Midnight In The Desert

[starramus]

Yeah and then did the show Yellow Rain where he urinated on General Instrument descramblers! Ya know he died falling off of his roof while working on antenna. Those were the hey days of C band! Damn the big boys starting with HBO determinedly shut all of that down. It could have been a great free market. Little guys like the Caribbean Super Station starting up, but monopoly closed it all down.

[starramus]

Remember Captain Midnight illuminating HBO's transponder? https://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/29/arts/hbo-piracy-incident-stuns-other-satellite-users.html

[Metron2267]

Yeah and then did the show Yellow Rain where he urinated on General Instrument descramblers! Ya know he died falling off of his roof while working on antenna. Those were the hey days of C band! Damn the big boys starting with HBO determinedly shut all of that down. It could have been a great free market. Little guys like the Caribbean Super Station starting up, but monopoly closed it all down.

Great times, I still recall when American Exxstasy came live and it was unscrambled for a few months. Then the MPEG decoding went in but even so the raw feeds were still viewable in the first iteration, just a bit garbled, video and sound wise...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3kP_3a7u_c


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tRjr6uImXs

[Metron2267]

Remember Captain Midnight illuminating HBO's transponder? https://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/29/arts/hbo-piracy-incident-stuns-other-satellite-users.html

Oh yeah, that was back when HBO was delivered locally by microwave through some odd looking antenna mounted to the house:

https://farm6.static.flickr.com/5540/9148445667_11778a2596_b.jpg

[starramus]

In the beginning everything was free. I installed my system in the early 80s, and not cheap shit. I had Drake equipment, and a spun aluminum dish. I was a broadcast engineer at the time, and did all of the work myself. Wow it was the new frontier!

My dish still stands at my ex-house that my ex-wife received in the divorce settlement. I wonder if the receiver still works.

[Metron2267]

In the beginning everything was free. I installed my system in the early 80s, and not cheap shit. I had Drake equipment, and a spun aluminum dish. I was a broadcast engineer at the time, and did all of the work myself. Wow it was the new frontier!

My setup was a Houston Tracker, DX receiver, and some really heavy ass fiberglass dish with a worm gear drive that would in time fail by grinding the teeth off the half moon-shaped drive gear.

Needless to say lacking your chops I had mine installed by some pleasantly seedy characters who worked down at the satellite store.

When the receivers got more advanced they sold black market credit card descramblers that would slide into the receiver.

New frontier it was!

[Étouffée]

No finer oddball theater than Dr. Scott's many, many hats!

Still recall him glowering at the camera and barking out "get up, call in now" and then withholding his "teaching" until those lines lit up.

And all the "King's House"/suckers he played to.

And the thoroughbred horses, Tennessee Walkers, iirc?

But yeah his pyramid stuff was top flight Hoaxie grade infotainment...

The incomparable Dr. Gene Scott.   In his heyday in the 1980s, he was on Bay Area UHF tv 24/7 (it seemed).  The man had a PhD in Philosophies of Education from Stanford, along with his Pentecostal Ministry credentials.  Watching him at 2 am, chomping on his big cigar and furiously scribbling with a fat magic marker on the white board, Old Testament arcana and wild pyramid and astronomical conjecture, was pure insane magic.   I came to love hearing the Statesmen Gospel Quartet singing “I Wanna Know”, for the hundredth time that day, while Gene bellowed his command to the viewers to “Pick up the phone!”.

“God’s Angry Man” is Werner Herzog’s fantastic documentary on Gene Scott, and it’s on You Tube.  Check it out. 
https://youtu.be/mquN3ejAp1A 

[Metron2267]

And he got hold of that old hotel in downtown LA and turned it into his "church":

http://www.ladowntownnews.com/news/downtown-rejoices-as-ace-hotel-opens/article_ec2dc604-7a4d-11e3-865d-001a4bcf887a.html

https://theatre.acehotel.com/about/history/

United Artists studio and theater was the vision of silent movie starlet Mary Pickford, who â€" together with Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin and DW Griffith â€" dreamt of forming an independent production house outside of the established Hollywood studio system. With the help of architect C. Howard Crane and Los Angeles architectural firm Walker & Eisen, the group erected the United Artists Theater and its adjacent tower â€" the tallest building in all of Los Angeles upon its completion.

Though it changed hands frequently over the following decades, the United Artists Theater stayed active as an arts venue until 1989, including a long stint as a Spanish-language movie house, and later as the broadcast site for televangelist Dr. Gene Scott. Following a meticulous restoration of the then-vacant movie palace, Ace cut the ribbon on The Theatre at Ace Hotel in February of 2014 â€" and we've been doing our best to honor the maverick spirit of its founders ever since.

