I have nothing again Rainier I applaud them for trying to keep stuff available on C Band. The issue is with Glenn (and its been a long history) but he got upset when I cut him off advertising Map Master which he was making a lot of money on and it was supposed to be free. He felt since he was doing the industry a favor that he should be able to advertise here for free and was upset I cut off his main revenue source. Glenn think that because a forum is open to the public he can do as he wants and advertise as he wants when in reality each site on the internet is private property and the owner of the site sets the rules. Its funny if you go to the forum he runs and post about SatelliteGuys he deletes it and bans the user which he thinks is ok (and I guess since it is his site it is) but he feels the same does not apply to him on other sites.
Truth of the matter is SatelliteGuys has no sponsors... we use to sell sponsorship's to companies but stopped when our FTA members felt that because X Brand FTA company was a sponsor that they could only talk about products sold or made by the X Brand Sponsor. This was not the case at all and I turned off a nice revenue stream to better support the FTA community and let people know they could talk about any legal FTA products they want here.
Now because of that the besides the support of our Pub Members we have the Google Adsense ads and Advertising.COM ads, the rest of the site I pay for OUT OF MY OWN POCKET. We have NO DIRECT SPONSORSHIP with any company.
If Rainier wanted to advertise their product here all's they need to do is go to Google and target SatelliteGuys. It's that simple.
No last time I looked at their site it was $750 for a satellite receiver that has been discontinued from the manufacturer that can only be watched on one TV and does not offer any kind of DVR features. Then its another $130 a year for the programming and for me there are no channels they carry which I would watch. But for some they might find it interesting so if you want to spend that kind of money and like that kind of programming then god bless you.
Finally I would like to clear the air and state that I am not "Charlies Puppet" nor am I paid by ANY Satellite company in any way. This is SatelliteGuys where we cover all things satellite. Our DISH and DIRECTV areas are very popular as are our FTA sections. For the last 13 years I have gone to any and all the major satellite shows (including co sponsoring the Satellite Expos) and attending the Consumer Electronics Show. At these shows I cover all Satellite Companies... as of late though the ONLY company that has been in attendance is DISH Network. Because they are the only Satellite Company there and because a majority of our traffic is for the DISH forum we cover them. This is also the only time of the year where we can meet face to face with them (and yes Charlie too) to me it is important to make sure our resources are available to them so they can make stuff available to our members. Everything I do for these shows is paid out of my own pocket and I do it so that SatelliteGuys remains on the forefront of the Satellite Industry.
I have read on other sites that we are in bed with DISH because we do beta testing with them (and well also with DIRECTV too) let me make it clear that they come to us and ask for our help because we have the audience they need (and lets face it SatelliteGuys member's are good at finding bugs and issues) so they ask us for help. We are not paid a cent by any satellite company for this we do it because we want to make the Satellite World Better. If ANY Satellite company has something that we can help out with, we are all ears and will help out the best we can. I do not talk to Charlie or anyone else from any satellite company on a regular basis. but if they call I will happily take their call.
DISH or any other Satellite Company does not have any say here nor have they ever suggested that we say anything on their behalf. Anything I say or do is on my behalf. In fact I remember one time DISH wanted to add a rule for its retailers that they could be terminated for selling legal FTA equipment, I as a fan of FTA put up a big stink about it and told them basically to go pound stand. My first love in satellite was the first C Band Dish I purchased myself when I was 18 years old. I would say I am more of a FTA guy then I am a DISH or DIRECTV guy, my big issue now is not enough time to play with them all (and I really need to find someone to come peak my C Band dish)
I have also never worked with any companies like DISH to uplink any channels for free to keep people from signing up for Rainier.
Finally I am not paid by DISH or any other Satellite company. There was a period I DID work for DISH but that was only to setup their DishSupport.COM website / forum. That was a contract job and when the contract was done I opted not to renew it because I didn't really have anything to do. Once it was setup and running it was setup and running.
We are proud supporters of the true FTA community and always will be, but by the same token we will always work to support the entire consumer satellite industry as best we can... and as you look around you will see we haven't done a bad job.
Thanks for being SatelliteGuys, if you have other friends who are interested in the hobby send them our way.
