20 Years Of Satellite

[consolglass]

Hi guys
After 20 years of Satellite being one of my "main" hobbies I finally took all my gear down last week.. sad to be honest.....everything that I needed it for is now available on line for me...LOVED the buzz I used to get from getting new channels....bought the dish (channel master) and polar mount from a local supplier in 1995 ..not a blemish on the dish even today....the 3" pole i "borrowed" from work..and have upgraded the positioner a few times over the years and of course the receiver/s (both of which I still have!!)...found it much easier to keep up with the changes PRE sharing "era"...fence blew down a couple of weeks back and the dish was "in the way" of the re-build so finally said goodbye !!...cheers guys

[Mickha]

Sorry to hear that, but I'd store it way, instead of selling it, as you'll probably miss it and want it back.
Don't think I could ever get rid of my satellite dish.

[johnhenry]

Have to say finishing a hobby after so many years is sad to hear, my father gave up fishing after 40 years just sold his gear and that was that. Suppose the internet will have changed a lot of peoples ideas of gaining entertainment and streaming seems the way forward. consolglass best of luck for the future m8, plenty of other hobbies out there. Best johnhenry

[Marco]

I am moving house in the autumn
i had more of a buz years ago
when i move i am going to to leave 2 triax 1.5 metre dishes behind as my cables from my dish run underground
i think i download more nowadays than watch my sat

[scrambled]

Sorry to hear you are retiring from the sat scene. I been in this game since 1990 (when I first worked at Rumbelows).

I still have a 1 metre motorised dish, but you are right in saying online seems to be the way forward. It be nice to have a user friendly dual satellite and great IPTV all in one box. Few a far between. But we are getting there.

Best of luck in your future entertainment, all the best.

Scrambled.

[TonyO]

I bought my 1.25M dish in about 1991 which is just about 25 years ago, same pole mount and many various lnb's, analogue in those days , internet for keys for TVN and a few others , since digital arrived many sat boxes as everything changes by the minute, I'm still up for it as no one provider does the lot perfectly.

[davet]

I stoped aswell not sure what year I stated it was when sky started we had a while for free. Think I had a Amstrad srx16 then moved on to filmnet / d2mac decoder Then cards programers season interface cams dishes
still got a dm800 hooked up to sky mini dish But the funs gone for me now.

[digicon]

Dont give up cause you never know i started around 1988 with an amstrad SRX200 and the old 60cm white Amstrad dish pointing at 19.2° east same as above Filmnet decoder around £99 then a hell of a lot of money Back Then, moved onto a pace MSS500i and then an NEC 2032 combined receiver and polar mount with a 90cm dish. Gave up around 1996 had enough or so i thought. Around 2003 got back into it with a Humax 5400z and an 80cm with monobloc for 13° & 19° east that lasted around 4 years and got shut again LOL.

I then found as i like my movies Newsgroups is the answer and have been downloading eversince Movies,TVshows etc... never needed Sky or anything else apart from the Live footie, which resulted in a career change around 5 years ago and i got back into this game after i said i never would again. Stuck up a Gibby 1.25m with Polarmount have various receivers and although i hardly use the main big dish come august i know i will EPL,CL,UL all start and you can still get live free feeds for the games on the odd occassion which require no internet which is pretty good.

I would never give my dish up no matter what even though i download virtually 80% of the stuff i watch and have a NUC i5 with Kodi which is great, But look at it this way if your internet goes down your screwed and have Zilch to watch apart from freeview, At least with both options you not only have the best of both worlds but you also have a backup with one another.

[holmroad]

Yes I too must have started round 1988 as I too had an SRX200 - then maybe a 400? Also had Filmnet D2Mac decoder plus 'After 8' one! (No, not a mint chocolate!) - actually think it was 'After 12' which makes more sense!!!
Have also had Echostars, Manhattan ST350, TM6900HD Super, Tm5402HD M2 and M3 more recently - so would also find it very difficult to give up!! lol!!

[TonyO]

I also had a Amstrad SRX200 with a massive 16 channels, when the SRX400 came out with 48 channels I think you could buy and replace the main chip from the 200 to upgrade to the 400 spec, it was about £10.

