those big black satellite dishes?

[canada-man]

back in the early 1990s i remember seeing those old big black satelites on rooftops. some on the lawn of some houses before the rise of smaller dishes that dirct tv, bell and starchoice produce. did those old big satellites dishes require a monthly fee?

 

[poker]

Technically yes, you did need to pay for a subscribed service. I just paid my installer $20 a month and got access to all channels with a code.

 

[simon482]

we had one up north. never had to pay anything for it. had like the whole alphabet worth of satellites to choose from. i loved it, so many hidden porn channels and i used to get wild feeds of every thing. best was the news and the news casters being on commercial but i never saw the commercial, i just watched them burp, fart and pick their nose while swearing at people.

 

[canada-man]

 

[benstt]

They had some channels in the clear, but more and more went to encryption, which required a decryption board. This was black market stuff, usually your installer could get you a board and get you updates if needed.

They had actuators so they could receive from multiple satellites in an arc, and the channel lineups shifted around as well as the operators re-jigged the satellite feeds.

Once the services like Dish, etc came along, these really went down in popularity. The new services were more legal, used smaller dishes with a single satellite - no actuator needed.