First System You Had for Foreign TV

Manc-Red

I think their will be some interest in this....

Tell us your first system if you can remember back that far

Mine was a 78cm picking up 13e & 19e with a TM 15OO ci + as my receiver.

Only less than 5 years ago too.

fish fingers

Mine was an 88cm pointing at 13e for Art sports with a TM1500 ci.

sob1467

100cm motorised and fortec star 4200 (which I still use to drive the dish)

Manc-Red

fish fingers wrote: »

Mine was an 88cm pointing at 13e for Art sports with a TM1500 ci.

My first card too was ART - All those games in analogue-like picture quality lol

carbsy

Mine was an Amstrad SRX200 analogue thingy for Sat 1 Still have the receiver here. Think we installed it in 1988 iirc.

denis1501

80cm dish pointing at Hotbird for telepiu' and stream tv (Italy), march 2000. I was using a Strong 4350 CI receiver with seca and irdeto Cams.

Manc-Red

denis1501 wrote: »

80cm dish pointing at Hotbird for telepiu' and stream tv (Italy), march 2000. I was using a Strong 4350 CI receiver with seca and irdeto Cams.

Did ya get footy on that Denis?

denis1501

Manc-Red wrote: »

Did ya get footy on that Denis?

Yeah, telepiu' (now Sky Italia) used to show the Premier League and Serie A, Stream also had Serie A (the teams telepiu' didn't have).
Telepiu' was brilliant!

steveon

I had all the Amstrad boxes, and was lucky enough to start my career in satellites by actucally repairing Pace systems when I was 13 for a few hours after school....so I had the PRD 800, 900, 1000, ms1000 all pointed to Astra 19.and hotbird 13...

byte

The very first system I had was a free old Ferguson analogue receiver (with Videocrypt, then defunct). Got my hands on a free Zone 1 Skydish, which I used for 19°E! Some good strong tp's though most, obviously, were quite grainy.

After that, I got donated an 80cm dish, for which I bought a Manhattan Skyline digital receiver, a bit of botching on the dish (was a rough sight) got me 13, 19 and 28E

When I moved house, with my 80cm dish, I had a Technomate TM1500, which I bought along with Digitalb, my first foreign sub. At the start, during the end of summer, it was mostly grand, but the deteriorating weather meant the 80cm was too small for 16E, so bought a 1.1m Triax, and 4 LNB arm and just about managed to sqeeze 13, 16, 19 and 28 in (though 13E did suffer a bit).

Heh, I've went through loads of gear since then, though still have my trusty TD110 dish!

steveon

I still use A technomate 1500 box meself and a TD110 such a reliable dish...pointed at 19,13, and sirius 4.8 degrees east...

Manc-Red

byte wrote: »

The very first system I had was a free old Ferguson analogue receiver (with Videocrypt, then defunct). Got my hands on a free Zone 1 Skydish, which I used for 19°E! Some good strong tp's though most, obviously, were quite grainy.

After that, I got donated an 80cm dish, for which I bought a Manhattan Skyline digital receiver, a bit of botching on the dish (was a rough sight) got me 13, 19 and 28E

When I moved house, with my 80cm dish, I had a Technomate TM1500, which I bought along with Digitalb, my first foreign sub. At the start, during the end of summer, it was mostly grand, but the deteriorating weather meant the 80cm was too small for 16E, so bought a 1.1m Triax, and 4 LNB arm and just about managed to sqeeze 13, 16, 19 and 28 in (though 13E did suffer a bit).

Heh, I've went through loads of gear since then, though still have my trusty TD110 dish!

Stuff like that is why I love this game - Thinking of getting a bigger dish myself now. Bloody DM has poor tuners

easkey

My first system was from Lidl a Comag sl55.
A great little box and was looking at Hotbird..........TPS - 1995.
When it died i moved to another great box the TM1500 ci+ - 1999.

They both gave me hours of fun-fun-fun.;):rolleyes::D

byte

steveon wrote: »

I still use A technomate 1500 box meself and a TD110 such a reliable dish...pointed at 19,13, and sirius 4.8 degrees east...

