el bandido
TNAP-Images
Tek2000, admin, and a couple of other nics appear to be the same person at tvrosat.com. I would expect the tvrosat website to shut down soon after Tek2000 shuts down.
We will see...
Goodbye to FTA Dealers in North America
- Thread starter el bandido
- Start date
Tek2000, admin, and a couple of other nics appear to be the same person at tvrosat.com. I would expect the tvrosat website to shut down soon after Tek2000 shuts down.
We will see...
Demand and supply. Tek is/was the Kmart of sat equipment. I've only made 2 or 3 purchases from him ever. His support after the sale was poor. A vendor with only web and email communications irks me. Especially when what he advertises is different from what you get or in the case of his dishes. Little or no assembly instructions and inadequate packaging. Oh well. TVROSAT does have some nice USA sat charts. And updated info. I was on my 3rd user acct. after confronting the fatman about a few valid issues and got kicked. And is he the same dude who got in a mess for modding Dreambox tuners a while back? We will find different sources for sure. And pay more. His last deal with me was a new Superjack motor for a 2" O.D. tube. The bore on the new one was only 1.75" and he swore up and down that my actuator must have been a very old one (it was new in box from a guy from Buffalo with a Tek label on it 2 years old....2 years ago). The email went stagnant and I ended up using my friends Bridgeport to bore the motor housing to fit my tube.
For everyone who depended on Tek for "OK" stuff for cheap I feel bad. I feel bad for Brian and the ASC-1. But it makes me think how can we build a bridge out of Chinese steel, by Chinese workers, load it on a Chinese vessel, and install it here for far less than we can do it on our own soil. I'm pretty certain if I asked the right questions here I could locate the original mold that a guy here used to make the single and multi section 'glass dishes he made back in the 80's. My 12 footer is holding up very well still. 99W blows the signal meter off the scale with a CW2 lnb on my OsMio 4k.
Rant over......
For everyone who depended on Tek for "OK" stuff for cheap I feel bad. I feel bad for Brian and the ASC-1. But it makes me think how can we build a bridge out of Chinese steel, by Chinese workers, load it on a Chinese vessel, and install it here for far less than we can do it on our own soil. I'm pretty certain if I asked the right questions here I could locate the original mold that a guy here used to make the single and multi section 'glass dishes he made back in the 80's. My 12 footer is holding up very well still. 99W blows the signal meter off the scale with a CW2 lnb on my OsMio 4k.
Rant over......
It's funny. I have previously compared the DVB hardware market in Europe and the Middle East to the early GSM phone market. In both cases, there was a vibrant market for hardware variety, manufacturer, and feature set over there, because the carriers hadn't tightly coupled the hardware to the user service account. Here in the U.S., it was years before anyone knew what a SIM card was, and users were able to swap them between phones.
The lack of diversity in downlink providers is probably the root of this. You have 2 carriers, one who, for years, only used the barest feature set of DVB-S and wound up forking their protocols into weird modulation schemes. (D!SH), and one that had a protocol that pre-dated the gelling of the actual DVB-S standard (DirecTV). In Europe, people were buying CAMs and cards from several different providers and popping them into CI slots as they saw fit, essentially creating their own "bundles." That was because the broadcasters used an actual standard.
The other thing that one can't ignore is that the case that, for a time, was the largest lawsuit in the world. It was squarely around issues of conditional access, efforts to subvert it, and worst of all, between those same two U.S. carriers. If you want a wild ride, read the book "Murdoch's Pirates." I swear, you won't believe what you're reading, but a lot of what's in there is provable historical fact.
(If you don't know the story of the suit involving DirecTV/News Datacom-NDS/D!SH/Nagravision-Nagra Kudelski, it reads like a movie script, but it really happened.)
I got motivated by subscribing to the now-defunct Tele-Satellit(e) magazine, published by "Dr. Dish" in Germany. I would highly encourage people to peruse their now open and free complete issue archive online. The ads for receivers alone will make anyone in the U.S. feel as though they are living in a country that doesn't have electricity or running water.
