Did anyone here have an antique satellite dish?

[Reverend Conehead]

I remember back in the 80s, I could go to a pub with a satellite dish to see my Cowboys play. The Cowboys were in decline, and I lived in Northern California, so it was a tough era. However, it was a cool era for satellite dishes. There were kits that let you build your own, and then you linked directly into the networks' unencrypted transmissions. You could get free TV from all over the world. You could also get any NFL game for free.
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It was great until the powers that be got sick of it and started scrambling their transmissions. Then you could get those channels back by buying a cable TV box and paying for their content. Then eventually, the system evolved into those little satellite dishes, and you had to pay for everything.
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Sometimes, I'll find a recording of some game that was recorded over an antique big dish. When they cut to commercial, the announcers would still be there talking, and planning on what to do when they're back on the air. It was a cool era. I didn't have a dish back then, but would have loved to have had one.

 

[rynochop]

Neighbor had one when I was a kid in early 80s or maybe late 70s, thing was huge..like 8 feet across.
Watched a cowboy game in Spanish once as they weren't televised that sunday

 

[gtb1943]

The first satellite dish I can remember in a home was just down the road from where I lived in the early 70's. IT was really big. Visited some family friends on a farm in Illinois and they had a really big dish as well. That was before encryption; I remember reading where shows like the Tonight Show were filmed in California but the show was transmitted to NY first and you could watch the show hours before it actually came on.

One article I remember reading was when the first ones came out you could even tap into military communications as well.

 

[Reverend Conehead]

The first satellite dish I can remember in a home was just down the road from where I lived in the early 70's. IT was really big. Visited some family friends on a farm in Illinois and they had a really big dish as well. That was before encryption; I remember reading where shows like the Tonight Show were filmed in California but the show was transmitted to NY first and you could watch the show hours before it actually came on.

One article I remember reading was when the first ones came out you could even tap into military communications as well.

That's cool. I remember people wanted them in Hawaii when I was living there because you could get shows like The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson on time. Back then, we in Hawaii got a lot of shows a week late. It was ridiculous. You would open up all your presents on Christmas, and then for the next week TV shows were still talking about Christmas. Finally, at one point, Joanne Rivers visited the islands, and she was shocked. She went back to the mainland and pulled some strings, and then Hawaii had most of its shows on time.

 

[The Fonz]

Are you talking about C-band?