photos illustrations: Jeff Brandsted
People feel the need to watch cable tv, but not all have the funds to support the habit. These people turn to technologies such as descramblers and digital filters to illegally receive cable.
By Cal Creek, Jayplay writer
Between paying for food, beer, clothes, gas, electricity, liquor and a phone bill the average 20-something has little money for entertainment, especially the $38.20 for cable television. This problem leads some people to find a way to cut cable budgets with the help of a little black box.
When Billy Steffens was in high school in Andover he loved watching television. The Lawrence resident wanted to see The Sopranos and wrestling pay-per-views.
Steffens ordered a top-of-the-line model Cleartron descrambler box from a Web site for $160. The descrambler allowed him access to channels such as HBO and pay-per-view events. Normally, customers have to pay for these channels or they will appear as a weird swirly effect of greens and blues on the screen. Steffens used his parents' basic cable to access these channels before descrambling them.
For the next six months Steffens found himself in television heaven, watching whatever he wanted to for free. "I'd say I got about $700 out of it." Steffens says.
Unfortunately for Steffens, in the spring of 2001, Andover went digital. His Cleartron descrambler only descrambled analog channels, it was impotent against digital cable. Since then Steffens has paid for his cable. But, briefly in the fall of 2003, Steffens flirted again with free pay-per-views when he bought cable filters off of eBay.
This type of filter looks like the coaxial head of a normal cable. It hooks in between the cable running from the digital box to the cable outlet in the wall. Its job is to send the ordering information to the pay-per-view company, but not the billing information. However, the filter did send the information to the company. Steffens wasted the $15 he spent on the
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