are coming up on the 2 year anniversary of Equity being sold and channels leaving. Actually it started earlier than that when they were losing affiliations and basically filled them with RTN (now RTV). Then the red screen of death and them scrambling to fill it with really old crappy public domain movies before settling on This TV and Tuff TV on some. Equity gets sold and slowly we lose what was left. Then 6/12/09 comes (the DTV upgrade) and kills more stations quickly because they were full powered.
Yes I know there is still stuff up there on KU Band like the news stations but honestly its nowhere near the "good old days". There's lots of college sports still up there but with college football, basketball and hockey done for the season there isnt that much sports on KU. The system may not move satellites for a few days at a time.
I want to thank everyone here who calls the free to air section of Satelliteguys home. I've learned a lot here from y'all and tried to give that knowledge to folks starting out. I want to thank Scott for giving us this area as our own little playground. When I first got into FTA all there was for us was the "general satellite area" and really nobody posted. But Scott made a free to air section for us and it expanded beyond that simple area into what you see now with separate sections for C-Band, 4DTV, PC Cards, a software and manual download section and an area where we can shoot the breeze on non-technical FTA stuff. He asked me to help run this area and I had fun doing it.
There is an old saying "Do what you love until the desire to do it is gone". Well sadly the desire is gone so its time for me to move on. Its been fun guys .
-Berg
Thank you for making this form a fun place to call home!
:yikes