Yeah the TD110 is a great dish, though I find it awkward when it comes to getting elevation right. The TM1500 was a great receiver, I'm sure there are still many going strong.

I upgraded from the TM1500 to a TM5400, with USB port. Then "upgraded" to my first HD box, the horrendously woeful Octagon SF918 - it really is the worst box I've ever had the misfortune to use (or buy). Luckily I sold it quick, and didn't lose too much, and replaced with the rather excellent TM6900.

More recently I sold the TM and bought the Vu+ Duo, which I also adore. So many things can be done with it, if I had the time to continually fiddle with it!

Also had changed from DiSEqC switch to a Darkmotor MetalGear, which was junk and barely lasted the year, now replaced with the IMO superior, and quieter Moteck 2100A

steveon

I had no problems with setting up the td110 alrhough some large dishes can be awkward, i love most technomate boxes as they are so well supported...must make the jump to hd meself...dont get to watch as much tv as Id like to these days damn facebook...lol

carbsy

steveon wrote: »

I had no problems with setting up the td110 alrhough some large dishes can be awkward, i love most technomate boxes as they are so well supported...must make the jump to hd meself...dont get to watch as much tv as Id like to these days damn facebook...lol

Tell me about it.I'm still on SD with a DM 600PVR.Can't fault it (DVB-S tuner could be a wee bit better though) with PLI Jade 3 final.None of that unstable openpli malarkey for me.

Mike 1972

Lidl Analouge system with 80cm dish for £40

settopbox

Humax 5400 running 3 in 1 allcam.

seca beta and irdeto and using an elvis programmer on a gold card later a funcard.

Had a 80cm dish with mono 13 and 19 on it.

remember the thrill of having all the channels like Telepiu, stream, nova and canal plus spain.

I really miss tequilla and multivision packages and channels.

One day hopefully again.

carbsy

Do I win for my archaic SRX200?

snaps

Cor now you have me thinking..........

Early 90's-An old BSB square aerial pointed at i think 1 west for D2mac/Dmac channels, Also a Fergusson videocrypt receiver with a filmnet D2mac decoder connected via scart:eek: On a 80 cm dish, I think looking at Astra 1 19.2 east.

Dare i say it a few homemade smart cards with the old big chips (Pic16c84) on them that used to stick out of the receiver:D

My first DVB-S receiver was a Nokia 9200s with a flashed Irdeto all cam. Great piece of kit running dvb2000. Loved the Canal+ Holland channels and then the canal+ nordic channels on it.

It was downhill since then, receivers/dishes and other yokes have come and gone!

denis1501

snaps wrote: »

Cor now you have me thinking..........

Early 90's-An old BSB square aerial pointed at i think 1 west for D2mac/Dmac channels, Also a Fergusson videocrypt receiver with a filmnet D2mac decoder connected via scart:eek: On a 80 cm dish, I think looking at Astra 1 19.2 east.

Dare i say it a few homemade smart cards with the old big chips (Pic16c84) on them that used to stick out of the receiver:D

My first DVB-S receiver was a Nokia 9200s with a flashed Irdeto all cam. Great piece of kit running dvb2000. Loved the Canal+ Holland channels and then the canal+ nordic channels on it.

It was downhill since then, receivers/dishes and other yokes have come and gone!

I had an old filmnet decoder too, I'd forgotten all about that! Plus I still have one of those old smartcards you mention lying about! And a Nokia 9600S down in the cellar too!! lol!

Smeagol

Mine was a Fuba ODE514 16 channel analogue box from 1989. (So, you're still winning, carbsy;) )
Bought to pick up the newly launched TV-Sat 2 on 19°w!, DFS-Kopernikus1 23.5°e and, of course, Astra1a @ 19.2°e. + a Nokia D2-MAC decoder.
Followed a couple of month later by a Drake ESR earthstation and a six footer Channel Master dish.

carbsy

A blurb from an Amstrad advert from 1988/89 -> "At present you can receive all the SKY channels free of charge and four of them will continue to be free. However from Autumn, or Spring 1990, Sky are planning to charge a monthly subscription for Sky Movies"

lol if only we knew.

