I’m still here and will be until the end. No 5G out here and may not ever be, which is good. I enjoy looking around and seeing what I can find. And using the technology that to most people is long forgotten, that is if they know about it in the first place. Kinda like working on my old cars.
I grew up with people who had the luxury of a big dish in the 80s. When I bought my first house in 99, it had a working dish and receiver. I wasn’t sure what to do with it, but my gf at the time had a dish fixed at G5 and was eager to help. So I subscribed for 4 years till money got tight and I had to drop it. Then in 06 I got 4DTV. And learned from forums what to do with it. When 4DTV switched to HTH I got a Corotor feedhorn with Ku. Also sometime in there I got a Traxis FTA box.
Even though my house came with the dish, my HOA wouldn’t stop complaining about it and wanting it gone. I continued to use my setup until 2016 when I took it down and moved it to my new house in the sticks, then sold the old place. Good riddance HOA.
By the time I got financially ok and got the dish put back up at the new place, 4DTV was done.
But I had no internet, so FTA was really nice. And even though I finally have internet now, I still prefer the dish. You just can’t get that much of a variety of oddball stuff anywhere else.
But I can see where most people don’t want anything to do with it. It’s work and a hobby. No local companies to service it. Gotta keep it shoveled off in the winter. Installation, maintenance, repairs. adjustments, understanding the arc and transponders and the equipment… it’s all on you. Trying to explain it to my housemate at the time was pointless. I am thankful that my dish, actuator, analog box, even my C lnb are still from 99. I got spares. But if I had to buy all this stuff from scratch, I may not have gotten into C band to start with.
The young generation who grew up with internet and smartphones, have even fewer influences of people using a big dish. My 22 year old daughter is familiar with it. But even for the handful who really want to do it, another factor is modern day living. More HOAs, more apartments, more shared situations, etc that put a stop to that idea. Now a lot of people gotta keep up with 5G.