Inside an old cable head-end.

[coinmaster32]

A tornado recently blew the door open a cable head end, located on the property of a friend of my dad. The cable company has not used the head end in 10 some odd years. With his permission I went inside and took some photos.

The head end itself. I found it odd that there was, and never has been, any fencing around it. I guess it was not a worry, since it it was only in a town of about 600 people.

Looking at everything, I would guess it was constructed sometime in the early 90's.

What I found odd, is the tornado bent the antenna tower like a pretzel, but did not cause any damage to the satellite dishes. They had no nameplate, and were made of fiberglass. Not even a small bend in the mount of the dishes.


A neat 3 feed horn set up.

A directv dish, used for bloomberg. (I Guess bloomberg wasn't on cband?)

 

[coinmaster32]

Here is the equipment inside. According to the channel chart, there were 30 channels. Now since each channel needs it's own tuner and it's own modulator, there should be 60 peices of equipment. However I only see about a dozen.





I googled these. Could not find what they do.


A modulator, but where are the other 30 or so?



A receiver, and a bunch of odd things wired together.




The descrambler units are made of metal.


The amplifier.

 

[coinmaster32]

The channel charts, including phone numbers to call. This must be generic, because the head end only had around 32 channels.

 

[coinmaster32]

Did some google magic.

Hallmark was changed from Odyssey in 2001. So this is before 2001.

Turner South was short lived, lasting from 1999 to 2006.

Since this paper has that channel, it's after 1999.

New Urban Entertainment operate from 2000 to 2002, so it's after 2000.

So looks like this headend was last used around 1999-2002.

I talked to the guy, he said a digital fiber line was ran to the town about 14 years ago, which means the town feeds off a bigger head end.

None of the digital equipment was left, it was most likely gutted and used for other head ends. The analog stuff was most likely kept because it did not have much value.

 

[Martyn]

Neat pictures.

I like the three LNB holder on the dish.

Those Cadco boxes appear to be the receivers and modulators for the terrestrial channels. Three re-modulate on the same channel. The other, marked 18/7 matches up with the channel list that shows Fox 18 on cable 7.

As for the rest of the equipment, maybe it was taken out to be reused in towns that hadn't been put on fiber yet?

I guess they'll be out now to sort out that damaged tower. Perhaps use the opportunity to scrap the entire set up, so you could score some dishes

 

[lost_mesa]

Wasn't CADCO Robert Cooper's company?

 

[Corrado]

Looking at the analog channel assignments brings back old memories.

I'm surprised someone hasn't stolen that 3 LNB feed from the dish.

 

[KC Band]

Thanks for sharing.

 

[Claude Greiner]

I'm sure whatever channel came off the Directv dish was illegal.

I had a friend who busted a small cable company using Dish locals instead their antenna because they could not get a good picture.

The only way they found out they had used Dish's feed is because it had the searching for satellite message.

This was right around the same time they changed the software to display the receiver and card message when it was searching for satellite.

I think it took several weeks because the dealer had to set a VCR to record the channel and wait for the signal to go out due to rain fade

 

[bobvick]

Wasn't CADCO Robert Cooper's company?

I was just fixing to say the same thing. Yes, Cadco (Community Antenna Development Corporation) was the company that he started about 1971-72 and was involved in until the late 70's.

 

[coinmaster32]

I'm sure whatever channel came off the Directv dish was illegal.

According to the channel chart, it was used for Bloomberg.

Bloomberg was launched in 94..I'm wondering since they had like 3 dishes, so at least 5 satellites...if Bloomberg was a small dish only channel?

Maybe back then it was free on Directv like the Nasa channel?

BTW. I can't remember if I posted this...but that head end was there since at least 93.

Now here is what I don't get...there were only two VCII units on site, did the commercial ones descramble multiple channels at once?

Also...did the head end have to pay each program provider separately, or were their special packages sold by satellite providers specifically for head ends? Like some sort of commercial satellite package?

Looking at the tech, I don't think the head end had any kind of ppv capabilities, or even local on the 8's.