Mike 1972

snaps wrote: »

Dare i say it

Im sure the statute of limitations has long since expired on that one (It may even have been perfectly legal back in the very early 1990's)

denis1501

carbsy wrote: »

A blurb from an Amstrad advert from 1988/89 -> "At present you can receive all the SKY channels free of charge and four of them will continue to be free. However from Autumn, or Spring 1990, Sky are planning to charge a monthly subscription for Sky Movies"

lol if only we knew.

I was one of the sad individuals who waited with baited breath for the channel to scramble!! It happened if I remember correctly at 8pm in the evening!! And they only scrambled the video so you could still listen!

carbsy

denis1501 wrote: »

I was one of the sad individuals who waited with baited breath for the channel to scramble!! It happened if I remember correctly at 8pm in the evening!! And they only scrambled the video so you could still listen!

Ahhh! You've jogged my memory.. I too remember being able to listen to the audio when it had been scrambled.Although I don't think I was on the actual night it became scrambled... hehe

Minstrel27

I know someone who claimed he could decode the scrambled image with his eyes.

carbsy

Minstrel27 wrote: »

I know someone who claimed he could decode the scrambled image with his eyes.

haha! This proves that us Irish do indeed have super powers.

Manc-Red

Minstrel27 wrote: »

I know someone who claimed he could decode the scrambled image with his eyes.

LOL!!!

carbsy

Actually, speaking of super powers.Can't remember where I heard this line but it goes something like this... "Super powers? hah .... My only super power is being invisible to girls." hah love it!

Oat23

I'm still relatively new to the foreign satellite way of life.
I started last February(2009) and decided it would be better to futureproof my system by getting a motor right away. So I started with a 1.1M Triax dish and a DM600. My first card was a DigitALB card shortly followed by an Al Jazeera one .

Finne1993

I always had an interest in the whole satellite set up, I remember getting Sky for the first time in November 1991, it was an Amstrad Fidelity SRX400 Box with a videocrypt card slot bulit in, it cost £250stg in Currys in Newry for the dish and box and if memory serves me right they wanted something like £150-£200stg to install it but we declined, I can still see the face of the sales person chuckling when we said we were installing it ourselves, he reckoned it was totally impossible for a "normal" person to install it! 3 hours later we had it all done!! Well my father done the most of it, i was shouting when the picture came through!!
Sky Sports, Sky News and Sky One were free, The 2 Movie Channels were the only encrypted channels at that time. Sky Sports was brilliant for the live FA Cup football and WWF at the time! It went encrypted in August 1992 when they won the Premier League rights, I paid for my card a year in advance, £30 punts for the whole year!!

As time went on I was always messing about checking for new channels and moving the dish around for the other sats, I etched out the exact spot on the bracket where the signal for Sky 19 degrees East was so it was easy to get it back! I can't really remember what Satellites I picked up, I think maybe Hotbird and the Scandanavian signals.
One time my experimenting came in handy was when the Ireland V Turkey Euro 2000 play off was'nt broadcast in Ireland but was FTA on Star TV on 42E, I got the match, picture was'nt great, there was plenty of speclies but it was viewable, after the match I was asking why I went to all the bother!
Sky Digital was next and I didnt bother with the foreign Sats till 2006.

I resurrected the old 80cm dish, pointed it at Hotbird and bought a Smart receiver with 2 cam slots, a viaccess cam and an Art Sports card, loved it!

I then got my hands on a 1.2 channel master dish and pointed it to 16E for Digitalb when Art lost the Premier League rights and bought a darkbox 8000 with a multicrypt card reader (Its still working fine now!)
(I also bought a Kaon HD box but it didnt last long as I got rid of it when Digitalb lost the 3pms)

I also had Premiere TV for a year in 2008, (I moved the 80cm dish to 19E) I got the receiver and paired card, not sure what make it is, its lying in the attic since. I was disappointed with their Premier League coverage, they promised to show 300 live matches but after they made that promise they won back the Bundesliga rights and the Premier League was thrown to one side.

