It is now if you have basic cable only..

@@victor.elkins lol. Yeah. The dude might be dead.

Oh cool, a furry

I think I would do the same thing!

@@docrock66 me too! I wouldn't care what's on I'm just so intrigued on how it works.. I use to do that with Antennas back in the day.. At a certain time early in the AM you can pick up Stations from another state.. I'm from Alabama and I was picking up Stations In Atlanta and Tampa.. I was so shocked.. I know the Earth spins at a degree angle to make such a thing happen but man I was so amazed.. I'm still amazed to this day of it all..

I'm in the same boat now, I try to receive weaker and weaker satellite signals, but I rarely watch them, it's a niche hobby and know a few like me

Ha of course he did that only as a hobby. Basically I do the same but for a lot of inmates as viewing audience.

​@@dyalibya I do the same with a 10ft C band dish

You were lucky. I envied those that did back then. I have a pal up in Canada that could pick up all the US channels that way.

Amazing that Lou Dobbs is still on television in 2019.

I'm sure it was plenty!

Christopher Sobieniak playboy channel

@@Raymund0 😂😂😂😂😂 My friend's Grand Dad had one and we use to sneak and watch the Playboy Channel as Pre teens and Teenagers.. God those was the times...

I know! That's simply amazing!! WOW!!

Yeah.. he's right.. cause people will see what's popular and try to produce the same thing over and over.. So yeah it happens..

Early analog Satellite receiver

It's digital now but it still exists. I get over a thousand channels on my big dish.

That was a c-band thing

This is possible, this type of feed called secontry focused dish.or travelling wave guide and at the end of the tube LNB is mounted. I also made similar one for C band

Yeah Todd, only if you to try to hack into pay services like DirecTV, Dish Network, etc.

@@dimpsproductionsltd.2878 that isn't even possible now I don't think. If it is, it likely isn't worth the effort because it must be such a pain in the ass now.

thousands of channels out there now, but pretty complicated to get them. Check out some of my satellite videos. You have to buy a device about the size of a deck of cards, plug it into your computer, find the frequency, bit rate and other info, enter them in the program, then hope your satellite is tuned properly. Not as easy as just moving a dish back and forth. You can access C-band with a dish 6ft and up, and Ku band with a dish around 2ft and up.

Dang, I'm jealous. I have a 10ft now. Wish I could find a 12.

By the mid 80's the new RF 75ohm inputs started to happen. Though given this guy's setup, he probably had to use one of those 75 to 300 ohm converters for that set.

buzzydj - I wanna say that there were adapters by that point.

We had a top of the line 1979 Sony, it already had a coaxial connector.

he had to have a something to convert the signals to those frequencies. C band is 3.7 to 4.5 Ghz, but the TV will only tun up to around 850 Mhz.

@@mattcintosh2 It wouldn't matter anyways, as analog satellite used FM, while terrestrial TV AM modulation.

You guys missed out. I knew a friend up in Canada who could watch a lot of US channels like Nickelodeon easy back in the 80's.

You could always do fta g19 you will get a ton of channels and there from other countries mainly on that sat

@@ChristopherSobieniak In Europe we have Nickelodeon and MTV free to air on satellite. You need a 60 cm satellite dish and a satellite receiver and point it to Astra 19.2 East. We use Ku Band not C Band.

@@Nicholas_Chris Nice!

You guys missed out too. I knew a lot of people up in the Middle East who could watch a lot of the channels from the Far East like Channel [V] easy back in the 90's.

sushi dream I can receive free channels from Thailand, Laos, Myanmar (but requires Thai set top box because it use biss key. Requires OTA twice a month) and also Indonesia (also use the same decoder) using KU Band. I get about 200+ channels for both countries (Indonesia is about 45 channels while over 160 channels from Thailand). Very sad that C Band was banned in Malaysia. But I use it quite illegally and get another extra 50-200++ channels from China, India, Pakistan and also Bangladesh. Normally I usually watch about 10-15 channels out of 200+ channels because I can't watch it all and maybe some are boring for me.

Also, Malaysia don't have their own free to air channels unless I get set top box + installation + satellite dish which costs RM355 whole life (another free 30 channels. Some channels require to pay and can't receive other satellite). While Thailand (I also own True Visions at home as well, other than other set top box I have used) can get KBS World and FOX channel for free. I owned 4 decoders already so far.

At least in Europe, you can still do this. I guess it's a different mindset... Pay-TV was never really accepted here, especially not in german-speaking countries, so most stuff is still free. All satellites combined, I can recieve about 1500 channels for free. The interesting positions in Europe are 5°W - 35°E. The most popular satellites are Astra 19.2°E, Hotbird 13°E and Eurobird 29°E.

You can still use an antenna to pick up channels in the U.S., you won't be able to channels from other countries though.

My library once had a book that showed how to do it, very schematic and all that. Not sure if they do nowadays.

It's all scrambled digital signals now, just to stop this kind of thing.

@@anonUK not in Europe anyway. Many many feeds and FTA channrls running into many thousands but analogue was far more interesting

The problem was that there was no rules governing this yet.

of course it was legal, he wasn't decrypting encrypted channels without a paid subscription. It was all free-to-air. Not his fault if the providers where broadcasting radio waves into your house without encryption. He just simply picked them up.

​@@ChristopherSobieniak I don't think that was a problem lol

He was just searching for FTA channels. People can still do that now. You've got a ton of feeds and fta on satellite. In Europe we have all sorts of sport feed on 7°E and 10°E most of them encrypted in BISS which has been cracked.

Sam DiSanto - All analog back then!

still required an analog satellite receiver though.

Back then, satellite TV wasn't scrambled.