Did your family have cable descrambler back in the 90s?

Did your family have cable descrambler back in the 90s?

Attached: Free cable.jpg (400x193, 13.11K)

my friend did but it didn't work, that didn't stop us from trying to make out the bouncing static nipples on the Spice channel

I did, used to sneak out of my room at night and watch softcore porn.

Based anons

no. what does it do?

yeah, I watched UFC 1 on it

releases nerve gas into the room

My dad did something to get us free cable. Went up to the cable line going into our house, did something, then we had free cable.

technically I have no idea
but it gave you every channel on cable, like HBO and Cinemax or PPV shit like WrestleMania

I only had public access as a kid

Nice try, HBO!

Friend did, we watched the playboy channel

>Did your family have cable descrambler back in the 90s?
No. But in the 80s when my family got cable tv, the installer hooked us up and gave us HBO for free.

Around 1998 I made one of those 'descrambers' from the plans you could order from the back of Popular Science/Mechanics.
It was for very old cable systems though (think it was considered a 'positive trap' filter or some shit), and at the time the only channel it worked on for me was 'Encore' movie channel. Every other premium and PPV channel used the typical scrambling you think of from the 90s. You had to adjust this variable capacitor with a plastic screwdriver to unscramble it, and that capacitor was a pain in the ass to find had to special order it. Everything else was from Radio Shack.
So I ended up getting a universal Panasonic cable box on eBay in 1999 with a money order (I was 13 and eBay didn't care how old you were back then, still have the same account)
Then I called a bunch of companies from the back of Popular Science and found the company with the best price who would install a descrambling chip it if I sent it in. Ended up spending like $80 or something for everything. So I had every channel for only like 2 years before everything switched to digital and the box was useless locally.
I gave it to some family down south and they were able to get a few years of use out of it before their cable provider also went digital.

>no. what does it do?
Gives you all the channels including PPV for free.

But the cable companies got wise to them and could track the signal with their trucks.

No, we had some hacked "black card" for our DirectTV setup that unlocked all channels.

>But the cable companies got wise to them and could track the signal with their trucks.
imagine believing the cable companies scare tactic bullshit
mostly the people getting caught were retards using things called 'bullet blockers' where it prevented a signal being sent to the cable company when you ordered a PPV, not people who had a descrambler.

>climb a power line
>???
>free cable

My uncle had the same black card for his Dish box.

unironically how it worked

They used to put filters on the lines in boxes, sometimes outside or if it's an apartment building often it's in the hallway somewhere.
Figure out line is yours and take that filter off and you now have cable.
My friends had free cable for like 3 years after some cokehead dude we knew broke into the apartment building's box and took the filters off. Cable guy knocked on the door as cable was on TV, asked if we messed with the box, friend said he didn't know what he was talking about he doesn't have cable lol. Then there was no more free cable. Nobody got in trouble though.