I bought a Liberty receiver for £25 and bought the Al Jazeera card about 18 months ago, still going strong.

After the Digitalb debacle last season I decided to splash out last year on Sky Italia HD, an amazing package, I got a good deal too, €980 for HD box and sub to mondo, sport and calcio and delivery.

My latest purchase is a Tring card and clone Dreambox, dunno how Tring will fare out but at worst they'll have all the Sky/Espn matches so i'll be able to move it on handy enough if it does'nt suit me.

My Current Set up is
Sky Minidish with quad pointed at 28E
Sky Minidish with quad pointed at 13E
80cm old style Sky dish pointed at 19E
1.2 Channel Master pointed at 16E

Sky HD box with Sky World, HD pack and Setanta.
Sky Italia HD Box with Mondo, Sport, Calcio and HD pack.
DarkBox 8000 with Irdeto Al Jazeera Sports card
Dreambox clone with Tring Sports card
Freesat HD box.
Another 4 redundant Sat receivers lying about somewhere!!


O and a Sony HD projector and 4 Panasonic plasmas to watch it all on!!

Apogee

Smeagol wrote: »

Followed a couple of month later by a Drake ESR earthstation and a six footer Channel Master dish.

Was this after winning the Lotto or robbing a bank?

sob1467

Finne1993 wrote: »

I always had an interest in the whole satellite set up, I remember getting Sky for the first time in November 1991, it was an Amstrad Fidelity SRX400 Box with a videocrypt card slot bulit in, it cost £250stg in Currys in Newry for the dish and box and if memory serves me right they wanted something like £150-£200stg to install it but we declined, I can still see the face of the sales person chuckling when we said we were installing it ourselves, he reckoned it was totally impossible for a "normal" person to install it! 3 hours later we had it all done!! Well my father done the most of it, i was shouting when the picture came through!!
Sky Sports, Sky News and Sky One were free, The 2 Movie Channels were the only encrypted channels at that time. Sky Sports was brilliant for the live FA Cup football and WWF at the time! It went encrypted in August 1992 when they won the Premier League rights, I paid for my card a year in advance, £30 punts for the whole year!!

As time went on I was always messing about checking for new channels and moving the dish around for the other sats, I etched out the exact spot on the bracket where the signal for Sky 19 degrees East was so it was easy to get it back! I can't really remember what Satellites I picked up, I think maybe Hotbird and the Scandanavian signals.
One time my experimenting came in handy was when the Ireland V Turkey Euro 2000 play off was'nt broadcast in Ireland but was FTA on Star TV on 42E, I got the match, picture was'nt great, there was plenty of speclies but it was viewable, after the match I was asking why I went to all the bother!
Sky Digital was next and I didnt bother with the foreign Sats till 2006.

I resurrected the old 80cm dish, pointed it at Hotbird and bought a Smart receiver with 2 cam slots, a viaccess cam and an Art Sports card, loved it!

I then got my hands on a 1.2 channel master dish and pointed it to 16E for Digitalb when Art lost the Premier League rights and bought a darkbox 8000 with a multicrypt card reader (Its still working fine now!)
(I also bought a Kaon HD box but it didnt last long as I got rid of it when Digitalb lost the 3pms)

I also had Premiere TV for a year in 2008, (I moved the 80cm dish to 19E) I got the receiver and paired card, not sure what make it is, its lying in the attic since. I was disappointed with their Premier League coverage, they promised to show 300 live matches but after they made that promise they won back the Bundesliga rights and the Premier League was thrown to one side.

I bought a Liberty receiver for £25 and bought the Al Jazeera card about 18 months ago, still going strong.

After the Digitalb debacle last season I decided to splash out last year on Sky Italia HD, an amazing package, I got a good deal too, €980 for HD box and sub to mondo, sport and calcio and delivery.

My latest purchase is a Tring card and clone Dreambox, dunno how Tring will fare out but at worst they'll have all the Sky/Espn matches so i'll be able to move it on handy enough if it does'nt suit me.

