ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Satellite TV

got direct tv minimum package with public tv and east/west coast networks for 30 bucks a month.probably 50 channels and many of them i have never watched.18"dish istalled by muah.(me)there is no cable or reception of any sort where i live.went for 20 years with no tv before satellite.had to drive to the tavern to watch football in town "200 people and cable" for many years.i'm not sure if those were the good old days or not.too much "must puke "tv on nowadays.

$3400.00 Canadian for a 13 ft BUD c-band dish (AKA Big Ugly Dish compared to the new pie plate size digital dishes) and receiver installed back in 1990. At that time most channels were free. Now I pay about $380 Canadian a year to subscribe to 18 channels like TSN,CNN, A&E etc. Also there are some free channels and different wild feeds from the networks.

I kept the cable company (basic analog only) for all the local channels that are not on the c-band dish.

Direct broadcast satellite on Ku band using small 18" dishes has been quite common in the U.K. for a good few years. It no doubt became popular due to the fact that cable TV systems are nothing like as commonplace as in the U.S., and in fact have only really started to appear in the largest of cities in the last few years.

Trumpy,
In case you didn't realize this, when looking at how much anyone in the States pays for cable/satelite subscriptions, remember that they have no TV license as exists in many European countries (and NZ???).

Not sure if you guys must know about the black (grey?) market up here in Canada and DirecTv? Drive down any street around the cities where I live and seemingly everybody has a DirecTv dish. There are a plethora of websites and people here that will 'program' the HU card and you get EVERY single station that DirecTV offers. Even all the pay per view movies and adult channels, special sports events are FREE and unscrambled. No wonder its so popular. Costs about $20 for a recharge of the card, and the card lasts about 3-4 weeks before getting 'hit' by the DirecTv people.

Hence the birth of the P4 card coming from D-Tv in the very near future. This one is supposed to be 'hack-proof' to keep all those nasty Canadians stealing signals from the US direct tv service.

If you want more info....vist www.huworks.tv

Oh, by the way...what do I have?.....yes, I have satellite, but the lousy canadian one... www.starchoice.com These guys are cheaper and offer a digital signal for better picture quality. I won't touch cable again.

The restrictions on subscriptions has resulted in all sorts of ingenious "work-arounds."

Many Brits moving to the sunnier parts of Europe decide to take their satellite TV equipment with them, but find that the companies won't send decoder cards outside the U.K. for "contractual reasons." People have to use friends and relatives addresses.

Even within the U.K. (which, after all, isn't that big to start with), Sky Co. will only allow viewers access to the appropriate regional variants of BBC/ITV, based upon the postal code to which the card is sent. Thanks to the crazy way our equivalent of the ZIP code works, that has resulted in some people being rather unhappy at the "region" to which they've been arbitrarily assigned.

So much for the wonderful ideal of 40 years ago that satellite TV would open the world and provide free access for all.


[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 03-03-2003).]

I have both a big dish and DishNetwork.

Little Dish is easy but compression makes pictures less than ideal. Big Dish rules and if I had enough money I'd have a 4DTV(allows digital and analog reception) reciever. The trouble is, how long before big dishes are dead and gone. One thing is funny though, little dish companies use big dishes to get their signals and then broadcast it thru their satelites. So do cable companies .
Big Dishes back in the 80s and early 90s ruled. All sports could be had, just about every game in any major league for next to nothing. I was truly a big Dish junkie . Had to get over it as small dish programming is very expensive

Just an interesting note on subscription counts.

According to the web site skyreport.com there were 786,149 C Band subscribers in Jan 2002 and its dropped to 558,962 in Jan of 2003.

In comparsion there were aprox. 18,000,000 subscribers of the two US based services in Jan 2003.

There is a pay element to a great deal of the cable stuff. Yes, there is quite a bit free though, and quite a bit not available to the home dish owner.

In the early days that was the case, but over time channels started scrambling, and sometimes made themselves for sale to those that have purchases descrambler boxes.

Few are. They are just going digital and
choosing not to support the TVRO crowd anymore.

What I have:
Analogue C-band system, I have about $300-$500 invested in it (mostly scrounged and second. I self intall and maintain it, so all
it costs me there is time. Currently unsubscribed, used for the free channels.

Starchoice, $200 of the primary system new,
and around $75/each for a couple of 2nd hand systems. All self installed and maintainded.
Bill is about $40/ month CDN.

I also have a Dishnet system (unsubscribed though), I use for the EPG function and a couple of free channels DN offers.
had pieces).

Gotta put my 2 cents in.
Here in NJ, we have a"War" going on between the cable co's and the "dishes".

I hear if ya shop around, you can get a dish, and a box, installed for $0! The cable co's have an ad running now, that they will but your dish, if you come back or subscribe to cable.

The cable rate here (basic plus) no premium channels, no sports, is around $55 month.
The dishes are comparable in rates. That is the "small dish".

I'm waiting for some more HDTV channels and programing, then it's a new big TV, and whatever I need to watch it
John

Not to throw a monkey wrench in, but are the installers of the dishes concerned about the grounding of the dish mount, or the coax block they use? We're doing a job installing a dish and we're grounding both the coax block and antenna mount, to a ground rod down under. I hope this satisfies the code.