I originally bought my first Dreambox from a Canadian retailer at a time when it was virtually impossible to find FTA receivers in the U.S. Unbeknownst to me, he may have been involved in what was then a thriving black market for gear that let Canadians watch U.S. DBS services without paying, and got in some trouble. I am pretty sure the RCMP got his customer list. I wasn't worried. Later, I actually was a paying subscriber of Canadian satellite TV because the picture quality was better than anything I could get with D!SH or DirecTV, and some of the news and science fiction was way more interesting than anything on cable/fiber here in the U.S.
There absolutely has been a migration to IPTV/"OTT" services, in that even my friends who have worked at large cable companies have been testing IP delivery of their whole linear channel list. I don't know that we'll ever completely see Ku-/Ka-band services vanish though. I don't know whether AT&T is still uplinking their HITS (Headend-In-The-Sky) service for rural customers, but I think it might still be out there, and some of the niche foreign and religious programmers are still depending on it.
Personally, I think we have to see how the confluence of several things shakes out. I can't say I've exhaustively thought this through, but I've done market analysis for a living before, and there are the things that stick out to me:
1 - The FCC just auctioned off a big chunk of what used to be C-band spectrum, presumably for use with LTE/5G wireless services. I don't know what that will do to the price of Ku-band transponder time.
2 - Starlink, if it continues to work as described, will provide reasonable IP service to people who previously only had tin cans and a wet piece of string, dial-up, crappy DSL, or Wildblue/Gilat/Hughes for Internet service. Pretty much none of those are up to the task of delivering one 4K TV stream, much less more than one. Starlink beta users are consistently reporting 80-140Mbits/sec at 23-40ms latency. That would do fine for streaming 4K video IF
and only if, the jitter (variability in latency) isn't too wacky. I have yet to hear much from people trying it for VOIP, for example, but time will tell. I don't know what effect Starlink may have on Ku-band transponder time, either.
3 - It remains to be seen what the new administration's FCC will look like in terms of leadership and initiatives.
4 - I think there will always be some audience of narrowcasters who like the idea of satellite delivery of their services. Just look at all of the audio-only downlinks on Galaxy 19. It's not all international content.
5 - There are long time lags between technology changes and adoption by radio/TV broadcasters. We're only now starting to get services in the U.S. that are experimenting with DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale), a digital shortwave format.
6 - ATSC 3.0 has some wacky features that could be really interesting in terms of providing content that makes Internet add-ons to regular programming pretty easy to do. (I won't talk about the potential security nightmare that comes from transmitting a signal that makes people's TV's silently fetch URLs in the background from wherever you want, but you can imagine it.)
The discussion of crowdfunding gear is interesting to me. As someone who has and occasionally still does work in the traditional startup funding world, the number of things I've acquired recently from crowdfunded hardware markets like Crowd Supply and Tindie, gives me faith that if we really want a better receiver, there is a path to it.
I don't want to crack-shame, but as someone who has used a DiSEqC rotor for over a decade, it has disappointed me to see just how many people only wanted to point dishes at the "big 2" in North America and avoid paying their bill, as opposed to really exploring the craziness that is out there in terms of both wild feeds and international content, not to mention weird data services. It even shows in the comparative immaturity of the codebases for motor control in various Enigma/Enigma2 distributions over the years. (People still don't believe me when I describe some of the insanity I recorded during the Gulf War, and that I've watched TV show hosts talk trash about their own programs when they weren't "live" but were live.)
The lack of diversity in downlink providers is probably the root of this. You have 2 carriers, one who, for years, only used the barest feature set of DVB-S and wound up forking their protocols into weird modulation schemes. (D!SH), and one that had a protocol that pre-dated the gelling of the actual DVB-S standard (DirecTV). In Europe, people were buying CAMs and cards from several different providers and popping them into CI slots as they saw fit, essentially creating their own "bundles." That was because the broadcasters used an actual standard.
The other thing that one can't ignore is that the case that, for a time, was the largest lawsuit in the world. It was squarely around issues of conditional access, efforts to subvert it, and worst of all, between those same two U.S. carriers. If you want a wild ride, read the book "Murdoch's Pirates." I swear, you won't believe what you're reading, but a lot of what's in there is provable historical fact.
(If you don't know the story of the suit involving DirecTV/News Datacom-NDS/D!SH/Nagravision-Nagra Kudelski, it reads like a movie script, but it really happened.)
