For those who remember life prevcrs and satellite dishes....

[Calm]

If you didn’t live in Utah or within range of a full broadcast, what do you remember about conference weekends?  Could you get a full session on the radio?

 I just remember watching only the Sunday morning session or maybe it was afternoon being shown as a public service on one of the TV channels. But maybe my parents just weren’t into going in to church to watch movies of conference weeks after it came out, which seems like it would be the only other option, or anything else that require keeping 5 kids quiet and occupied for a couple of hours twice a day for all and three times for two of them (two boys)...though youngest brother hit deacon after VCRs appeared iirc, so really just one.

Satellite dishes allowing watching from chapels...when did that start?  Seems like it was about when I went back to BYU late 70s.  Can’t for the life of me remember how I watched conference while at BYU.

[Calm]

For those who live outside the US, what were your options before available online?  I am assuming at least since 80s, there was the option for most to go to the chapel to watch VCR recordings a week or two or more after conference....but I could be wrong. I can’t remember what we did the April in 96 when we were in Russia. Will have to ask husband if he remembers.  We met in an old convent school. Don’t remember having anything electronic available.  

Remember having a clunky laptop I read Nibley’s volumes off of with the old GospelLibrary program, but don’t think we had internet available yet there. Definitely no video programs besides Russian tv and some videos in a little video unit that had been damaged likely by going through customs so they were hard to hear and looked horrible. 

[Hamba Tuhan]

3 minutes ago, Calm said:

For those who live outside the US, what were your options before available online? 

In the East Indies, we waited a long time to get DVDs sent to us. Then we would watch them in sacrament meeting over several weeks. I suspect this wasn't how it was supposed to go down.

In the West Indies, the Church refused to give us a satellite dish, so a member of the branch presidency who ran an electronics shop just installed an unauthorised one and somehow got it to pick up the signal. The priesthood session ended at 10pm, but it was sweet to us.(Everyone attended, including women and children.)

[JustAnAustralian]

I assume it was a VHS tape that we used to get (as we could then borrow it from the meetinghouse library). At one stage there was a satellite dish, but I don't know if it was ever used to pick up conference re-broadcast transmissions. Maybe they did and recorded it onto VHS and then played that.

These days of course they just download the video file and play that over the projector instead. (or at least they did pre-covid). Hopefully they will eventually go back to that.

[Calm]

6 minutes ago, JustAnAustralian said:

I assume it was a VHS tape that we used to get (as we could then borrow it from the meetinghouse library). At one stage there was a satellite dish, but I don't know if it was ever used to pick up conference re-broadcast transmissions. Maybe they did and recorded it onto VHS and then played that.

These days of course they just download the video file and play that over the projector instead. (or at least they did pre-covid). Hopefully they will eventually go back to that.

Did you watch Saturday’s sessions on Sunday (think you are ahead of the US) and Sunday’s the next week or all at once a week later or something else.

Edited June 8, 2021 by Calm

[JustAnAustralian]

We watch them all a week later, so it's a weekend #2 in April/October for us, rather than weekend #1.

[california boy]

When I was a kid we had a wire broadcast in the chapel (that probably meant a telephone call that could be amplified). There were no visuals so my dad took slides of each of the general authorities beforehand to project on a screen while they talked.  We thought that was so high tech 

[Hamba Tuhan]

1 minute ago, california boy said:

When I was a kid we had a wire broadcast in the chapel (that probably meant a telephone call that could be amplified).

That's how it was in the first ward on my mission. I found it nearly impossible to concentrate. I'm not an aural learner. At all. I love that now I can have the transcripts of the talks on my phone and read them along with having the video playing at the same time.

[Calm]

5 minutes ago, california boy said:

When I was a kid we had a wire broadcast in the chapel (that probably meant a telephone call that could be amplified). There were no visuals so my dad took slides of each of the general authorities beforehand to project on a screen while they talked.  We thought that was so high tech 

Cool. That was a great idea of your dad. 
 

My husband remembers going to the chapel to listen on the radio (Orem, Utah). As soon as they got a TV, he believes they just watched it on KSL. 

I will have to ask my older brother (by 4 years) if he remembers as he might remember what we did when there were only 3 kids instead of 5. 

Edited June 8, 2021 by Calm

[sheilauk]

It's before my time but older members have told me what they remember. (Trying to remember what they've said). At first, I think, they waited for the written talks and read them out in sacrament meetings I believe. With radio broadcasts, they would gather at the stake centre and listen to them live.  There were also records sent out at one time. Then, with VCRs, they would wait for the video tapes and watch them over a "conference" weekend at the stake center, sometimes several weeks later.  We've been getting live satellite broadcasts at the stake centre for at least 12 years, as long as I've been a member.

[jkwilliams]

For some reason, the Sunday morning session was usually broadcast on our local PBS station in Los Angeles when I was a kid in the 70s and early 80s. The rest of the sessions could be heard in the stake center over what they called "sideband radio." My dad always took us to the priesthood session, but other than that, we would just watch the Sunday morning session on TV.

[Duncan]

For here it was a Satellite dish at the chapel and everyone went to those buildings. Prior to that it was, what others said, piped in, you heard it but didn't see anyone. 

[Kenngo1969]

When I was in Cal-i-for-ni-a (late '80s, early '90s) the sessions were broadcast and picked up by the satellite at the Stake Center.  I have to admit, in comparison to being able to watch it at home, in my slippers and jammies where no one will be shocked by what I look like on Saturday mornings , there was something special about the "inconvenience" of "having" to do that. 