Have a look at some of this old sat gear !

http://www.rewindmuseum.com/vintagesatellite.htm

[mrdude]

Never say never m8.

I put my first dish up around 15 years or so, I got a Humax 5400 and a motor from our site sponsors (Goldwafers), some gold cards/silver card/fun card. Everything was 'open' then, card files could be downloaded daily from the net. It was amazing the amount of movies/****/TV etc. - after having just 4 channels for years.

Then came along hacked cable and internet ---- then I stopped using my sat system for about 5 years or so - as everything I watched was on cable. Movies and things could be gotten from newsgroups/IRC, etc.

Then the mighty VU boxes started coming out - I've had a few different version of these - but have a Vu Duo 2 just now. To be honest, I could probably stream or download anything I want - but if the internet goes off at least I will still have the Sat to watch + it's got many other uses (streaming/server and others).

What I'm saying is - even though you might be streaming today - you might end up just getting a new box in the future when decent android box comes out - which can play games/watch streamed stuff/be compatible with the play store/run Kodi/watch sat and use cams (oscam for android is already out), also has a cable tuner.

TBH these boxes are just around the corner (the prism ruby was just the start).

Also 5G is due to be out around about 2020 - I read that even today speeds can be as fast as 1TB a second, obviously new SSD/network interfaces need to be designed for this. So streaming is here to stay - you'll start to see TV's that can do everything - especially with android TV's coming out - these just need a cable/sat tuner added and to be open sourced so we can add android based cams/keys etc.

[skomedal]

Streaming is the future especially if you have fringe sat. reception

Regards

Ps began this sat hobby in the early 90s, many happy days ( not into cs ) but sad to say all good things end sooner or later

[simon 2003]

Still be lost without mine too ,been probably over 25 years for me also, i suppose just the pursuit of Saturday football got me into it from the d2-mac days phoning the code lines for C+ nor on Saturday after they got it off TV2 and the feeling as you entered the last code and the screen cleared ,gold cards ,tit cards ,cams ,shame its all on a plate now with the internet ,im sure im not alone i used to get the latest card or whatever and not really watch the channels they cleared just enjoyed doing it

[clipper]

i guess i'm like a lot of the members iv'e had my dish up from the late
eighties early nineties and apart from 36v superjack motors and lnb's and once when
the motor joint seized that twisted the polor mount bracket it looks a good to-day
and i hope i can get more from the hobby yet so i wont be packing in, i do miss the
days when forums were buzzing and we had file guys who gave us all free of charge
all the key files, card and cam files plus patches for boxes like the tm, clarke tech and
the manhattan, to name a few, now everything is internet based and that leaves everyone
only posting when they have problems and now we have certain people who only do things
for cash this is ruining the hobby. but on the up side i have made many good friends in this
hobby who i still speak with regularly, and i bet many still have gold and fun cards .*****
cards etc dynamite and cas programmers along with a load of cams cables etc: that i still have
in the computer desk draw. but it will never be as good again when everyone shared free of
charge to keep everyone viewing

[Keano]

I lost the buzz about two years ago, still got the gear up but that feeling of putting keys and codes in and getting the footy has gone. The only bit of excitement I had this year was power vu open on my dvb card.

I don't want to even think about the money I have spent over the last 11 years, who remembers my story with the 240cm channel master ? Resulted with me spending 3 nights on the sofa.

[johnhenry]

A few years back the satellite stations were very independent, so if you were interested in certain films say like from Sweden or Denmark etc your would go for Thor, 19e for your French and 13e for your Italian, unfortunately they all seem to buy their films job lot and and now show all the same films. In a sense this seems to lose the appeal for the satellite hobby, killing off the buzz and delight of finding a new station only sadly to see the same films again on this new station. Personally to have to pay the high costs some of these Satellite companies are charging for their film channels is a real rip off only to keep seeing repeat after repeat across the whole industry
Have to say the Satpimps Forum has a very broad subject matter covering many fields and the help from other members is brilliant, which is great for keeping up the satellite hobby while we hold our breath with hope that Satellite companies will once again decide to claim back their roots and start showing films, filmed in their own country. Making satellite receivers with many functions certainly help keep the appeal for the hobby, I am looking forward to a new box I'm sure it will have a few tricks built in.