My Current Set up is
Sky Minidish with quad pointed at 28E
Sky Minidish with quad pointed at 13E
80cm old style Sky dish pointed at 19E
1.2 Channel Master pointed at 16E

Sky HD box with Sky World, HD pack and Setanta.
Sky Italia HD Box with Mondo, Sport, Calcio and HD pack.
DarkBox 8000 with Irdeto Al Jazeera Sports card
Dreambox clone with Tring Sports card
Freesat HD box.
Another 4 redundant Sat receivers lying about somewhere!!


O and a Sony HD projector and 4 Panasonic plasmas to watch it all on!!

So Finne1993 we meet again its a small world out there! The Digitalb Sub is still going strong but I am trying to flog the Kaon box and I am going to get a clone dreambox 800.

Manc-Red

Oatesy23 wrote: »

I'm still relatively new to the foreign satellite way of life.
I started last February(2009) and decided it would be better to futureproof my system by getting a motor right away. So I started with a 1.1M Triax dish and a DM600. My first card was a DigitALB card shortly followed by an Al Jazeera one .

What a great system to start off with m8....

Oatesy are you on a HD box now?? If so is 1w HD channels ok with that dish.

I'm needing an upgrade

Finne1993

sob1467 wrote: »

So Finne1993 we meet again its a small world out there! The Digitalb Sub is still going strong but I am trying to flog the Kaon box and I am going to get a clone dreambox 800.

Small world is right, i noticed a few posts from you before and knew I recognised the name from somewhere!! Glad its still working OK, your Digitalb sub probably has about 6 weeks to go if I remember correctly!
I would'nt flog it just yet, I'm not too sure of the ins and outs of the Kaon HD Box but theres a possibility a Tring card would work in it and theres talk of them bringing out HD channels in a couple of months so I'd hold back, for now anyway. It is a long shot but it might be worth more than it is now if that works. I'll post a report on the Premier League sticky at the top of the page about my Tring subscription on the 14th and we'll know then if its value for money

ISAA

In 1983 I had a 3m andrew's dish with LNA,LNC with luxor receiver for gorizont. 4Ghz

1985 I think 1.8 metre cosmos prime focus with 3.5db LNB (blue Bomb) with Luxor push button receiver on Intelsat V 27.5 west, with AZ/EL for (Mirror vision,premiere UK, children's channel), CNN started up later that year.

Then moved high class with polor mount and connexions rotary tune receiver and actuator, only 4 satellites then : 13E,7E,5w,27.5 west, what great days.:)

All tranmissions in analogue, Filmnet in the clear 13 east, premiere in the clear, Minnor vision in the clear, no pay tv then. Only Sky Channel with that cat DJ cat I think.(scrambled)

The good old days,

1.8 metre dish with push button receiver = £3000 punts installed.

sold 15 in the first month, then Mr Bruke ( minister of communications) made TVRO illlegal, (Got what he deserved)

Regards,

Gerry

Smeagol

Quote:
Originally Posted by Smeagol
Followed a couple of month later by a Drake ESR earthstation and a six footer Channel Master dish.

Apogee wrote: »

Was this after winning the Lotto or robbing a bank?

They were quite costly but well worth it. I think they were 1200DM so roughly about 400punts. Funny name, though.
Drake Earthstation receiver


-

marcel353

1991, France
Cambridge analogue receiver (RX480S I think, still somewhere in the garage)
80cm Lenson Heath dish

Dish was fixed at first and I was picking up Astra1@19.2
Then I started to tweak the system manually towards the west and discovered feeds.

Then I got tired of moving the dish with my 13 spanner but couldn't afford a polar mount, so I made one with the front of an old bicycle frame, didn't look the best but worked a treat, despite a home made manual positioner too.

Was really getting the bug at this stage, (my parents never got the point of keeping a test card on the screen for so long... could spend hours on Intelsat K)
If I remember well the furthest feed I could get was the NHK in NTSC(B&W on my receiver) @ panamsat 43 or 45W.