[SredniVashtar]

The incomparable Dr. Gene Scott.   In his heyday in the 1980s, he was on Bay Area UHF tv 24/7 (it seemed).  The man had a PhD in Philosophies of Education from Stanford, along with his Pentecostal Ministry credentials.  Watching him at 2 am, chomping on his big cigar and furiously scribbling with a fat magic marker on the white board, Old Testament arcana and wild pyramid and astronomical conjecture, was pure insane magic.   I came to love hearing the Statesmen Gospel Quartet singing “I Wanna Know”, for the hundredth time that day, while Gene bellowed his command to the viewers to “Pick up the phone!”.

“God’s Angry Man” is Werner Herzog’s fantastic documentary on Gene Scott, and it’s on You Tube.  Check it out.  https://youtu.be/mquN3ejAp1A

Wow, thanks for the link. I'd never heard of this before. He sounds like the Klaus Kinski of televangelists.

[starramus]

The incomparable Dr. Gene Scott.   In his heyday in the 1980s, he was on Bay Area UHF tv 24/7 (it seemed).  The man had a PhD in Philosophies of Education from Stanford, along with his Pentecostal Ministry credentials.  Watching him at 2 am, chomping on his big cigar and furiously scribbling with a fat magic marker on the white board, Old Testament arcana and wild pyramid and astronomical conjecture, was pure insane magic.   I came to love hearing the Statesmen Gospel Quartet singing "I Wanna Know", for the hundredth time that day, while Gene bellowed his command to the viewers to "Pick up the phone!".

"God's Angry Man" is Werner Herzog's fantastic documentary on Gene Scott, and it's on You Tube.  Check it out. 
https://youtu.be/mquN3ejAp1A

I Wanna Know is stored in my favorites on youtube. I've seen the Herzog film.

[starramus]

My setup was a Houston Tracker, DX receiver, and some really heavy ass fiberglass dish with a worm gear drive that would in time fail by grinding the teeth off the half moon-shaped drive gear.

Needless to say lacking your chops I had mine installed by some pleasantly seedy characters who worked down at the satellite store.

When the receivers got more advanced they sold black market credit card descramblers that would slide into the receiver.

New frontier it was!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd5q1Ioo588

[Metron2267]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_Open_Door

The Church of the Open Door was conceived by R. A. Torrey who had come to Los Angeles to start a Bible institute (now known as Biola University) similar to Moody Bible Institute. The church was to be strictly non-denominational, though Evangelical. Its purpose was to reach the lost of Los Angeles, which was reflected in the name based on two passages of Scripture: John 10:9 and Revelation 3:8. Other pastors have included Louis T. Talbot (1932â€"1948) and J. Vernon McGee (1949â€"1970). The current Pastor is Ed Underwood.

For 70 years the church was located in downtown Los Angeles on Hope Street. It relocated to Glendora, California in 1985.

The original church building was located in downtown Los Angeles and was demolished in the late 1980s. Despite efforts led by the late William Eugene Scott to prevent the building from being sold to developers and to have the building saved as a historic landmark, the building could not be saved because it was so damaged in the 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake that it was declared unsafe and the cost of repairs deemed prohibitive. One of the two historic "Jesus Saves" signs from the original building can now be seen atop the Ace Hotel Los Angeles. It was relocated there by the late William Eugene Scott who took it with him when his church (Los Angeles University Cathedral) relocated following the earthquake.

[Metron2267]

And don't forget Tuxedo:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6_ya_ljBzQ

[Juan]

Those were the days, indeed. During the 1988 World Series, the Kirk Gibson homer one, at my former NBC affiliate station, the night master control operator - a woman - loved to watch porn on the C-band dish while broadcasting what came from the network on Ku band. One night, during the game, she punched up the wrong band on air and broadcast hard core porn for about three minutes.

[Walks_At_Night]

Those were the days, indeed. During the 1988 World Series, the Kirk Gibson homer one, at my former NBC affiliate station, the night master control operator - a woman - loved to watch porn on the C-band dish while broadcasting what came from the network on Ku band. One night, during the game, she punched up the wrong band on air and broadcast hard core porn for about three minutes.

[Metron2267]

LOL!

Gotta love those "mistakes"...

I still recall watching the backhaul news feeds from the WACO siege. No way the public ever got anything more than a sanitized and heavily edited version on the network news.

Really wish I'd been recording them on my VHS.

[chefist]

And now, a song for "MV"...


https://youtu.be/5uQty7Z4pBw

[albrecht]

And now a few words from the Holy Mother of Atheism!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGCEeln0OBQ

Quite a sordid life, and disappearance/murders, the investigations etc into the latter was top news here for quite some time and there were allegations that the local PD was not motivated to investigate, which was somewhat understandable considering her lawsuits and contentious life-style.

