Nope, not dish or Satellite - at least not where I grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, or in nearby Chelmsford, Massachusetts. The antenna looked like some cheesy B-movie alien ray-gun (seriously), and it had to be pointed in the direction of... <diety> knows what, in order to work.
I remember my grandparents had the Star Channel, and sometime soon after my parents subscribed to HBO. This was definitely late-70's/early-80's, and the domestic/local transmission method was defiantly over-air, but not by any appearances dish/satellite based. When cable TV became available, they simply left the antennas on everyones roofs AFAIK. I had a friend in NH that definitely did watch HBO by a honkingly huge satellite dish in his yard around the same time as well -- ME2 On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 5:05 PM, Ben Scott <mailvor...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 7:19 PM, Micheal Espinola Jr > <michealespin...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Yep, it was a point-to-point service (or something like that). You got a > > special directional antenna attached to your roof. > > Are you sure you're not thinking of old-fashioned satellite TV? Not > the modern mini-dish stuff; I'm talking about the giant C-band dishes. > They're used by TV networks to distribute their programming from > central studios to local broadcast points and cable head-ends. The > occasional home AV snob would have a receiver. The programming was > all transmitted in the clear so there was nothing stopping people > other than the (usually significant) expense of the equipment. > > > Can anyone correct me if I am wrong? > > The always-reliable Wikipedia </irony> says that HBO began as one of > the first pay TV services using underground cable in Manhattan, and > Manhattan only. It later added satellite distribution. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HBO > > -- Ben > > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ > ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ > > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
