Even some cable co's must use smaller C-Band dishes

[Mr Tony]

I had to post this here cause you guys would get a kick out of this
I'm at my uncles this week and he has a poor excuse for a cable company...well its the Telco/internet/cable company all in one (and not like Comcast...we're talking podunkville independent phone company)

anywho its raining out right now and I swear this cable company must be using 5 foot dishes or mini-buds for thier headend...

or at least on AMC10 (135W) because
Travel & Discovery are black screen
Nick, VH1 and MTV are all black screen (they've pixeled on and off most of the afternoon...)
QVC has so much sparklies in it its insane

C-Span also has sparklies too

The cable co must somehow still gettting ESPN on analog because that has sparklies too (as I check right now).....yet they carry ESPN HD??

I'll be happy to get back to my satellite setup this weekend

 

[turbosat]

I remember back when our local telco got their first dish back in the mid 70's. It was amazing to see, they had a VHF-conversion cable setup (only ch2-13) back then, I think the only thing they put on it from satellite was TBS, and WGN. Later they added WWOR. I can't fault them on the size, that dish had to be a 10M dish! They must've been too cheap to buy a little lot someplace to put it, so they put it on top of their office in town-it was almost as big as the entire roof! PQ was pretty good, but it was only available within about 2miles of the central office (then).

 

[tvropro]

I had to post this here cause you guys would get a kick out of this
I'm at my uncles this week and he has a poor excuse for a cable company...well its the Telco/internet/cable company all in one (and not like Comcast...we're talking podunkville independent phone company)

anywho its raining out right now and I swear this cable company must be using 5 foot dishes or mini-buds for thier headend...

or at least on AMC10 (135W) because
Travel & Discovery are black screen
Nick, VH1 and MTV are all black screen (they've pixeled on and off most of the afternoon...)
QVC has so much sparklies in it its insane

C-Span also has sparklies too

The cable co must somehow still gettting ESPN on analog because that has sparklies too (as I check right now).....yet they carry ESPN HD??

I'll be happy to get back to my satellite setup this weekend

Could be they need their dishes aligned, or if there using multiple feed setups that could be off. I guess they need one of us to go over there and get it aligned right

 

[Cadsulfide]

Sounds like the local cable/telco/dsl company here, dumped their cable for FTA 4 years ago My picture quality is WAY better.

 

[FaT Air]

We can go for a few, or more, days with dropped cable channels, after a good snowstorm. I think our small community is on the bottom of their priority list.

 

[DiscoLoveGrapes]

Alright Ice, I'm a little curious as to where, if you can be specific

I lived in Brewster Minnesota for awhile, where cable was about 15 channels of the limited standards (locals, ESPN, CNN, no FSN -- the usual stuff you get at a Days Inn), and I saw the Dishes outside the city offices. It was about this time I started wondering, "You know, if the landlord let me put a dish up, what could I get...."

 

[Corrado]

The town south of me has their own local telephone and cable company located on a back road about 3 miles away. They have a few rather small looking dishes back there too. Someday when the leaves come down I'll snap a few photos when the dishes become visible from the road. I think they range from what appears to be a 12' mesh to a 1m ku dish.

 

[Mr Tony]

Could be they need their dishes aligned, or if there using multiple feed setups that could be off. I guess they need one of us to go over there and get it aligned right

I might drive down to the Telco and take a look one of these next few days

Its supposedly like 20 miles down the road

but now today the channels are back but QVC has some sparklies still in it

 

[Mr Tony]

Alright Ice, I'm a little curious as to where, if you can be specific

Elbow Lake (pop 1275)....its about 20 miles south of Fergus Falls (home of Skyvision....drove by it today)

Its Runestone Telephone Association

 

[Anole]

find a problem? fix a problem!

We can go for a few, or more, days with dropped cable channels, after a good snowstorm.
I think our small community is on the bottom of their priority list.

If you 're able and interested, why not go see 'em and make a proposal.
Something like: I'll come sweep or align your dishes in the middle of the night for a fixed roll-out fee of $____ per dish.
You will be first to see the problem, and can call 'em for authorization.
Otherwise, they can call you for a cleanup run.

I'd get up at 2am and drive over for $75-125, or whatever you can negotiate.
Then, spend the found-money on FTA! -

 

[Tron]

That's a great idea! It would be kind of like watching satellite TV at home, except when there's a problem, you'd get in the car and drive to the dishes ... Careful, though. They might find your services indispensable and make you Chief Engineer!

 

[DiscoLoveGrapes]

Ah, Elbow Lake -- my parents have lake property near Dalton. I doubt the cable was very good there, either, but I know they carried the infamous Victory Sports Channel.

At my parents' place I could hoist an antenna and get the UHF channels (including CBC!) out of Alexandria. I like the old OTA-fed cable channels, and am happy some of them still exist.

 

[Mr Tony]

At my parents' place I could hoist an antenna and get the UHF channels (including CBC!) out of Alexandria. I like the old OTA-fed cable channels, and am happy some of them still exist.

Selective TV...still operational but now they are trying to upgrade those to digital.
Its still not a bad setup if you live nearby and dont want cable or sat..bolded are non Mpls Networks
14 KSAX (ABC)
16 KSTC (Ind)
18 KARE (NBC)
21 CBC North
26 WUCW (CW)
30 PBS
32 FamilyNet
34 KPXM Ion
38 KMSP Fox
44 3 Angels
47 Discovery
48 WFTC My
50 Weather Channel
51 Hallmark
52 History
58 MSNBC
62 C-Span
67 Outdoor Channel

along with 7 & 42 which are digital and CBS & ABC. I tried to do that while here with my old Radio Shack UHF antenna and all I got was 42 ABC and Fox15 from Fargo (their tower is near Fergus Falls)...too far away from the Selective TV channels
(they are only at 1500 watts so thats part of it)

 

[ikki]

Im surprised they have CBC.

 

[Mr Tony]

I remember reading in the local (Alexandria) paper that they dropped CBC for something else and the folks in town wanted them to keep it. So they brought it back

Its a "free will donation" to them to keep it going. Last I checked it was 70 bucks a year...not too bad considering without cable or sat all you would get OTA is CBS, ABC & PBS

 

[ikki]

I would love to be able to get CBC where I am at.

 

[Mr Tony]

one of the reasons I have Shaw Direct

 

[TimLones111]

Thats what I used to like about Mine and my wife's ocassional trips to Niagara Falls in the analog days. I always would take a 5-Inch TV along to get OTA from Buffalo and Toronto..I loved the choices of channels along the border..Really wish I had the option of CBC here..

 

[DiscoLoveGrapes]

I remember reading in the local (Alexandria) paper that they dropped CBC for something else and the folks in town wanted them to keep it. So they brought it back

Its a "free will donation" to them to keep it going. Last I checked it was 70 bucks a year...not too bad considering without cable or sat all you would get OTA is CBS, ABC & PBS

My uncle used to live in Alexandria, and they loved that system. I've always thought that this kind of set-up would be far more popular in smaller towns and cities that wanted more than the basic 5 channels. Heck, if this was in the Twin Cities I'd go for it for $70/year.

 

[Mr Tony]

I would too.....especially if they replace the duplicates of the networks with other stuff