THROWBACK THURSDAY: When Giant Dishes Roamed the Earth

Back in 2004, satellite TV was real state-of-the-art stuff. DIRECTV had been growing by leaps and bounds year-over-year for a decade. A recent decision in Congress had given them the ability to offer local channels, which was a big piece of the puzzle for many people. But, there was a big concern about satellite reception. In the early days of DIRECTV and DISH, people did their own installations, and stories of bad reception were everywhere. For the most part this was because your average person didn’t know how to align their own dish. That’s why both companies started offering free professional installation.

Still, the DIY market kept growing. Good thing it did, too, because without our DIYers, there would be no SolidSignal.com. Back then, there was no more powerful satellite dish for DIRECTV than the Channel Master Gain Master. This was a monster of a dish compared to the dishes of the day, although at 24″x35″, it’s really about the size of today’s Slimline series dishes. Take a look:

It actually looks like a Slimline a little bit, but it uses three of what we would now call Ku-band LNBs, each one pointed at one of DIRECTV’s three primary satellite locations at the time. The Gain Master made quite a splash when we announced it at AVSForum back in 2003, and it continued to make waves until 2006 when it was discontinued.

What happened?

Why is this behemoth dish no longer with us? It was never popular at a price of over $375 (with no installation of course) and it did not work for DIRECTV’s new satellite locations. That’s an amount of money equal to about $750 today, and keep in mind that’s just for the dish.

Really it was DIRECTV’s move to the 99 and 103 locations that sealed the fate of this dish. While it was 2008 before there was any appreciable content at those locations, satellite enthusiasts began preparing as early as 2005, and they lost interest in the Gain Master as a result. Also, DIRECTV started branding their own dishes exclusively around that time. Since their technology was increasingly proprietary, it became harder and harder for companies like Channel Master to compete.

Unfortunately, Channel Master never made a larger dish for the new satellite locations. On of the reasons: demand for dishes larger than 39″ is limited by the OTARD rules. These rules are imposed by the FCC to force apartment owners to let people use their antennas. DIRECTV did create a dish just for the Alaska and Hawaii markets. That dish is about 48″ and is still sold today. However, the dish specifically works to get reception around the edges of the satellite footprint. For those folks in the Continental US, it really offers no benefit. In the meantime, DIRECTV’s new LNBs are much more sensitive and more more effective, meaning there is much less need for a larger dish.

Check our our product listing for the Gain Master courtesy of archive.org. And yes, our web site has changed a little bit in the meantime. It’s easy to say it looks pretty dated, but keep in mind that design always changes.

About the Author

Stuart Sweet
Stuart Sweet is the editor-in-chief of The Solid Signal Blog and a "master plumber" at Signal Group, LLC. He is the author of over 10,000 articles and longform tutorials including many posted here. Reach him by clicking on "Contact the Editor" at the bottom of this page.