Satellite reception starting in May 1991 

£199.99 was a lot of money then, I suppose I was tempted by a large discount from a really high price! I purchased an Amstrad SRD 400 analoge receiver. I do not remember too much about what I did, just that I never subscribed to Sky but played around with the box and dish seeing what was available free.

February 1992 saw me purchasing cheaply various British Satellite Broadcasting systems with squarials and mini dishes. This company was closing, having shown that a few high quality transmissions were no match for Sky's high quantity. I never saw the full quality of the DMac as I did not have a TV with RGB input. When the BSB transmissions ceased I bought some eproms that converted the receivers to D2Mac, changed the squarial's polarity and found the French TDF1 satellite.  This started an interest in satellite radio, I like classical music and alongside one of the four French Tv channels was "Hector" broadcasting 24 hours with no interuptions.

I was still playing with the Amstrad, April 1992 saw the purchase of an RSD 99 channel/tunable audio adapter for it. A couple of universal LNBs and an ADX unit increased the tuning range. 

It was around June 1996 that I obtained a 90cm prime focus dish.  The dish was mounted on a polar mount made from scaffold fittings, a telescopic shock absorber and moved by a Mercedes sunroof motor. A LNB was adapted to suit the shorter focal length of the dish by inserting a piece of 22mm tube into the feedhorn.

June 2002 saw the purchase of a secondhand Pace Sky receiver, its "other channel" feature was nearly useless so in August a Manhattan Skyline 1000 digital receiver was added. Analogue continued to be useful for watching Eurosport cycling.  In addition to the multitude of TV channels I found more classical radio channels. It seems that satellite radio has quite a few "niche" stations to satisfy many tastes.