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Forum » Retro Products » Old Satellite Dishes
Vaporman87
Inspired by a thread on RJ, I dedicate this thread to images and discussion of those behemoth TVRO/C band dishes that once dominated the landscape. Recollections of the days when you could watch your favorite channels (that weren't NBC, ABC, CBS, or FOX) for nothing at all. Not a dime. Or you could pick up feeds from clear across the country, commercial free.

The last major use I had for these monstrosities was picking up the west coast feed of the Golden State Warriors games. Only by satellite could I have had the chance to watch my favorite basketball team lose all the time to other teams. Occasionally we would use it to watch Pay-Per-View wrestling events, but that was rare by the mid-90's.

Nowadays, these rusting relics sit virtually unnoticed in the yards of their owners, not being used for any purpose. Some people have gotten creative with them and routinely painted their favorite sports team logo or other design on them.

What say you about this technology of a by-gone era?


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shakin steak
You used to be able to break in and see what was happening on the sets of live shows during commercials with one of these things. I always kind of wanted one, but dunno how useable it would be today. I hope the guy in that thread tells me what he's up to. And I hope he's not just turning it into a gazebo.
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Vaporman87
shakin steak wrote :

You used to be able to break in and see what was happening on the sets of live shows during commercials with one of these things. I always kind of wanted one, but dunno how useable it would be today. I hope the guy in that thread tells me what he's up to. And I hope he's not just turning it into a gazebo.
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That live Golden State Warriors feed was funny sometimes. You could hear the announcers speaking with production staff, cursing, telling jokes, berating the play of the players, all kinds of stuff.
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shakin steak
Hmmm.... you could use even a little DirecTV one to amplify a roof antenna and get those Columbus TV stations.
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Vaporman87
Interesting. But yeah... more work than I'm willing to do for those channels.
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jkatz
Vaporman87 wrote :

The last major use I had for these monstrosities was picking up the west coast feed of the Golden State Warriors games. Only by satellite could I have had the chance to watch my favorite basketball team lose all the time to other teams. Occasionally we would use it to watch Pay-Per-View wrestling events, but that was rare by the mid-90's.
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I bet that would've come in handy these these past few weeks.

You sure you don't want to dig yours out of the garage and use it today?
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Vaporman87
jkatz wrote :
You sure you don't want to dig yours out of the garage and use it today?
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Well I lost my love for sports years ago. Couldn't care less about today's Golden State Warriors. But at least I can say I was a fan of theirs before it was popular. I liked watching RUN-TMC play for them (Hardaway, Richmond, and Mullin). 
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comic_book_fan
i have one of those in my back yard but we haven't used it since 93 or 94  we used to get midget wrestling on ours and some times fox would tune out and you would get some adult movies late at night  you never knew what you were going to get with ours different things would tune in and out at different times. 
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massreality
My uncle had a massive satellite dish with one of those "special" chips inside it that unlocked everything. As a kid I got a chance to watch a ton of WWF events, and had my first exposure to adult entertainment by going into that set of channel I was banned from watching. 

After I saw Stay Tuned, I would stand near the satellite dish hoping it would suck me into the TV. I know it wasn't as fun as it would seem in the movie, but I was hellbent on becoming an animated mouse like in the movie. 



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Vaporman87
massreality wrote :
After I saw Stay Tuned, I would stand near the satellite dish hoping it would suck me into the TV.
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Yeah, the Stay Tuned satellite was the model for that technology to the Nth degree. Too bad such a thing isn't a reality.
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EISXUOIS
I was wondering could you use it to  transmit fm signal to remote controlled  drones and such

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