satellite television

[wispa lover]

I have some good memories of satellite tv, better known as Sky. We first had Sky either 1990/91, can't quite remember. What I do recall so far are:

Sky One: I used to tape The Simpsons every Sunday night at 6.30

TCC (The Children's Channel): One channel that I miss so much, one show I can remember was Head to Head, it had two opponents battling it out with popular video games.

I used to watch Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network regularly.

And of course, MTV. My mother taped most of the music videos on there, we still have the tapes somewhere.

Anyone had Sky more than 10 years ago? Just asking.

[Palazzo]

Re: satellite television

I've never had Sky myself but a lot of my friends during the early 90's did. I can't remember what the exact channels a lot of these shows were on but here are my memories anyway:

Sky Sports: My friends and I were always massive wrestling fans so getting to watch it on the Sky Sports channels was always a real treat for me. Sometimes my friends would record all the big events and bring them into school for me, I remember always watching them as soon as I got home.

The Children's Channel: My only memories of this are off a video tape a mate let me borrow many years ago which he said had the first Star Wars movie on. I sat down ready in anticipation of the battle between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader but instead found out that the tape had hours of children's channel cartoons on it.

Pee Wee's Playhouse: I can remember watching this on a Sunday morning at my mate's house, we were slightly too old to be watching it but I think we were just mesmerised by just how bizaare this show was.

Power Rangers: Back in the early 90's this show was the most important thing to us as kids, nothing else mattered! I began watching it on ITV but my mates got to see all the episodes early on one of the Sky channels. I remember going into school one morning and a few of my mates were talking about the latest episode which they had just watched.

Nickelodeon: This had some fantastic shows on it, my cousin introduced me to Pete and Pete and Are You Afraid of The Dark?. One of my best mates always watched Keenan and Kel and his sister always watched Clarissa Explains It All, and who can forget Rugrats?

I'll probably remember a few more things but those should do for now!

[wispa lover]

Re: satellite television

I used to like power rangers, just the mighty morphin series.
As for Nickelodeon, I loved the nicktoons, especially Rugrats.
Pee-Wee's Playhouse was odd but cool. My sis watched Clarissa a lot, but my mum hated it. LOL

Palazzo, sorry about the Star Wars dilemma. LOL
Hope your friend kept the videotape.

[frame]

Re: satellite television

i had cable very early 90s then sat about 92, there was some great stuff on, finished a royal mail shift about 3 am and got home in time to see stray cats live on rtl channel in a programme i think called rock on the rhine, also seen some strange stuff on various channels when i re scanned it

[Pensky]

Re: satellite television

Oh yes, happy memories of my Amstrad 16 channel satellite receiver (SRX 200) and a huge solid white satellite dish clamped to the house.

I distinctly remember the gameshow Tutti Frutti on the German channel RTL in the early 1990s. Amusing post-pub entertainment as it didn’t matter if you didn’t speak German, it was mostly visual entertainment.

I also had a FilmNet decoder to unscramble reasonably new movies that were broadcast from Holland, some of which, as I recall, would be rather racy.

[wispa lover]

Re: satellite television

Talking of foreign channels, on one of my mother's MTV tapes, there's a music programme called 'Mini Playback Show', it was on RTL4. It featured young people dressed up as popstars and miming along to their songs.

[silverbirch]

Re: satellite television

quote

And of course, MTV. My mother taped most of the music videos on there, we still have the tapes somewhere.

keep hold of those tapes wispa
they could become collectors pieces !

[wcwnitro]

Re: satellite television

I remember getting SKY installed on Dec 23 1991, was so excited. We had a state of the art ( for the time ) Fergusson SRD4 videocrypt decoder.

It was great, as well as all the channels listed by the other posters you also had Screensport (owned by W H Smiths), which later merged with Eurosport which in-turn was originally part owned by SKY before the BSB merger. My mother loved Lifestyle also owned by WH Smiths, the womens channel showing loads of US soaps, detective shows and teleshopping. The novelty of watching "Amazing Discoveries with Mike Levy" never wore off. Lifestyle shared space on Astra 1A transponder 5 with the Childrens Channel ( before it changed it's name to TCC ) then after 11pm it turned in to satellite jukebox.

I got so excited when SKY Multi Channels launched.

Sky One
Sky News
MTV
VH-1
UK Gold
UK Living
Bravo*
CMT*
Discovery*
TLC*
Nickelodeon*
Nick at Nite*
TCC*
The Family Channel*

The channels with * all time shared but, it was great. So excited. The choice doubled over night.

It just got better every year with more channel launches although did get a bit crazy in the later days when Tp47 had 8 channels on it!!!

CCE 4am-7am
Sky Soap Mon-Fri 7am-11am
Sky Travel Mon-Fri 11am-4pm
The History Channel Mon-Fri 4pm-7pm
Sci-Fi Channel Mon-Wed 7pm-10pm
Sky Sports Gold Mon-Wed 10pm-1am
Sci-Fi Channel Every night 1am-4am

Thankfully they eventually moved Sky Soap, History and Sci-Fi to Tp24 and Sky Travel to Tp44 as a weekdays only service with Sky Movies Gold.

[wcwnitro]

Re: satellite television

Does anyone else remember the Global ADX channel expander, that you could buy from SKY for £9.99 to allow you to get the extra Astra 1D channels

[silverbirch]

Re: satellite television

did anyone buy a squarial ?

[Flash Gordon]

Re: satellite television

No, but I bought a squirrel and it ate my nuts

[mjcmjc]

Re: satellite television

Sky One had a budget talent show with Kieth Chegwin. It was not rehearsed and there were always hilarious moments because some of the acts were so terrible

If you open this page it may bring back memories
(about half way down)

TV Talent Shows « Jerrychicken - The Diary

[Jingbang]

Re: satellite television

I remember the lifestyle satellite jukebox, it usually started at 10pm and regulary showed good morning britain by aztec camera and im doing fine now by the pasadenas it also had a few foreign music videos with topless women dancing one i can remember is we cheer you up by Barbarella it was one of those it was sooo bad it was hilarious.

[wispa lover]

Re: satellite television

I found the Sky channel expander the other day in one of the drawers in our storage room, we used it for a couple of years before we switched to Sky Digital. One channel we got thanks to the expander was The Computer Channel, it lasted only one year. Anyone remember on rainy days the satellite signal was so bad you could see raindrop shapes all over the screen?

[memoman]

Re: satellite television

Oh yes, happy memories of my Amstrad 16 channel satellite receiver (SRX 200) and a huge solid white satellite dish clamped to the house.

I distinctly remember the gameshow Tutti Frutti on the German channel RTL in the early 1990s. Amusing post-pub entertainment as it didn’t matter if you didn’t speak German, it was mostly visual entertainment.

I also had a FilmNet decoder to unscramble reasonably new movies that were broadcast from Holland, some of which, as I recall, would be rather racy.

I remember Tutti Fruitti,i remember the adult channels for sometime only had the audio encrypted .There was a daily computer game show too.