How I Became a Satellite Guy (Part 2)

I was a proud employee of United Cable Television of Plainville, Connecticut. While I was there I got to see the birth of ESPN and was introduced to the world of satellite television. My shift at the public access studio would be over by 9pm however I would stay there sometimes until 3 in the morning scanning the skies with the satellite dishes that were there. I was saddened the say they moved the headend out of the building and I lost my access to the satellite dishes.

While I was an employee the cable company changed its name a few times, it started as United Cable Television, then it became United Artists Cable, then it became TCI Cablevision, then it was just known as TCI (that’s when I left the company) today that cable system is known as Comcast.

After I left the company I still stayed in tune with the Technology. Somehow a few years later I was lucky enough to be one of the first customers in the United States of Digital Cable. TCI was launching its ALL-TV service in West Hartford, CT and I called when I heard about it to sign up. On the day of the install I got a call from a supervisor asking if it was ok if they had extra crews come over and watch the install. I had no problem with it. They came and so did 5 cable vans to watch this install.

I asked the supervisor is all Digital cable installs would require 5 trucks, and he replied back to me that this install was a special one as I was the first non employee to get ALL-TV installed. This install was done in the early days of the web and I wrote about the install and soon was considered an online expert about ALLTV. (In writing this I was trying to find the old website via the Internet Wayback Machine but was unable to find it. If someone finds it please let me know!)

I loved digital cable; it gave me all kinds of channels that I couldn’t get from regular cable….

That was until a new technology called “High Definition” became available.

Being the TV geek that I was I wanted to experience high definition. A friend of mine needed a website made for his company. Instead of paying me as I asked him if could buy me a HDTV. With him being a TV guy himself he smiled at my request. I worked my butt off to make him a killer website and soon was the owner of a new HDTV. (My first HDTV was a Toshiba TW40X81)

Now I had a HDTV but nothing in HD to watch on it. I had to change this and change it quick. I called the cable company and asked for HDTV and the reply back was “yes we carry HGTV.”

That’s when I started looking around… where could I get HD signals? I then ran into a site called AVSForum and learned that two HD channels were available via Dish Network, HBO and SHOWTIME.

I had to have satellite, the only problem was I was living in an apartment and had no view of the southern sky.

But the stars all aligned for me, as me and my then girlfriend decided to rent a house. At this new house my landlord gave me permission to put up as many dishes as I wanted to as long as I paid my rent and as long as I took everything down when I moved out.

I ordered my first Dish Network equipment from an online website and days later all the equipment was in my hands. The equipment consisted of the brand new (at that time) Dish 6000 receiver, The first DVR to hit the market the Dishplayer 7100 and a Dish 2800 receiver. I scheduled my install with Dish Network and they sent over a local installer.

When he arrived it was late in the afternoon. I told him what I wanted done and he wanted to leave saying the install would take to long. I then told him I was disappointed and was hoping to watch HDTV that night. He said “HDTV? To watch that you need a HDTV!”

I replied back to him, “got one!”

He then said “yeah… but you need a special HD receiver and I haven’t seen any of these boxes yet.”

Once again I said, “got one!”

I went into the house and got the receiver and showed it to him, he quickly got on his cell phone and called in a few more guys to help him with this install. Soon we had 3 installers at my house. By 7pm we were all hooked up and turned on the TV and were watching HDTV. The installer was impressed and happy he did the install. We quickly became friends, in fact after the install was done he took home one of the kittens my cat had. I am proud to say to this day I am a very close friend with this installer.

Since this time I have been a satellite guy. And over the years have built up a nice collection of satellite equipment. One of my neighbors who works down the road at ESPN calls my house “little ESPN” because of all the Dishes I have.

I now subscribe to a number of satellite services and find myself often scanning the skies on my motorized free to air satellite dish. Finding new signals and broadcasts is a high for me.

What cool about this is I know there are a bunch more folks just like me who enjoy this hobby.

I still find it cool that I can pick up signals from over 22,000 miles away. And I love helping others learn about satellite technology, it makes me feel good to help others and get them excited about the technology.

Sure for some folks they think of satellite tv as cable television from the sky but for others there is much more to it then that. I am proud to be a Satellite Guy!

Have a great weekend everyone!