Those older giant Satellite dishes?...

[zipbags]

I remember years ago those giant satellite dishes that were mounted in backyards. What were is the deal with those? What channels did they get? Sorry if this is in the wrong forum. I wasn's sure if they were part of Directv, Dish or some other company.

Thanks!

[Earl Bonovich]

I moved your thread... as you are going to get a much better response here in the general area.

[P Smith]

He just need look at FTA forums and search for "C band".

[SNAP]

Ibelieve that for a while, with those dishes, anything you could see was free of charge.

I remember years ago those giant satellite dishes that were mounted in backyards. What were is the deal with those? What channels did they get? Sorry if this is in the wrong forum. I wasn's sure if they were part of Directv, Dish or some other company.

Thanks!

[Richard King]

Things were wide open until HBO scrambled their signal in about 1988 or so. Gradually, everyone else joined in the scrambling/subscription game until we have today's state. Descramblers were made available to c-band owners that required subscriptions for legal reception. Programming costs for many years was quite good, but, as with the rest of the industry, that has changed and, for a comprehensive package, programming has gone up quite a bit. I loved my c-band (and ku) when I had it and would probably love it again, but left it behind when I sold the house in Minnesnowta.

[paulman182]

Some of the big C-band dishes are still in use. There is a digital C-band system called "4DTV" that is trying to keep the industry alive, but subscribers number in the few hundreds of thousands.

C-band is still used a lot in radio and TV broadcasting for delivery of satellite programming. Here at work we have one 10-foot C-band dish feeding about 20 digital audio receivers for various radio networks.

[boba]

Currently there is about 90,000 people using subscriptions to the videocipher scrambling system

[paulman182]

Ooh, its gone way down since I last read about it.

[Richard King]

Currently there is about 90,000 people using subscriptions to the videocipher scrambling system
That's a real shame considering that they peaked somewhere in the mid 2 million subscribers. I wonder who will be the last to leave and turn off the light.

[Richard King]

A bit of history: http://www.skyreport.com/skyreport/dth_his.cfm

[SamC]

I remember years ago those giant satellite dishes that were mounted in backyards. What were is the deal with those?

You will sometime see internet posters call these "BUDs" for Big Ugly Dishes today, but these were simply the greatest thing that ever happened to rural people who were (and are) forgotten by Big Cable.

Prior to the dish era, most people got television for free, with an antenna. NBC, ABC, CBS, and maybe one or two "independent" stations. Cable was something that people in small towns distant from broadcast sources had to get those same signals.

Then came the BUDs. The intension of these was to distribute new channels to cable systems and for networks and syndicators to distribute their shows to the local stations for broadcast or to uplink sports from remote sites. This allowed the start of the modern cable industry. People in big cities and big city suburbs had a reason to get cable.

But everything on these things was just there. Free to receive. Every channel you ever heard of. More sports than you could watch. Dozens of feeds of networks. Raw, commercial free, downloads of syndicated programming weeks before broadcast. Canadian and Mexican sats, also free to receive, added more. Every NFL game played. The numbers were just small enough that people, mostly rural people who often got NO TELEVISION AT ALL or very poor television from a local cable guy with just had a good antenna on a hill someplace, could just buy a dish and be happy.

(BTW, the biggest downfall was that the dish had to move to point at a particular sat and each sat had 26 channels, so pretty much you could only watch one show at a time in the whole house and the motor that moved the dish needed upkeep.)

But the numbers got so big that the providers started scrambling their signals. Rural people cried unfair and the government got involved and made them sell the signals to dish owners, but the golden era was over. (Although the first set of scramblers were worthless and 95% of people just hacked them.) You could buy your programming from any of several dozen companies who had packages that descrambled different sets of channels, so you could find a package that suited you.

With the advent of better scramblers and then of DBS, which provides a fix, small dish and the oppertunity to watch as many shows as you have TVs, the BUD has died down to a few hundred thousand people today. There still is lots of free stuff on them, but most of it is worthless (nutty conspiracy theorists, preachers, foreign language news, etc).

[HIPAR]

A friend started a company that installed these BUDs. He showed two screens in his showroom; one displayed analog C band and the other displayed digital satellite.

It was no contest, the BUD ran rings around digital for picture quality. The problem with 'Digital Quality' anything, is that no one complains about it anymore.

--- CHAS

[Steve H]

I still have my old C/Ku band dish out front hiding in the trees. Maybe I can point it at 129 and get a decent signal!!!!!

[Richard King]

When I visited Minnesnowta about 18 months ago my 10' dish was still up in the air pointing to the sky. I am sure it was still in use as it sticks above the house and if not in use I am sure it would have been removed. There it is:
http://www.pbase.com/rking401/image/30935371
http://www.pbase.com/rking401/image/30935565

[dave1234]

FWIW in the old days it was illegal to scramble any communication(with the exception of the military) Then either the law or regulations changed to allow it.