Owen Hart's Fall Heard At WWF Over the Edge 1999 - C-Band Satellite Feed
- 10 years ago
I recorded the entire PPV of Over the Edge in 1999 (as I did every other WWF PPV at the time) in its entirety.
I used what was called back then (and is now obsolete) a "C-Band". It used a Microwave Receiver to redirect satellite transmissions into various receivers of people across the country. Depending on the area (I was lucky enough to live in New York City at the time), you could catch up to 350+ satellite feeds, each on its own unique channel (noted in Megahertz or Mhz), at any given point in the contiguous United States. The receivers costed many thousands of dollars to own, so not many people owned them.
It was at 7:53pm Eastern Time when I started recording on May 23, 1999. I caught 7 minutes of this "This concludes prefeed: Standby for show" before the show started at 8pm. What YOU'RE seeing is a short portion of that screen, and then cutting to the moments leading up to the tragedy.
The rest is self-explanatory. The sound of the turnbuckle being impacted upon, followed by Jim Ross' and Jerry Lawler's disbelief. Shortly thereafter, the satellite company that ran the raw feed through to the Atlantic coast's cable companies (Located in New York) frantically began jamming the video signal and cautiously lowering the audio. Technicians on scene likely had no idea what was happening, as they were seeing exactly what the video depicted.
They eventually cut the signal and sent up colored bars with the telephone number to their satellite company, probably as a "Hey, we're not too sure what's happening, Mr. McMahon, so we're cutting your feed as a precaution. Please give us a call and we'll sort it out" thing. Service was restored after the Jeff Jarrett match.
Were satellites obtaining live footage from cameras inside the ring at the time of the accident? If so, was the feed accessible through a C-Band? If so, do more people own actual video footage of Owen's fall than we've been led to believe?
The possibility is real.
I used what was called back then (and is now obsolete) a "C-Band". It used a Microwave Receiver to redirect satellite transmissions into various receivers of people across the country. Depending on the area (I was lucky enough to live in New York City at the time), you could catch up to 350+ satellite feeds, each on its own unique channel (noted in Megahertz or Mhz), at any given point in the contiguous United States. The receivers costed many thousands of dollars to own, so not many people owned them.
It was at 7:53pm Eastern Time when I started recording on May 23, 1999. I caught 7 minutes of this "This concludes prefeed: Standby for show" before the show started at 8pm. What YOU'RE seeing is a short portion of that screen, and then cutting to the moments leading up to the tragedy.
The rest is self-explanatory. The sound of the turnbuckle being impacted upon, followed by Jim Ross' and Jerry Lawler's disbelief. Shortly thereafter, the satellite company that ran the raw feed through to the Atlantic coast's cable companies (Located in New York) frantically began jamming the video signal and cautiously lowering the audio. Technicians on scene likely had no idea what was happening, as they were seeing exactly what the video depicted.
They eventually cut the signal and sent up colored bars with the telephone number to their satellite company, probably as a "Hey, we're not too sure what's happening, Mr. McMahon, so we're cutting your feed as a precaution. Please give us a call and we'll sort it out" thing. Service was restored after the Jeff Jarrett match.
Were satellites obtaining live footage from cameras inside the ring at the time of the accident? If so, was the feed accessible through a C-Band? If so, do more people own actual video footage of Owen's fall than we've been led to believe?
The possibility is real.