[Sumthins Goin On]

Satcom F4 Transponder 24 Those were the days

[Bluejay]

And now, a song for "MV"...


https://youtu.be/5uQty7Z4pBw

[Étouffée]

Wow, thanks for the link. I'd never heard of this before. He sounds like the Klaus Kinski of televangelists.

Glad to spread the word about this early documentary work by Herzog.  He sure had/has an eye for intriguing eccentrics; he struck gold with Dr. Gene. 

You made a canny observation there, about the resemblance between Gene Scott and Klaus Kinski.

[chefist]

[Étouffée]

I Wanna Know is stored in my favorites on youtube. I've seen the Herzog film.

Is it from Gene’s broadcasts?  I couldn’t find the full-length version last time  I looked.  May I have the link?  Thanks!

[21st Century Man]

The incomparable Dr. Gene Scott.   In his heyday in the 1980s, he was on Bay Area UHF tv 24/7 (it seemed).  The man had a PhD in Philosophies of Education from Stanford, along with his Pentecostal Ministry credentials.  Watching him at 2 am, chomping on his big cigar and furiously scribbling with a fat magic marker on the white board, Old Testament arcana and wild pyramid and astronomical conjecture, was pure insane magic.   I came to love hearing the Statesmen Gospel Quartet singing “I Wanna Know”, for the hundredth time that day, while Gene bellowed his command to the viewers to “Pick up the phone!”.

“God’s Angry Man” is Werner Herzog’s fantastic documentary on Gene Scott, and it’s on You Tube.  Check it out. 
https://youtu.be/mquN3ejAp1A

Oh man.  We loved watching Gene Scott whenever we visited my grandmothers in SoCal.  That guy was a trip.  He had an intellectual side that was refreshing for a Pentecostal preacher.  He'd get some good guests on his show like Merle Haggard.  I never knew Werner Herzog made a documentary on Scott.  That I have to watch. 

[PB the Deplorable]

Someone should call and ask about the headstone.  If she made up the story about her being the one to design it, that may be the most bizarre part of this whole mess

[Sean92008]

Someone should call and ask about the headstone.  If she made up the story about her being the one to design it, that may be the most bizarre part of this whole mess

Maybe Karen knows.  Nah, Karen definitely knows.

[MaxPower]

My setup was a Houston Tracker, DX receiver, and some really heavy ass fiberglass dish with a worm gear drive that would in time fail by grinding the teeth off the half moon-shaped drive gear.

Needless to say lacking your chops I had mine installed by some pleasantly seedy characters who worked down at the satellite store.

When the receivers got more advanced they sold black market credit card descramblers that would slide into the receiver.

New frontier it was!

Wow, does this bring back memories! My first dish was a 10' fiberglass/wood/aluminum one built from scratch (bought the mount for it). Hooked it up to a Dexcel receiver, Chaparell feedhorn, and 120 degree LNC. After putting it up and searching for the first satellite, it was a thrill finally finding an ESPN tennis match and after fine tuning it, no sparklies and a great picture. It was especially thrilling because, building one from scratch, you didn't know how well it would work, with the picture quality depending on how accurate the parabolic curve was with the dish.

I was brought up on Bob Cooper's Satellite Digest and also remember Shaun Kenny and also Keith Lamonica who pioneered satellite TV issues with his FM America broadcasts. Keith Lamonica had a similar broadcast style to Art and he actually testified before Congress when they had early hearings on satellite TV industry issues.

Then there were the descrambling issues and the Videocipher days. You could unscramble the video fairly easily but the scrambled audio was never cracked since it was based on the DES algorithm which remained secure. You had to "clone" the descramblers and that posed other risks.

Years later, I graduated to a Paraclipse 12' dish antenna built from a kit (those who assembled those kits remember the agony of installing all of the clips holding the mesh panels to the frame).

Those were fun times!

[SredniVashtar]

Someone should call and ask about the headstone.  If she made up the story about her being the one to design it, that may be the most bizarre part of this whole mess

It always sounded like the sort of useless busy-work that you'd give to someone not very bright to keep them out of the way. Like handing a retarded child a colouring book.

[Pizzapunch]

People on Heather's fb page are already complaining about the 300mb  archive show files. She's replying with she refuses to put anything else out because it would compromise audio quality....

[SpookyTim]

People on Heather's fb page are already complaining about the 300mb  archive show files. She's replying with she refuses to put anything else out because it would compromise audio quality....

Literally NOBODY puts out files that huge. It's completely unnecessary. And most of her listeners are probably using iPod Nanos from 2007 they bought at the flea market, so they can only have 2 or 3 episodes at a time if they still want to to have their Nickelback and Daughtry songs on there.

Hi Paul.