Glenn,
I have had satellite TV for nearly 40 years! I still have my 12 foot dish in my back yard and the last receiver we used. In the early years nothing was scrambled, there were no commercials in the broadcasts, and you moved the dish from satellite to satellite to tune in various channels. The receivers cost in the $1000.00 range and worked really well. If you liked a certain program you could watch the entire weeks shows when they were sent down to the TV stations. My wife would watch Days of Our Lives soap opera and see the entire weeks programs in one night. During news casts when it was time for a commercial we would see the news casters talking to each other and making comments about the news or other unrelated things - sometimes what they said could never go out on the air - but it was not censored on the satellite feeds. It was great fun.

As time went on, networks began scrambling the shows and eventually we had to pay to see a lot of stuff. But that was a long time ago and things have changed a lot.

In recent years we used Directv and was very pleased with it. Dish network is also a supplier but I have no experience with them. The dishes now are only about 3 feet across and stay tuned to a single satellite. Quality is really good and show selection is enormous. Satellite TV packages range from as little as $30.00 a month and well over $200.00 monthly pending on if you get a lot of movie channels, a basic package, or something in the middle.

Today we are using Verizon Fios because of the internet speed it offers. The general programming for TV is the same as it was with Directv - but we also get some really good landline phone service with the deal.

Those of us who were among the first to have a dish and were able to watch just about everything free, except for the equipment, think it has all gone backwards. Today you pay a premium price to have access to bundles of channels that the suppliers think will sell.

Deane