Why is my cable not working?

[Jimbo]

We had one like this. My dad had it set up on the end table next to the couch.

I remember this one, we had that one too ...
I think we had a separate one like it that got Showtime as well.

Sometime after those my Dad got a Montgomery Wards TV (don't know who actually made it) but behind the main section you could open the door and you could fine tune each channel ... HBO was between channel 6 and 7.

 

[Phil T]

I had Telesystems which became Dimension, and then bought by Cox.

Televents was bought by Jones Intercable, then TCI then AT&T which later turned into Comcast. I may have this out of order because I had satellite for 20 years.

 

[Claude Greiner]

Anyone remember Americast?

That was AT&T’s sorry excuse to be a cable company when it was called Ameritech.

Then they sold out to WOW

 

[TheRatPatrol]

I had one of these and a device that would put it into “test” mode.

I remember this one, we had that one too ...
I think we had a separate one like it that got Showtime as well.

Sometime after those my Dad got a Montgomery Wards TV (don't know who actually made it) but behind the main section you could open the door and you could fine tune each channel ... HBO was between channel 6 and 7.

We also had a box that sat on top of that box with a switch on it, “Standard/Premium” (couldn’t find a picture of it) that let us get HBO and Disney. We subscribed to Showtime, that channel had a filter on it and you had to have it removed to get the channel.

We ended up getting a remote control box at some point. But then around 1985 the cable company scrambled all the channels (except the locals) and required you to have a box at each TV. My parents would only pay for two boxes, one on the main TV and one in their bedroom. I ended up using a VCR Rabbit to get the signal from the one in their BR to the TV in my room. I was a pretty smart kid back then.

 

[Phil T]

About 1981, when I had Televents cable, my neighbor went to the box in his back yard, pulled it straight up and the case came off. Then he unscrewed all of the filters and put the box back in the ground. We had free everything for several months. Never did hear if he got in trouble for that.

 

[HoTat2]

Had Continental Cablevision from the late 80s to '95 when we dropped cable for good and switched to DIRECTV ever since.

Would like to post a photo of the analog cable box we had then (It was mfr. by Zenith IIRC).

But I honestly can't find any photos of it anywhere on the web ...

Could only locate the CC branded remote we used for it. ...

Sent from my LM-V405 using Tapatalk

 

[Skytrooper]

I had one of these and a device that would put it into “test” mode.


View attachment 141364

I heard that you could get a chip and put it in that box and get every Premium Channel. Just a rumor I heard.

 

[Claude Greiner]

I heard that you could get a chip and put it in that box and get every Premium Channel. Just a rumor I heard.

Yeah but the test cube was supposed to be better because you didn’t have to physically alter the box.

Actually got rid of Comcast and switched to Dish.

It wasn’t worth getting 1 free HBO channel, when Dish had 8 of them and way more channels.

 

[fireball517]

I had one of these and a device that would put it into “test” mode.


View attachment 141364

Thanks for sharing the image, when I was 6yo or so I remember we too had one. Brought back some old memories, no more discolored wavy channels with it.

Sent from my SM-G970U1 using the SatelliteGuys app!

 

[Claude Greiner]

I was 15 when I had mine. I got it mostly for the playboy channel.

It was much more softer back then