Has anyone here on this forum own a C-band dish? Tell your memories here!

[danderson4411]

Al Michaels, in his heyday at ABC,had a reputation for being even more entertaining on satellite during commercial breaks than he was during games. He spent a lot of time during the 1987 World Series(Minnesota vs. St. Louis) ripping a Minneapolis sportswriter, Dan Lundegaard, who had earlier ripped Michaels for complaints Michaels made during Game 1 about the city, the hotel accommodations, and the Series matchup in general. When Michaels decided that his Game 2 between-innings comments would be nothing but Lundegaard-bashing, ABC cut the audio in the booth(at one point, afte a lengthy period of 'mute', the sound was restored, and then cut almost immediately, when Michaels called his target a 'jerk)'. Michaels did manage to call Lundegaard a 'scumbag', and imply that the sportswriter had to be on drugs to make such negative comments.

gary bender and eric heiden were like that during the speed skating events in calgary in 1988 olympics too but abc didnt cut the audio

 

[landtuna]

Would someone please tell Al Michaels that 'football' is NOT pronounced footBAWL. That guy is really irritating.

 

[crainbebo]

So the commercials were fed via a separate tape from the show? I thought in post-production commercials would already be placed in. With a lot of the first-run syndicated shows, there's some national ads and then black spots where the local stations fill in the time. But a separate tape with ads? Interesting.
Danderson - Did you recall seeing a lot of news feeds? Those are interesting to see...especially ones where it's anchors rehearsing. I saw a clip one time where there was a national correspondent who I believe was rehearsing a political report, and sat at the desk silently for several minutes. Then did it again. Probably was going live to several stations...the clip was taped in the mid afternoon so likely she was reporting to west coast stations that had noon newscasts.
I know that the MDA Telethon had a live satellite feed with no local cut-ins during the Labor Day weekend years ago...you would see Jerry Lewis and Ed McMahon do things that the local stations did not air. Forgot which satellite...one of the Telstars? Never saw it but heard about it from others.
And at the same time, I'm sure CBS had lots of wild feeds of the US Open tennis tournament.

Were you able to see the major cable networks - Galaxy 1 and Satcom F4 sats? I know MTV was on F4-17 and F4-18, Nickelodeon was F4-19 and F4-20 I believe (east/west). Galaxy 1 had HBO, USA, TNT, TBS, etc. Later in the 90s they all went to Galaxy 5.
And were you able to see the Denver 6 (KMGH/KCNC/KUSA/KWGN/KDVR/KRMA)? Those were fed I believe on Satcom F1. None of those feeds operate anymore.

-crainbebo

 

[danderson4411]

f1 is where i saw all broncos games? and sbs 6 was were the backhauls were

 

[crainbebo]

F1 probably via one of the network affiliates...KMGH (CBS), KUSA (NBC) or KCNC (NBC) - there was a huge network switch around 1994 1995 that took ABC to KMGH, NBC to KUSA and CBS to KCNC.
Believe the NBC network had a straight network feed on F1 (or one of those satellites) for many years as well...network shows, national ads, no local. If it was around now you'd see the little peacock in the middle of the screen that changes colors during local breaks.

-crainbebo

 

[Mr Tony]

Believe the NBC network had a straight network feed on F1 (or one of those satellites) for many years as well...network shows, national ads, no local. If it was around now you'd see the little peacock in the middle of the screen that changes colors during local breaks.

-crainbebo

still is on 103W KU (AMC1) and 105 C-Band (AMC18)

 

[onairb]

Would someone please tell Al Michaels that 'football' is NOT pronounced footBAWL. That guy is really irritating.

He's a Noo Yawkuh, fugeddaboudit!;-) It took him years to learn that there's an 'H', but no 'Y', in the word 'huge'...'A YOOJ matchup for Monday Night Footbawl!'

 

[danderson4411]

F1 probably via one of the network affiliates...KMGH (CBS), KUSA (NBC) or KCNC (NBC) - there was a huge network switch around 1994 1995 that took ABC to KMGH, NBC to KUSA and CBS to KCNC.
Believe the NBC network had a straight network feed on F1 (or one of those satellites) for many years as well...network shows, national ads, no local. If it was around now you'd see the little peacock in the middle of the screen that changes colors during local breaks.

