When did you start to use satellites?
Er... Well, actually my hobby started before the satellites. Back in Russia in 1991, before the fall of USSR, we only had 2 national TV channels. When USSR fell apart, someone at school (I was 10 at the time) said that there was a new TV channel starting but you could only receive it if you had a special "decoder". This "decoder" was actually a UHF tuner module, which was an optional extra in most TV's, as VHF was used for TV for national channels and still is! Our big colour TV did not have a UHF module but a little portable black and white one did. The channel was broadcast on channel 22 and at my mum's in a block on flats overlooking most of the city, I easily received the channel. It was a hugely popular one, as it transmitted all the big Western movies (obviously pirated). Terminator 2 was shown months after it was released in the cinemas in the Western world.
Due to a low-power transmitter, we were lucky that we were sat high up for reception, but at my grandparents, whose windows looked at another block of flats, the reception was zilch. No indoor aerial was good enough and most people, who could afford it, installed outdoor UHF or even combined VHF/UHF aerials. We had a lot of problems with reception and I spent a lot of time walking around the flat with an aerial looking for the best signal. Finally found one on the other side of the flat, but that meant a trailing cable on the floor and fitting a signal amplifier near the aerial as it was pretty much unwatchable without one. Fun times.... all for just 1 UHF channel! In total there are around 12 on analogue system across VHF and UHF spectrum. You can even listen to some VHF TV channels on your FM radio
Next I came to Blighty in '93 and we got our analogue Sky system with Amstrad 510. Once I learnt a little Engrish (sic), I started reading What Satellite TV magazine and found out that there are far more channels elsewhere. So I started moving the dish manually to find other satellites and all sorts of weird and wonderful channels. In '95, we got our D2MAC FilmNet decoder for FilmNet, TV1000 and 3x TV3's. All were wonderful channels and we watched it without subscription with a green pirate card sticking out of the decoder. I still have them in a box somewhere.
In '97, FilmNet moved to Thor 1 and we could no longer receive it as you needed a 1.8m dish to get it in Somerset. We did catch a brief glimpse of it later when it moved to Thor 2 prior to Canal+ Nordic launch. At around that time, we also permanently moved our now 80cm dish to 1W for a bunch of Nordic channels. Mucho fun, once again!
And the rest then revolves around digital TV, for which I used a Sky box initially to tune in to channels on Astra 1 (MTV was free at that time), then got a weird Philips Canal+ box, which was rubbish but did the job. Then Humax F1, the Nokia 9600 (the best!) and the various Dreamboxes. The dish was upgraded to 1.2m Gibby to receive Russian/Baltic stuff Sirius 2/3 during early evenings but lost it at other times.
What do you enjoy most about the past time?
The fact that I receive channels my neighbours can't ... and probably don't care about. But the fact that I can watch my native Russian channels on various satellites is probably the core reason I am in this. Still need to venture into C band world that many of these channels are scattered on.
Have there been any highlights over the years?
Probably the D2MAC era was the most fun. The pirate code hunting, the scrambled picture clearing in front of you eyes.....
What is your set up?
Right now a modest clone DM800 and a Penta 85cm dish on a motor.
What do your friends and family thing of the past time?
They like the mature content! And the boxing matches they showed on TV1000 which were PPV events on Sky. My girlfriend enjoys her native Polish TV and my parents enjoyed Russian stuff when I lived with them. So, nothing negative really!
I was looking for a flat to rent a few months ago and found a nice one in a block of flats which had a communal Sky dish on it. I didn't see any other dishes attached, so I asked the estate agent whether I could put one up myself. She asked my why would possibly need a satellite dish when there's already one there for Sky..... I really didn't know how to explain it and put the phone down.