dbd33

The dish on our roof is grounded for lightning. I'd think that's standard.

The dish above sounds like the DirecTV one we had at the last house, technically it's illegal to receive the signals and it's a bother because they keep changing the encryption and you need new hacks. It's worth it though in order to get the quality of television Americans enjoy.

Daedra

Ooh pardon, was pages back & your racoon stands out in my memory more then the other avatars... OH has a fondness for them y'see, even has a hat made from one's fur (ick)

Just went back to page 2 & sure enough, it was atfab that posted the pic. sorry Jane!

My bro had put up a 20 foot antenae in our back yard in Montreal so that he could play with his shortwave radio.... needless to say about 6 months later during a particularly nasty thunderstorm there was a huge BOOM/FLASH and had to take the charred remenants down the next day.

Steve_P

Bwaaahaaaahaaaaa.

Good one.

j4cksparrow

Yes...my receiver takes care of that, as I have it modded. I get over 4000 channels for free, not that I have the time to watch them, but my daughter gets to watch all the cartoons, discover kids, animal planet and national geographic.

dbd33

Well, relative to Canada. See post above.

Steve_P

I still think it hilarious.

That is just over 4000 channels of the same crap.

From what I've seen of American television it's no better, possibly worse than Canadian.

dbd33

I think the argument for American TV is the Sopranos, that's a well made series. Why anyone needs 4000 channels in order to watch the one good show is a bit lost on me.

Steve_P

I realise the the Sopranos is not availble over the air but it is available on Shaw on their movie channels.

It would be nice if Shaw would pick up HBO but I understand that is not likely to happen. They do pick up some HBO programming but it would be nice to be able to just tune in HBO and choose for myself.

j4cksparrow

Who said I watch the sopranos? That number is how many channels my 2 dishes pull in from Europe, Asia, Africa, soth america, and north america.

dbd33

I don't know whether or not you watch the Sopranos. I say that the show, the Sopranos, is the sole redeeming merit of American TV. Canadian TV is, of course, even worse. If stealing signals in foreign languages pleases you, good luck to you, I found it too much bother for not enough content.

atfab

Are you able to get The World Cup ... Cricket? ......... Understand Canada gave it a good go and England hung on to go through.........................

j4cksparrow

Yes am able to get all the games, saving myself the $200 they are asking for the world cup package. Shame about the old geezer that died coaching Pakistan

atfab

Whaddya mean "Old Geezer" ....... he was alot younger than me! ..... but you are right it was a shame. Wish I could get coverage however .... some excellent Cricket being played at this level ....... that is when they are sober...............

dbd33

We've now had the satellite long enough to make an initial assessment of it and I've been favourably impressed.

Reliability is an issue, it does go out in storms so, if email is your business you do need dial up as a backup. However, this is the basic system connecting through a Hughes satellite (the cheaper set up, sneered at by the cognoscenti) and it's proven prefectly adequate for web browsing, maintaining the blog, 3270 emulation, secure VPN using Cisco software.

Technical support from Bruce Telecom has been excellent but here's a thing; they're only open daylight hours. I'd choose daylight support in English over 24hour support in gibberish but that's a personal choice. I would choose this facility over Rogers cable internet except if I had to do a lot of Unix work; telnet over this link is agonising because it sends each keystroke to Mars and back before showing it on the screen.

Novocastrian

Acksherly, it only goes as far as Echalon HQ in Yorkshire.