I got motivated by subscribing to the now-defunct Tele-Satellit(e) magazine, published by "Dr. Dish" in Germany. I would highly encourage people to peruse their now open and free complete issue archive online. The ads for receivers alone will make anyone in the U.S. feel as though they are living in a country that doesn't have electricity or running water.
I originally bought my first Dreambox from a Canadian retailer at a time when it was virtually impossible to find FTA receivers in the U.S. Unbeknownst to me, he may have been involved in what was then a thriving black market for gear that let Canadians watch U.S. DBS services without paying, and got in some trouble. I am pretty sure the RCMP got his customer list. I wasn't worried. Later, I actually was a paying subscriber of Canadian satellite TV because the picture quality was better than anything I could get with D!SH or DirecTV, and some of the news and science fiction was way more interesting than anything on cable/fiber here in the U.S.
There absolutely has been a migration to IPTV/"OTT" services, in that even my friends who have worked at large cable companies have been testing IP delivery of their whole linear channel list. I don't know that we'll ever completely see Ku-/Ka-band services vanish though. I don't know whether AT&T is still uplinking their HITS (Headend-In-The-Sky) service for rural customers, but I think it might still be out there, and some of the niche foreign and religious programmers are still depending on it.
Personally, I think we have to see how the confluence of several things shakes out. I can't say I've exhaustively thought this through, but I've done market analysis for a living before, and there are the things that stick out to me:
1 - The FCC just auctioned off a big chunk of what used to be C-band spectrum, presumably for use with LTE/5G wireless services. I don't know what that will do to the price of Ku-band transponder time.
2 - Starlink, if it continues to work as described, will provide reasonable IP service to people who previously only had tin cans and a wet piece of string, dial-up, crappy DSL, or Wildblue/Gilat/Hughes for Internet service. Pretty much none of those are up to the task of delivering one 4K TV stream, much less more than one. Starlink beta users are consistently reporting 80-140Mbits/sec at 23-40ms latency. That would do fine for streaming 4K video IF
and only if, the jitter (variability in latency) isn't too wacky. I have yet to hear much from people trying it for VOIP, for example, but time will tell. I don't know what effect Starlink may have on Ku-band transponder time, either.
3 - It remains to be seen what the new administration's FCC will look like in terms of leadership and initiatives.
4 - I think there will always be some audience of narrowcasters who like the idea of satellite delivery of their services. Just look at all of the audio-only downlinks on Galaxy 19. It's not all international content.
5 - There are long time lags between technology changes and adoption by radio/TV broadcasters. We're only now starting to get services in the U.S. that are experimenting with DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale), a digital shortwave format.
6 - ATSC 3.0 has some wacky features that could be really interesting in terms of providing content that makes Internet add-ons to regular programming pretty easy to do. (I won't talk about the potential security nightmare that comes from transmitting a signal that makes people's TV's silently fetch URLs in the background from wherever you want, but you can imagine it.)
The discussion of crowdfunding gear is interesting to me. As someone who has and occasionally still does work in the traditional startup funding world, the number of things I've acquired recently from crowdfunded hardware markets like Crowd Supply and Tindie, gives me faith that if we really want a better receiver, there is a path to it.
I don't want to crack-shame, but as someone who has used a DiSEqC rotor for over a decade, it has disappointed me to see just how many people only wanted to point dishes at the "big 2" in North America and avoid paying their bill, as opposed to really exploring the craziness that is out there in terms of both wild feeds and international content, not to mention weird data services. It even shows in the comparative immaturity of the codebases for motor control in various Enigma/Enigma2 distributions over the years. (People still don't believe me when I describe some of the insanity I recorded during the Gulf War, and that I've watched TV show hosts talk trash about their own programs when they weren't "live" but were live.)
el bandido
TNAP-Images
It looks like Tek2000 needs another year to clear out the rest of the Cheap China Junk Inventory.
Cheap China fta products may be OK, but Tek2000 wants double or triple the amount of money as other places such as AliExpress.
(tvroadmin and tek2000 seem to be the same person)
Cheap China fta products may be OK, but Tek2000 wants double or triple the amount of money as other places such as AliExpress.