-crainbebo

kcnc also had the nuggets when nbc aired them as regional coverage of nba in 1995 with tom hammond and bill walton

 

[crainbebo]

Which had to be just a little while before the CBS flip. I know NBC was the NBA Finals network for many years in the 1990s...I have game 7 of the Knicks/Rockets final from 1994 taped from KRON-4 in San Francisco, with commercials. They went to ABC some years later.
You may also remember later in the 1990s when there was the Spacenet 4 satellite. Primetime 24 was fed on that satellite...I know KPIX (CBS) SF, KOMO (ABC) Seattle and WWOR (UPN) New York were on there...just after the WWOR EMI Service folded for Animal Planet. Believe NBC was KNBC LA and Fox was the national Foxnet feed.
Spacenet 3 had the superstations, WPIX/WSBK/KTLA and KTVT pre-CBS I believe on S3-05. Univision would lease that transponder later. I don't think there were many, if any wild feeds on S3 or S4.

-crainbebo

 

[danderson4411]

i remember watching nba and ncaa tournament games on cbs that were tape delayed live?

 

[stdjsb25]

Al Michaels, in his heyday at ABC,had a reputation for being even more entertaining on satellite during commercial breaks than he was during games. He spent a lot of time during the 1987 World Series(Minnesota vs. St. Louis) ripping a Minneapolis sportswriter, Dan Lundegaard, who had earlier ripped Michaels for complaints Michaels made during Game 1 about the city, the hotel accommodations, and the Series matchup in general. When Michaels decided that his Game 2 between-innings comments would be nothing but Lundegaard-bashing, ABC cut the audio in the booth(at one point, afte a lengthy period of 'mute', the sound was restored, and then cut almost immediately, when Michaels called his target a 'jerk)'. Michaels did manage to call Lundegaard a 'scumbag', and imply that the sportswriter had to be on drugs to make such negative comments.

That ABC "Cut the audio" trick was learned probably from the Max Robinson days when ABC would feed his World News Tonight segments from Chicago to New York for that live broadcast. People would always get a kick out of Robinson's off-camera behavior. (Of course ABC later also superimposed a slide as well that read "ABC News Chicago"

 

[johnnya2k6]

One time, Hulk Hogan fought The Giant on "WCW Monday Nitro", and TNT had to cut the broadcast short so they could show "The New Adventures of Robin Hood"; they would rejoin the match in progress during breaks.

BUT...some viewer happened to see the entire match on a backhaul -- which actually ended about five minutes into Robin Hood!!! They somehow rewound the tape and played it back as if it was going on live, while Tony Schiavone made some snarky remark about using the match as Robin Hood's security blanket.

 

[danderson4411]

i remember having to watch the abc network afflate feed whenever WLOS wanted to show Billy Graham this was back in late 80s early 90s had do it a couple times with "China Beach"

 

[danderson4411]

So the commercials were fed via a separate tape from the show? I thought in post-production commercials would already be placed in. With a lot of the first-run syndicated shows, there's some national ads and then black spots where the local stations fill in the time. But a separate tape with ads? Interesting.
Danderson - Did you recall seeing a lot of news feeds? Those are interesting to see...especially ones where it's anchors rehearsing. I saw a clip one time where there was a national correspondent who I believe was rehearsing a political report, and sat at the desk silently for several minutes. Then did it again. Probably was going live to several stations...the clip was taped in the mid afternoon so likely she was reporting to west coast stations that had noon newscasts.
I know that the MDA Telethon had a live satellite feed with no local cut-ins during the Labor Day weekend years ago...you would see Jerry Lewis and Ed McMahon do things that the local stations did not air. Forgot which satellite...one of the Telstars? Never saw it but heard about it from others.
And at the same time, I'm sure CBS had lots of wild feeds of the US Open tennis tournament.

Were you able to see the major cable networks - Galaxy 1 and Satcom F4 sats? I know MTV was on F4-17 and F4-18, Nickelodeon was F4-19 and F4-20 I believe (east/west). Galaxy 1 had HBO, USA, TNT, TBS, etc. Later in the 90s they all went to Galaxy 5.
And were you able to see the Denver 6 (KMGH/KCNC/KUSA/KWGN/KDVR/KRMA)? Those were fed I believe on Satcom F1. None of those feeds operate anymore.

-crainbebo

i remember seeing the blank spots on "On Scene Emergency Response" and "American Gladiators" too so i think that would be for local ads?

