WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.040 If you're old like me, you probably remember those big ugly satellite dishes adorning people's 00:00:05.040 --> 00:00:09.760 backyards. They were big enough for a kid to skateboard in, but even during my heyday in the 00:00:09.760 --> 00:00:16.240 1990s, no one I knew who actually had one used it anymore. So what was the point of them, 00:00:16.240 --> 00:00:20.960 whatever happened to them, and why were they so absurdly large in the first place? 00:00:20.960 --> 00:00:26.320 Back in the late 70s and early 80s, satellite TV was not something that required a paid subscription. 00:00:26.320 --> 00:00:31.360 Instead, satellite signals were just out there floating around for anyone with the right equipment 00:00:31.360 --> 00:00:37.600 to catch. You see, these signals were sent out by TV distributors and were intended for cable TV 00:00:37.600 --> 00:00:42.880 companies, not regular consumers. The cable companies would receive the signals, combine them 00:00:42.880 --> 00:00:48.800 into a cable TV package, and then sell that package to you and me at home via wires. 00:00:49.360 --> 00:00:54.080 But because the assumption was that it would just be cable companies receiving the TV signals, 00:00:54.080 --> 00:00:59.200 distributors didn't bother scrambling them. So inevitably, folks at home figured out you could 00:00:59.200 --> 00:01:05.520 just use a big old dish to wash tons of paid TV channels for free. And even folks who weren't 00:01:05.520 --> 00:01:10.240 trying to get around paying for cable found satellite dishes useful, since the only way 00:01:10.240 --> 00:01:15.760 some people could pick up their free local channels was via satellite. This was especially true in 00:01:15.760 --> 00:01:20.400 high altitude regions where the train would block typical TV antennas. In fact, these large 00:01:20.400 --> 00:01:25.600 satellite dishes became so common in mountainous West Virginia that a common joke was that the 00:01:25.600 --> 00:01:31.600 big ugly dish was actually the state flower. I just love that. The reason these dishes had to 00:01:31.600 --> 00:01:37.520 be so big was that these signals were sent on something called C-band. This is a frequency 00:01:37.520 --> 00:01:43.440 range that's lower than what modern satellite TV uses, and their maximum power was also lower 00:01:43.440 --> 00:01:49.040 due to a rule meant to prevent interference. The longer wavelengths and lower power meant you needed 00:01:49.040 --> 00:01:54.720 a big dish to catch these big waves. Adding to the inconvenience was that these dishes had to 00:01:54.720 --> 00:02:01.280 be pointed more directly at the satellite itself than modern systems. So high end setups often had 00:02:01.280 --> 00:02:06.720 a little motor attached to the dish to rotate the dish when you change channels. But this didn't 00:02:06.720 --> 00:02:12.400 mean that C-band dishes were inferior in every way to the tiny ones we're using now. Believe it or 00:02:12.400 --> 00:02:17.200 not, the longer wavelengths meant that they were actually more resistant to bad weather than current 00:02:17.200 --> 00:02:23.280 receivers. So why are big dishes now basically technological fossils strewn across the landscape 00:02:23.280 --> 00:02:28.560 getting stuck in tar pits and such? Well, as you've probably predicted, the TV industry wasn't too 00:02:28.560 --> 00:02:33.920 happy about so many people viewing their content without paying. Some things never change. And 00:02:33.920 --> 00:02:39.920 starting in 1984, the US government started allowing broadcasters to scramble their signals. 00:02:39.920 --> 00:02:45.440 This meant that you now needed to pay for a de-scrambler in order to legally watch satellite TV. 00:02:46.320 --> 00:02:52.240 Needless to say, people were very upset that they now had to pay subscription fees after already 00:02:52.240 --> 00:02:57.440 spending a ton of money on the dishes themselves. Because of their bulk, these big dishes were 00:02:57.440 --> 00:03:04.640 expensive. The first one cost about $36,000 back in 1979. And although these prices dropped quickly 00:03:04.640 --> 00:03:10.160 to the point that they were going for $1,500 in 1985, that was still a huge investment. 00:03:10.160 --> 00:03:14.240 There was actually this one guy who ran his own satellite TV business who was so upset that he 00:03:14.240 --> 00:03:20.160 was actually able to overpower HBO's signal and insert his own protest message for a few minutes 00:03:20.160 --> 00:03:26.160 back in 1986. What a legend. But this conflict between broadcasters and viewers wouldn't last 00:03:26.160 --> 00:03:32.640 long as direct broadcast satellite started getting popularity in the early 1990s. That's when I came 00:03:32.640 --> 00:03:40.400 around. These are the services such as Direct TV that use the higher frequency KU and KA bands 00:03:40.480 --> 00:03:45.520 that can legally be transmitted with higher power, meaning you only need a smaller, cheaper dish. 00:03:45.520 --> 00:03:50.000 Naturally, the lower equipment cost made them much more popular with consumers than those 00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:56.000 massive old-school dishes, which quickly fell out of favor. However, C-band is actually still used 00:03:56.000 --> 00:04:01.520 for back-end TV distribution because of its advantages in bad weather. But as for those old 00:04:01.520 --> 00:04:06.160 dishes we used to have in our yards, people have repurposed them as everything from long-range 00:04:06.160 --> 00:04:12.720 Wi-Fi antennas to gazebos to birdbaths. If you'll excuse me, I need to go hang my laundry. 00:04:15.200 --> 00:04:18.720 Why would I unzip this? That would indicate that it's been wet this whole time. 00:04:20.240 --> 00:04:23.760 Stupid. So thanks for watching guys. If you liked this video, hit like, hit subscribe, 00:04:23.760 --> 00:04:28.320 and hit us up in the comment section for your nostalgia-driven suggestions of topics that 00:04:28.320 --> 00:04:29.920 we should cover in the future.