Does the Satellite Descrabler Still Work Today

When the first television satellite transmission and satellite television dishes were introduced in the early 1980's, the public was astounded by the amount of programming they provided. Unfortunately, early technology of the satellites did not keep millions of people from intercepting the signals, thus getting expanded television service for free. This, of course, disturbed cable programming owners, who weren't getting the revenue for their service, as well as subscribers, who were angry that they were paying for something others weren't. When Congress decided, in 1984, that using satellite transmission was not illegal, Cable companies convinced program suppliers to scramble satellite uplink feeds to prevent non-subscribers from enjoying programs for which they were not paying. Eventually, cable companies realized they could do the same, and in doing so, their offering programming directly to users allowed them to recognize a direct profit. It was at this time that satellite descramblers entered the marketplace.

What had been occurring to this point was that the provider of programs scrambled the signals which were beamed up to a satellite, which in turn beamed the signal to a satellite dish, which went through a cable into the TV owner's receiver. The receiver changed this signal from its radio frequency to audio and video frequency so that a user heard and saw the cable television broadcast. Because those radio frequency signals were scrambled on purpose, folks without satellite dishes received only static. With the introduction of the satellite descrambler, the process included having the decoding software beamed up to the satellite along with the original signal (in order to interpret them correctly) before continuing through the rest of the process. Without a satellite descrambler, pictures would still be scrambled. In some cases, they were even necessary for rural customers who required satellite dishes to receive the major networks such as CBS, NBC and ABC!