It's amazing, the fact that
the ether's multitudinous
vibratons all around (and through) me carried a
symphony of conversations, conversations in anacronym
foreign tongues (
800MHZIEEE80211SWMI6NUMBERSETC) that requires just the right kinds of
black boxes to decipher. The air fairly creaks under
the weight of
information.
Focus on the 'C-Band' and
'Ku-Band' signals with a big unblinking satellite dish
and a few boxes (satellite recievers, televisions, and
others). If you are so equipped (and, for most people,
those boxes don't come easy; come with a wad of cash
and a stubborn mind), three categories of freely
available, unscrambled signals are yours.
The
so-called 'wild feed' is for the pure television
junkie. Your average sitcom or drama, needing no
special security, is shipped bitwise through public
channels on a weekly basis. Simply find the feed and
you too can enjoy, say, the latest misadventures in
Freudian denial that is Everybody Loves Raymond
- up to a week earlier than your average
mouthbreathing plebe on the street. Not only that, but
you get raw, unalloyed show; no advertisements to
tempt you into a mid-sitcom gluttony run to the
nearest Gap. The only downside is that Survivor and
like shows don't broadcast early over the birds, for
obvious reasons. Your local satellite listing
magazine, such as Orbit, should have wild feed
listings either in print or online.
For the
newshound in your life - a big ugly dish can net him
or her live camera feeds from almost any
photojournalist in the field. The equipment used to
transmit the newsfeed back to the station needs to be
as simple as possible, as any unnecessary process just
adds to the list of things that can and will go wrong. So, tried-and-true C-Band, with no
scrambling or editing, is used. You can watch, without
interruption, the latest car chase on the LA freeways.
You can see local news reporters standing next to what
looks like a small pink Volkswagen because they've
been chosen to cover the winner of Mishimak County's
Largest Hog Competition (and you get to see them curse
up a blue streak as the pig tries to get friendly;
remember, these feeds are uncensored). If you're
lucky, you can watch Wolf Blitzer, in the waning
moments before he goes on-air, quickly pick his nose.
I've been told that coverage of the September 11 World
Trade Center collapse and the ensuing Afghan military
actions have been superb.
In a seperate but related
category, we have the backhaul. The backhaul consists
of live events, again transmitted without any sort of
scrambling or editing. Usually, this consists of
non-major league sports, so this is heaven for the
college football or basketball fan. However, there are
more sides to this; often, you get feeds from
political events and interviews. Since the cameras are
always transmitting, you will often get to see
political candidates in more candid moments, during
makeup breaks, discussing strategies with handlers,
and such. A short film by Brian Springer, entitled
'Spin', documents satellite backhaul feeds from the
1992 Presidential election, where you can see Larry
King and George Bush the Elder chatting amiably about the joys
of Halcion, or maybe Pat Robertson slagging talk-show
callers as 'homos'. These backhauls are not limited to
political candidates and sports feeds, of course;
anything that features the tag 'Live!' next to it can
be seen on a public satellite channel, uncut.
All
that is free of charge, no pay-per-view, no
nothing, provided that you've sunk in the time, money,
and real estate (anywhere from $200 to $3000, and the
satellite dish is at least 6 feet across). For those
who can get it, it's sometimes fascinating television.