 

[danderson4411]

ABC's announcers could be entertaining during breaks like Gary Bender and Dick Vermeil on Big 10 games or Keith Jackson and Bob Griese on Pac 10 games in 1988 and 1989

 

[crainbebo]

Yes, those were for local ads. They would be inserted by the local station when they received the show on the feed or on tape. You can still see blank spots on raw syndication feeds.

-crainbebo

 

[danderson4411]

So the commercials were fed via a separate tape from the show? I thought in post-production commercials would already be placed in. With a lot of the first-run syndicated shows, there's some national ads and then black spots where the local stations fill in the time. But a separate tape with ads? Interesting.
Danderson - Did you recall seeing a lot of news feeds? Those are interesting to see...especially ones where it's anchors rehearsing. I saw a clip one time where there was a national correspondent who I believe was rehearsing a political report, and sat at the desk silently for several minutes. Then did it again. Probably was going live to several stations...the clip was taped in the mid afternoon so likely she was reporting to west coast stations that had noon newscasts.
I know that the MDA Telethon had a live satellite feed with no local cut-ins during the Labor Day weekend years ago...you would see Jerry Lewis and Ed McMahon do things that the local stations did not air. Forgot which satellite...one of the Telstars? Never saw it but heard about it from others.
And at the same time, I'm sure CBS had lots of wild feeds of the US Open tennis tournament.

Were you able to see the major cable networks - Galaxy 1 and Satcom F4 sats? I know MTV was on F4-17 and F4-18, Nickelodeon was F4-19 and F4-20 I believe (east/west). Galaxy 1 had HBO, USA, TNT, TBS, etc. Later in the 90s they all went to Galaxy 5.
And were you able to see the Denver 6 (KMGH/KCNC/KUSA/KWGN/KDVR/KRMA)? Those were fed I believe on Satcom F1. None of those feeds operate anymore.

-crainbebo

bumping this thread a bit- i have seen news anchors get mad like a sailor over a sports event that ran late or a development in a game that made them mad i have seen anchors like Twany Little, Keith Morrison, Kelly Lange, Colleen Williams, Hal Fishman(i know but remember one time he got mad because the other team hit a home run that tied a Dodgers game that delayed the KTLA newscast), Jerry Dunphy, Giselle Fernández, Marta Waller, Bree Walker(remember one incdent with her during a world series game in 91), Cheryl Jennings, Paul Moyer, Chuck Henry, Wendy Tokuda, and Van Amburg get mad like a sailor when a game runs long and delays the news or a devepolment occurs in a game that gets them really mad also you get a side of the anchors the public has not seen too

 

[K.M. Richards]

Aside from the fact that "danderson" needs to learn how to trim quoted material so it is easier to see what he is replying to ...

In the early 1980s I had a side gig doing C-band satellite equipment sales for a company which did mail order and 800# sales. Made more money doing that than I did from radio (and I was doing mornings at my station, so that says a lot). We had a couple of dishes set up on the roof, one aimed at Satcom III-R -- at that time the cable network bird -- and the other with a rotator so we could access the other satellites.

We used to routinely scan the network "backhaul" transponders for stuff like that, but my recollection is that they never uploaded the news studio to the field. It was always field reporters waiting for their live cue that would lose it if their report was going to be delayed or they had to edit on the fly to fill a lesser amount of time. So that recollection of seeing news anchors "get mad like a sailor" was not likely to have been via a satellite feed.

I do remember one Los Angeles reporter who was covering the 1984 Democratic convention in San Francisco doing a live report on her station's noon hour newscast. After she was finished, she apparently received word from the director in L.A. via her earplug that they wanted to cut back to her at the end of the cast to do a "teaser" for her report on the upcoming late afternoon edition. You should have seen her screaming at the camera (at the director) that she wasn't "going to stand here with my microphone for 20 minutes just so you can come back to me for 20 seconds" and questioning why master control couldn't "just record it now so my crew and I can go have lunch". My recollection is that the director won the argument.

 

[danderson4411]

i do stand corrected-but i saw reporters sometimes get mad about changes on the fly- and sportscasters sometimes not liking a certain replay-could be funny

 

[danderson4411]

might say favorite memories in 86 was Rick Barry calling World Basketball Championship in Spain solo for TBS the news feeds of reporters during the Cerritos mid-air collision some great college football and NFL and of course both lcs's and the World Series