Oh...I forgot to mention, the cable co pays him for having that there, and as a bonus he gets free cable. Now if only a cable co would build on my property!

 

[waylew]

Now here is what I don't get...there were only two VCII units on site, did the commercial ones descramble multiple channels at once?

Nope,one channel at a time,I had 2 of those,long since scrapped.There were probably more,they just likely got moved somewhere else,before VCII evaporated into space.
Oh and just a request,if you post a lot of pictures please use thumbnails.It takes forever for the page to load otherwise and it keeps jumping all over the place.

 

[phlatwound]

..if you post a lot of pictures please use thumbnails...

YES...PLEASE! IMO the forum software should be configured to make thumbnails mandatory. And limit the size of pics too...unless it's needed for a close-up of something there is no good reason for a 3-5 MB pic file. Not everyone has bigpipe interwebz.

 

[fred555]

http://www.irfanview.com/

Works great to resize 5-6MB pics down to a few hundred k.

 

[Mr Tony]

I'm sure whatever channel came off the Directv dish was illegal.

I had a friend who busted a small cable company using Dish locals instead their antenna because they could not get a good picture.

The only way they found out they had used Dish's feed is because it had the searching for satellite message.

interesting because until the Fox translator near my house changed to digital, they were using a Directv receiver to get KMSP Fox 9 to the area. Saw one time a message that said "receiver is out of date" (or something to that nature about upgrading the receiver)

http://www.avsforum.com/forum/45-lo...46660-minneapolis-mn-ota-68.html#post24113956

 

[Mr Tony]

YES...PLEASE! IMO the forum software should be configured to make thumbnails mandatory. And limit the size of pics too...unless it's needed for a close-up of something there is no good reason for a 3-5 MB pic file. Not everyone has bigpipe interwebz.

Agreed 1000%

I posted this int he "cord cutters" thread byut now that I can get into this thread (since I'm at my dads with CL DSL and a desktop) I can post it here


Now onto another thing in regards to the internet. I'd post this in the actual thread but since I can't open it I have to post it here.
While I'm sure the thread on the cable headend that Timmy (Coinmaster/TechFizzle) posted is probably nice, the fact he posted FULL SIZE 7MB PICS forces me to not see it until I get somewhere that I don't have to worry about bandwidth crunch. I have a computer, a netbook and a smartphone. I was places where there were fast wifi and if I tried to open the thread, after 30 seconds or so it crashed. My netbook would just shut down the internet. I tried originally to try it on my computer, only to realize they were full size pics and backed out. Too late. Even though the pictures didnt fully open it gobbled up about 1/3 of my monthly allotment of internet for the month.

So in the future if you (or anyone) wants to post pictures. Do us non unlimited HS internet folks a favor. USE THUMBNAILS!!! Also no need to "hotlink" to another site. You can easily upload them here at satelliteguys and put them as thumbnails. And you can even do them in the thread. Click where you want the pic to go, select upload, then upload the pic, say "thumbnail" and BOOM its right where you need it. Doing that allows folks to decide if they want to click on the pic and blow it up, or just read the thread and see the thumbnails.

 

[Mr Tony]

Holy sheep sh*t. No wonder why I couldn't open it until now

21 pics...125 MB!!!

REALLY????? Lets use thumbnails next time

 

[RONZ]

interesting because until the Fox translator near my house changed to digital, they were using a Directv receiver to get KMSP Fox 9 to the area. Saw one time a message that said "receiver is out of date" (or something to that nature about upgrading the receiver)

http://www.avsforum.com/forum/45-lo...46660-minneapolis-mn-ota-68.html#post24113956

In the smaller areas the cable companies do pull locals from the satellite companies. This is true in many cases in the U. P. Michigan

 

[KE4EST]

I edited this thread a bit.
I got tired of waiting forever for it to load when someone posted in it.

 

[Mr Tony]

I edited this thread a bit.
I got tired of waiting forever for it to load when someone posted in it.

Myself and the slower speed internet or non unlimited internet say

THANK YOU!