It was a bit awkward but I was totally hooked up. The cambridge did the job till an Echostar with a bigger LS dish, then Nokias 9600/9801, Humax 5400 and Topfield later. Pretty much retired now with my sky box :rolleyes:
I am just sorry I never took a picture of the home made polar mount, it was priceless...

carbsy

marcel353 wrote: »

I am just sorry I never took a picture of the home made polar mount, it was priceless...

Ah.. would loved to have seen that!

bassy

1st box i ever had was a philips analogue for sky uk fta when it first lauched in 1989,then got a alba analogue box connected to a d2 mac decoder and pointed at 1.w for the english footy on tv2 at the time,it then changed to c+ scandinavia.the dish was a old 1.85cm prime focus.

my 1st digital receiver was a nokia 9600 loaded with dvb2000 and irdeto freecam for canal digital and premiere world.

then went for a humax 5300 viacesswith art sports card for 13.e,then i bought a technomate 1500.moved from that to a dm500s what a great servant that litle dm was

then made the big move a few weeks ago and lashed out on a vu+duo gotta be the best receiver i have ever owned i cannot fault it.

i have 4 dishs here sky dish,80cm dish,1.2m irte prime focus fully motorised and 1.85cm fixed dish.

and a host of old cards from the great d2 mac days along with the programmers etc,bring back the good old days.

tv1000 after midnight

Manc-Red

bassy wrote: »

1st box i ever had was a philips analogue for sky uk fta when it first lauched in 1989,then got a alba analogue box connected to a d2 mac decoder and pointed at 1.w for the english footy on tv2 at the time,it then changed to c+ scandinavia.the dish was a old 1.85cm prime focus.

my 1st digital receiver was a nokia 9600 loaded with dvb2000 and irdeto freecam for canal digital and premiere world.

then went for a humax 5300 viacesswith art sports card for 13.e,then i bought a technomate 1500.moved from that to a dm500s what a great servant that litle dm was

then made the big move a few weeks ago and lashed out on a vu+duo gotta be the best receiver i have ever owned i cannot fault it.

i have 4 dishs here sky dish,80cm dish,1.2m irte prime focus fully motorised and 1.85cm fixed dish.

and a host of old cards from the great d2 mac days along with the programmers etc,bring back the good old days.

tv1000 after midnight

Superb m8

bassy

you know me m8

Manc-Red wrote: »

Superb m8

Manc-Red

bassy wrote: »

you know me m8

;)

Pal

Started out in 2003 with 13, 19 and 28e on an 80cm dish.
Thanks Tony.
It was great !
Disecq switch. Palcom box and a Matrix Reloaded cam

Learned how to flash the cam in a laptop and never looked back.
Had more channels than I knew what to do with

The 28e LNB has since migrated to an octo with Sky HD, PVR and Freesat all over the house.

Moved to TM for a while and longed for a Dreambox but was always
daunted by it.

Using a Spiderbox these days.
Serious piece of hardware
recommended

redout

Pal wrote: »

Using a Spiderbox these days.
Serious piece of hardware
recommended

Can that run enigma ?

carbsy

redout wrote: »

Can that run enigma ?

That would be a no.It's a poor box for the true techy imho, although Pal would prob beg to differ.

fish fingers

carbsy wrote: »

That would be a no.It's a poor box for the true techy imho, although Pal would prob beg to differ.

I have one too, its more or less plug and play. For the price its a nice piece of kit.

carbsy

fish fingers wrote: »

I have one too, its more or less plug and play. For the price its a nice piece of kit.

Yeah.. usually it comes with a 'gift' pre-configured.Anyhow, not a box for me!

fish fingers

carbsy wrote: »

Yeah.. usually it comes with a 'gift' pre-configured.Anyhow, not a box for me!

I dont use it for the gift. It runs cccam fine for me, I have a Tm500 and an eagle for tinkering

Pal

carbsy wrote: »

That would be a no.It's a poor box for the true techy imho, although Pal would prob beg to differ.

I like football so for that reason its great.