And even after I had gotten back to Utah and could watch it in the comfort of my own home (dorm, actually, on regular network television, no less), when we were both attending Dixie College (that's what it was called then: sue me ), I invited my then-girlfriend to go watch a session (or it might even have been two) with me at the Stake Center.  She probably should have said, "Are you crazy?!    Get dressed up to go watch it somewhere when I could do the same thing in my slippers and jammies at home?!!  No way!!"  She said yes anyway.  We had a nice time.

 

[jkwilliams]

1 minute ago, Kenngo1969 said:

When I was in Cal-i-for-ni-a (late '80s, early '90s) the sessions were broadcast and picked up by the satellite at the Stake Center.  I have to admit, in comparison to being able to watch it at home, in my slippers and jammies where no one will be shocked by what I look like on Saturday mornings , there was something special about the "inconvenience" of "having" to do that. 

And even after I had gotten back to Utah and could watch it in the comfort of my own home (dorm, actually, on regular network television, no less), when we were both attending Dixie College (that's what it was called then: sue me ), I invited my then-girlfriend to go watch a session (or it might even have been two) with me at the Stake Center.  She probably should have said, "Are you crazy?!    Get dressed up to go watch it somewhere when I could do the same thing in my slippers and jammies at home?!!  No way!!"  She said yes anyway.  We had a nice time.

 

I remember dressing up and going to the Marriott Center when I was BYU to watch the broadcast. I was living in the dorms and did not have a TV, but it was just a short walk. When I was younger, as I said, we caught the Sunday morning session and the priesthood session. When the conference issue of the Ensign came out, I used to read every talk over and over. Maybe I was a bit of a zealot. 

[Kenngo1969]

I think my friend, Don Bernardo ( @Bernard Gui ), listened to it via a faraway (staticky?) phone line on his mission in South America.  Is that what you did in Bolivia, John ( @jkwilliams)?

 

Edited June 8, 2021 by Kenngo1969

[jkwilliams]

Just now, Kenngo1969 said:

I think my friend, Don Bernardo ( @Bernard Gui ), listened to it via a faraway (staticky?) phone line on his mission in South America.

On my mission we couldn't get it at all, except for VHS tapes that would arrive to each stake and district (and the mission home) about a month after the conference.

[Kenngo1969]

10 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

On my mission we couldn't get it at all, except for VHS tapes that would arrive to each stake and district (and the mission home) about a month after the conference.

I'm sure it's in your book.  I haven't read that far yet.   (And I still want your autograph.  How come you never emailed me? Ken(dot)Gourdin(at)gmail.com. )  I can't remember exactly where Don Bernardo @Bernard Gui served, but I think he said he listened to it over a phone line.  Europe and Bolivia are very different, of course; I don't recall how my brother said they accessed General Conference when he was in Italy in the mid-80s, but I do remember that I thought it was pretty cool when he called the rest of the family from the other side of the world.  I'll have to ask him.

Edited June 8, 2021 by Kenngo1969

[jkwilliams]

Just now, Kenngo1969 said:

I'm sure it's in your book.  I haven't read that far yet.   (And I still want your autograph.  How come you never emailed me? Ken(dot)Gourdin(at)gmail.com. )  I can't remember exactly where Don Bernardo @Bernard Gui served, but I think he said he listened to it over a phone line.

Sorry about that. Life has been hectic. I'll email you today.

[Kenngo1969]

2 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

Sorry about that. Life has been hectic. I'll email you today.

I know how that goes, even though I don't have a family of my own!

[jkwilliams]

Just now, Kenngo1969 said:

I know how that goes, even though I don't have a family of my own!

I've been crazy busy here with my work and my wife's business taking off. 

[Kenngo1969]

8 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

In the East Indies, we waited a long time to get DVDs sent to us. Then we would watch them in sacrament meeting over several weeks. I suspect this wasn't how it was supposed to go down.

In the West Indies, the Church refused to give us a satellite dish, so a member of the branch presidency who ran an electronics shop just installed an unauthorised one and somehow got it to pick up the signal. The priesthood session ended at 10pm, but it was sweet to us.(Everyone attended, including women and children.)

Pirating a signal to watch Conference?!! 🏴‍☠️   "Arrrrrr, Matey!"  I'm sure he'll burn in Hell for that.

Edited June 8, 2021 by Kenngo1969

[Kenngo1969]

5 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

I've been crazy busy here with my work and my wife's business taking off. 

Both of those sound like good reasons to have a hectic life.

[bluebell]

I grew up on northern wyoming and we would watch all the general sessions of conference as they were being broadcast on our local tv channel.  For most of the year it played the temperature, weather, and ads from local businesses but for during conference weekend it played the sessions.  I'm not exactly sure how that worked out.

[jkwilliams]

33 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I grew up on northern wyoming and we would watch all the general sessions of conference as they were being broadcast on our local tv channel.  For most of the year it played the temperature, weather, and ads from local businesses but for during conference weekend it played the sessions.  I'm not exactly sure how that worked out.

I never could figure out how they managed to show conference on a public television station in Los Angeles. Maybe the church donated to them. Dunno.

[Ginger Snaps]

I grew up in N CA and remember watching it at the Stake Center and/or on our local PBS station. When my husband and I lived in MO in the late 90’s/early 00’s we’d go watch it at the church, though it seems like at some point we got a cable package that had BYU TV. Maybe that was after we moved back to CA in 2001 though.