(tvroadmin and tek2000 seem to be the same person)
Well he was selling the OsMio. Good thing because after promise after promise of true blindscan on the Zgemma H7, no dice.
He was obviously using another receiver to harvest satellite.xml files to xfer into it. And that stumbling, bumbling Robbie on 'tube explained in detail how to do a "blindscan" with the receiver.
If tek is TVRO IS "The Fatman" who got busted for his modified Dreamboxes, he learned a good lesson of being loose in the art of compromising encryption schemes. And probably paid dearly for it.
And any talk of it on his site at all would end up with a rejected user. Which makes me wonder that he's doing in the background with VCII because FP findings are quickly posted there.
IF there is a Canadian BBB. People surely can't complain about a ghost such as he is. "He" (electorica?) was selling spun dishes on Ebay. I did a search closest to me. Shipping to me was a bit much. Much more than it would have cost me to drive to the location..."Rochester NY". I asked a question if I could just come and pick it up. Answer: We ship from different warehouses. And after that the location bounced all around. But initiated in Toronto Ontario.
On the forum I asked some sort of question. Don't remember exactly but it was "fringy". He kicked me out immediately. And because it had to do with a purchase I made from tek, his PM to me was that he was going to tell mommy (tek) to never ever sell me anything ever again. That was my first boot. I created another account and after his repeated hammering a product as being something it wasn't and I challenged him....my 2nd boot. After that I said screw it. What a POS. I continued to use the sat charts though to get proper channel names to setup my picons.
I see the trials and tribulations of people in another forum who try to assemble one of his "cheap chinese junk" mesh dishes that arrive banged up and dented with a photocopies of nondescript assembly instructions and no placement of LNB support arms. And no replies of questions on assembling them. Wow. Service after the sale. Hope he enjoys the Molsons a lot.
There are other satellite suppliers out there. Expensive yes. But it would be nice to see someone like Brian expand on his business. Even if something like the ASC-1 were built here at 1-1/2, twice the price I think it would be well worth it. There are so many mesh dishes around here still on poles from the heyday of C-Band I just cant believe that we cant do it again on US soil.
IF tek goes out with a bang....oh well. IF he simple fades away. Well we always have neosporin and band-aids.
He was obviously using another receiver to harvest satellite.xml files to xfer into it. And that stumbling, bumbling Robbie on 'tube explained in detail how to do a "blindscan" with the receiver.
If tek is TVRO IS "The Fatman" who got busted for his modified Dreamboxes, he learned a good lesson of being loose in the art of compromising encryption schemes. And probably paid dearly for it.
And any talk of it on his site at all would end up with a rejected user. Which makes me wonder that he's doing in the background with VCII because FP findings are quickly posted there.
IF there is a Canadian BBB. People surely can't complain about a ghost such as he is. "He" (electorica?) was selling spun dishes on Ebay. I did a search closest to me. Shipping to me was a bit much. Much more than it would have cost me to drive to the location..."Rochester NY". I asked a question if I could just come and pick it up. Answer: We ship from different warehouses. And after that the location bounced all around. But initiated in Toronto Ontario.
On the forum I asked some sort of question. Don't remember exactly but it was "fringy". He kicked me out immediately. And because it had to do with a purchase I made from tek, his PM to me was that he was going to tell mommy (tek) to never ever sell me anything ever again. That was my first boot. I created another account and after his repeated hammering a product as being something it wasn't and I challenged him....my 2nd boot. After that I said screw it. What a POS. I continued to use the sat charts though to get proper channel names to setup my picons.
I see the trials and tribulations of people in another forum who try to assemble one of his "cheap chinese junk" mesh dishes that arrive banged up and dented with a photocopies of nondescript assembly instructions and no placement of LNB support arms. And no replies of questions on assembling them. Wow. Service after the sale. Hope he enjoys the Molsons a lot.
There are other satellite suppliers out there. Expensive yes. But it would be nice to see someone like Brian expand on his business. Even if something like the ASC-1 were built here at 1-1/2, twice the price I think it would be well worth it. There are so many mesh dishes around here still on poles from the heyday of C-Band I just cant believe that we cant do it again on US soil.
