Aiming C-band Satellite Dish
| Field | Multichannel TV Reception |
| Went Obsolete | Late 1990s |
| Made Obsolete By | Direct TV and Dish Network 'mini' dishes |
| Knowledge Assumed | None assumed |
| When useful | Always |
Virtually all 'cable' programming is distributed via C-band satellite; these are the large (ranging from 5 to 10 feet in diameter) either mesh or solid metal antennas. Aiming and aligning the dishes was quite a skill; the satellites are 23,400 miles in space (10% of the way to the moon) and alignment is critical for a good picture.
Originally, only cable heads-end had such equipment, but early radio and TV experimenters purchased equipment and thereby received 'free' cable TV. It was especially popular in rural areas.
Later, as private use increased (reaching a peak of several million private users), programmers began to scramble their signals. Private users became legitimate subscribers and paid for programming and decoding equipment.
As small dishes proliferated, the size, complexity, and diminishing number of channels on the large dishes (the programs are still there; the programmer no longer choose to sell them to C-band subscribers), more and more users moved to the small dishes.
Currently, as of 2007, there are less than 100,000 legitimate C-band dish users.
CORRECTION: There may be as few as 100,000 SUBSCRIBERS to the premium services. There are thousands of free channels on satellite in digital form (4DTV and DVB) that are accessed by select groups and hobbists. These free channels are not the “premium” channels by any means. See http://www.lyngsat.com(approve sites) for an example listing. (BTW: I can not only aim my dish, I can align it to the satellite arc.)
