Question on my old satellite receivers

[hd54kh]

I have 2 old satellite receivers that have been kicking around for a while and I know I gave the LNB away but might want to ressurect them for use in my shop.

1 - Philips DSX-5500

2 - Hughes GAEBO Director Pack Tru Surround

So is it worth getting a new LNB and appropriate cards?

I do have some early H cards and newer cards but I would imagine they are obsolete. I have heard of H test cards but do not know any details about them.

Just don't know if it is worth it or are they recycle material. My shop is about 80' from the house with no present connectivity and with race season here I would rather be out there working and watching.

TIA

Terry

Terry

 

[rburke65]

How "old" are we talking. When you say old, are we talking old...or just old?

 

[hd54kh]

I betcha they are about 15-18 years old. One was in the house and the other in my wifes shop. We finally got cable and disconnected the satellites. I gave the dishs and LNBs away for a friends cabin.

Down sizing and moving. The new garage has power only so to have TV I was thinking of putting one of these back in service.

Terry

 

[bastage]

Wow.. I stopped installing satellite 11 years ago and both those were old then. Old enough I would toss em even back then.

 

[Markfothebeast]

Since everything is now recieved in a digital broadcast and those may be some form analog, they are probably just boat anchors.

For shop use, I'd go for a FTA "free to air" satellite package. No monthly bills to deal with.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

 

[dogdog]

LOL FTA fill with religious board castings.... not much of anything else. an antenna for local channels maybe ? of just run a cable your self from the house for IPTVs if you have internet.

 

[Retlaw 66]

They would still be usable for a SD quality picture..... no HD.
Will still need to be activated by Direct TV and require a monthly subscription, mable even an activation charge.

A Roku, Chromecast or Fire stick can be used with a wifi internet connection....if you already subscribe to a tv service, you might be able to access some of the pay stations.

 

[rburke65]

I'm not a techie, but I'm betting at 15 to 18 years old, those thing should be set on the shelf with the typewriter, the rotary phone, and the horse buggy.

 

[Mike70]

But the old 10 foot dishes were a lot of fun to use! Especially if you could descramble the channels. Guess I just gave away my age, didn't I?

 

[Richard Cranium]

They are out dated and not of any value, Toss them out.

 

[Bigbandguy]

I have a Roku TV in the workshop that runs off of WiFi from the house (about 50 feet away) It works well. I have a an antenna for local TV and use the WiFi mostly for YouTube videos. It would be nice to have other channels out there but the setup I have now has the advantage of being both simple and cheap.

 

[denis4x4]

I had a 10' fiberglass dish and could get the Johnny Carson live feeds from the west coast around 4 or 5 o'clock on a C-band receiver back in the mid-eighties.

 

[OccupantRJ]

I took an extra bedroom receiver from the house and installed a one wire dish I purchased and installed on my shop to keep from running cable to the building. A little setup and I was running. The H cards are worthless as of about 2000 or so. The next series card was the HU. Read the following.
https://blog.codinghorror.com/revisiting-the-black-sunday-hack/

 

[Cobra5150]

I took an extra bedroom receiver from the house and installed a one wire dish I purchased and installed on my shop to keep from running cable to the building. A little setup and I was running. The H cards are worthless as of about 2000 or so. The next series card was the HU. Read the following.
https://blog.codinghorror.com/revisiting-the-black-sunday-hack/

WOW. I remember the Black Sunday Hack. Pretty neat to see how they executed this with the small downloads that seemed useless. After that I decided it just wasn't fun to steal the programming anymore. Plus it was sad with 2000 channels there wasn't anything worth watching.

 

[Ocho]

+1 for the Roku or Firestick (if you are an Amazon prime member).
If your cable in the house is Spectrum, Roku has an App and you can watch anything on your cable package.

 

[mshell56118]

is shop on same power source as house? what about using a powerline network adapter to put internet out there then use a wifi adapter to run a firestick

 

[James-W]

I'm not a techie, but I'm betting at 15 to 18 years old, those thing should be set on the shelf with the typewriter, the rotary phone, and the horse buggy.

You would need a rather large shelf to put a horse buggy on.

 

[gungatim]

you still have to pay to activate them, and they will give you updated equipment for free, so why waste time with them? the boards inside are high quality for an e-scrap person if you throw them on clist, the cards have gold in them if you have any old cards. otherwise they are scrap...

 

[Gila Monster]

No, not worth it. Probably should throw them away.

I would be shocked if equipment that old is even compatible anymore anyway, but I would just hate the idea of paying so much for satellite television but having to view it on a non high definition receiver or television. And I'm guessing you'll still have to pay some sort of "rental" rate to reactivate those receivers.

For what's it worth, you can buy newer "mini" receivers that have HDMI connection that display High-Def satellite signals that are cheap.

It's been a while since I've had satellite TV, but my understanding back then at least is you can't just throw a new receiver on for "free". If you're going to have to pay something, it might as work like its supposed to and get the right equipment.

 

[bushmechanic]

I have 2 old satellite receivers that have been kicking around for a while and I know I gave the LNB away but might want to ressurect them for use in my shop.

1 - Philips DSX-5500

2 - Hughes GAEBO Director Pack Tru Surround

So is it worth getting a new LNB and appropriate cards?

I do have some early H cards and newer cards but I would imagine they are obsolete. I have heard of H test cards but do not know any details about them.

Just don't know if it is worth it or are they recycle material. My shop is about 80' from the house with no present connectivity and with race season here I would rather be out there working and watching.

TIA

Terry

Terry

List them on Ebay and be done with it. People buy those, but not for much. Not entirely sure why, but a few dollars is better than no dollars.

The difference between what you've got and what people use today are beyond night and day. Unfortunately, those aren't devices that promote any kind of interest or nostalgia; and likely never will, given their relative uselessness without service.

You're probably going to have to get something new with service anyway.

 

[aka rotten]

i'm not a techie, but i'm betting at 15 to 18 years old, those thing should be set on the shelf with the typewriter, the rotary phone, and the horse buggy.

I still have rotary phone in my shop!still works good the 2-3 times i use it a year.Kids that come in to shop have no idea what it is.

 

[gungatim]

I still have rotary phone in my shop!still works good the 2-3 times i use it a year.Kids that come in to shop have no idea what it is.

I have one too, last time I used it (when I still had land service) I tried to use it on a conference call for work...but there was no way to enter the meeting without a touch tone! (so I got out of it, lol)