IF tek goes out with a bang....oh well. IF he simple fades away. Well we always have neosporin and band-aids.
el bandido
TNAP-Images
Jeff S. of Manhattan says GoodBye to legalfreetoair website:
Jeff Schumann's Manhattan is a perfect example of how not to do something. It seems this guy has pissed off most of his dealers, and a lot of Manhattan customers. It is much better to set lower expectations for a product, then either meet or exceed those expectations. And if something about the product is not right or cannot be fixed, then say so instead of making excuses or blaming someone else. Jeff S. has failed to understand these simple things. We will see...
In some ways, this feels a lot like how it was when I first got into FTA/DVB-S. I bought a Fortec Star from Sadoun, but had to buy my first Dreambox from a guy with a shop in Manitoba, if I remember correctly.
I figured out later that I wasn't in his core target customer set, when the RCMP raided him. I think he was selling boxes to Canadians who wanted U.S. TV, of which it seemed there were millions.
I get it, the Canadians had to live under some really annoying regulatory regimes. If you don't know what "simsubbing" is, I think even Wikipedia has a page on it. Check it out.
What was funny was that if you wanted good picture quality, there was one Canadian service using DigiCipher-II over Ku-band that looked almost as good as the C-band feeds.
So for something like 5 years, I subscribed to StarChoice from the "lower provinces." I really enjoyed it too. The logistics to give them money were a challenge, but the service was pretty good.
I used to have to buy my receivers from Canada, the UK, or Europe, and it looks like we're heading there again.
I figured out later that I wasn't in his core target customer set, when the RCMP raided him. I think he was selling boxes to Canadians who wanted U.S. TV, of which it seemed there were millions.
I get it, the Canadians had to live under some really annoying regulatory regimes. If you don't know what "simsubbing" is, I think even Wikipedia has a page on it. Check it out.
What was funny was that if you wanted good picture quality, there was one Canadian service using DigiCipher-II over Ku-band that looked almost as good as the C-band feeds.
So for something like 5 years, I subscribed to StarChoice from the "lower provinces." I really enjoyed it too. The logistics to give them money were a challenge, but the service was pretty good.
I used to have to buy my receivers from Canada, the UK, or Europe, and it looks like we're heading there again.
el bandido
TNAP-Images
Here is the "Current" LinkBox Dealer List. Reminbs me of looking at tombstones in a cemetery.
http://www.linkboxusa.com/dealerlist.htm
Updated Sep 15, 2014
California/Arizona/Nevada
USA Digital (Sun Valley) : 800-801-1145 / www.usadigitalhd.com / www.dishdirectone.com
Directdvb.com (Monterey Park) : 323-265-2007 / www.directdvb.com
Satpros (Alhambra) : 626-599-2222 / www.mysatpros.com
Home Entertainment Network : 323-377-5768 / www.linkbox8000.com
FTA Mex (Nogales) : 520-225-0683 / www.ftamex.com
freetoairsatellite4less (Las Vegas) : 702-354-3096 / www.freetoairsatellite4less.com
Best Buy Satellite (Rancho Cucamonga) : 909-730-1046 / www.bestbuysat.com www.fta4us.com
Stanton Life (Los Angeles) : 213-245-8900 / kishin3387@gmail.com
Florida
Security & Sat Supplier : 305-477-9533 / www.allthingsdigital.net
Hi-Definition (Miami) : 305-468-4000 / www.dsisystemsinc.com
Stellar Group (Miami) : 305-715-7246 / robin@stellar305.com
Protek Sec&Sat (Apopka) : 407-260-8100 / proteksesat@hotmail.com
Kansas / Michigan
Eman Tech (Wichita) : 866-944-3626 / www.emantechnology.com
TV Toyz (Troy) : 586-693-0235 / www.tvtoyz.com
Hypermegasat.com. Inc (Davison) : 810-744-1488 / www.hypermegasat.com
Minnesota / Missouri
Skyvision Inc (Fergus Fall) : 1-800-500-9275 / www.skyvision.com
Rick Satellite (Blue Springs) : 816-228-1801 / www.rickssatelliteusa.com
New York / Ohio
Pansatpro (New York) : 866-726-7287 / www.pansatpro.com
Impakt Products & Distributing : 800-864-4046 / www.impaktproducts.com
Puerto Rico
Aguada Satellite (Aguada) : 787-362-2065 / www.directtohome.net
Texas
RC Satellite (Arlington) : 817-980-9112
IBS International (Houston) : 281-443-9543 / www.pansatusa.net
Radio Active (Dallas) : 972-484-1999 / radioactiveaudio2000@yahoo.com
Pepe Fashion (El Paso) : 915-772-9696 / texan2@sbcglobal.net
Washington
GO Satellite.com (Seattle) : 866-942-7186 / www.gosatellite.com
Wisconsin
Global Comm. (Plain) : 608-546-2523 / globalcm@mhtc.net
Canada
GTA Electronics (Mississauga) : 866-602-7599 / www.worldwidesatellites.com
Research Electronics(Waterloo) : 519-888-0188(Canada) 714-929-1016(USA) / www.researchelectronic.com
Ku Sat (Montreal) : 514-448-8342 1-866-305-1716 / www.Kusat.com
Mexico
FTA Mex (Sonora) : 011-52-66-22-20-6561 / ventas@ftamex.com
http://www.linkboxusa.com/dealerlist.htm
Updated Sep 15, 2014
California/Arizona/Nevada
USA Digital (Sun Valley) : 800-801-1145 / www.usadigitalhd.com / www.dishdirectone.com
Directdvb.com (Monterey Park) : 323-265-2007 / www.directdvb.com
Satpros (Alhambra) : 626-599-2222 / www.mysatpros.com
Home Entertainment Network : 323-377-5768 / www.linkbox8000.com
FTA Mex (Nogales) : 520-225-0683 / www.ftamex.com
freetoairsatellite4less (Las Vegas) : 702-354-3096 / www.freetoairsatellite4less.com
Best Buy Satellite (Rancho Cucamonga) : 909-730-1046 / www.bestbuysat.com www.fta4us.com
Stanton Life (Los Angeles) : 213-245-8900 / kishin3387@gmail.com
Florida
Security & Sat Supplier : 305-477-9533 / www.allthingsdigital.net
Hi-Definition (Miami) : 305-468-4000 / www.dsisystemsinc.com
Stellar Group (Miami) : 305-715-7246 / robin@stellar305.com
Protek Sec&Sat (Apopka) : 407-260-8100 / proteksesat@hotmail.com
Kansas / Michigan
Eman Tech (Wichita) : 866-944-3626 / www.emantechnology.com
TV Toyz (Troy) : 586-693-0235 / www.tvtoyz.com
Hypermegasat.com. Inc (Davison) : 810-744-1488 / www.hypermegasat.com
Minnesota / Missouri
Skyvision Inc (Fergus Fall) : 1-800-500-9275 / www.skyvision.com
Rick Satellite (Blue Springs) : 816-228-1801 / www.rickssatelliteusa.com
New York / Ohio
Pansatpro (New York) : 866-726-7287 / www.pansatpro.com
Impakt Products & Distributing : 800-864-4046 / www.impaktproducts.com
Puerto Rico
Aguada Satellite (Aguada) : 787-362-2065 / www.directtohome.net
Texas
RC Satellite (Arlington) : 817-980-9112
IBS International (Houston) : 281-443-9543 / www.pansatusa.net
Radio Active (Dallas) : 972-484-1999 / radioactiveaudio2000@yahoo.com
Pepe Fashion (El Paso) : 915-772-9696 / texan2@sbcglobal.net
Washington
GO Satellite.com (Seattle) : 866-942-7186 / www.gosatellite.com
Wisconsin
Global Comm. (Plain) : 608-546-2523 / globalcm@mhtc.net
Canada
GTA Electronics (Mississauga) : 866-602-7599 / www.worldwidesatellites.com
Research Electronics(Waterloo) : 519-888-0188(Canada) 714-929-1016(USA) / www.researchelectronic.com
Ku Sat (Montreal) : 514-448-8342 1-866-305-1716 / www.Kusat.com
Mexico
FTA Mex (Sonora) : 011-52-66-22-20-6561 / ventas@ftamex.com