Bootleg Cable Stories

[Admin]

Fam, remember back in the day...like mid 80's when you could not afford cable:D but you had it anyway? Share your funniest Bootleg Cable stories:D

Holla

[djackso]

Pine Bluff, Arkansas 1994. Where i stayed didn't have cable & we wanted to watch the NBA game on TBS. I got a ladder & climbed the pole & turned on the cable. The funny part was after the game i climbed back up the pole & disconnected it.

[Admin]

#1
1984-My first apt.
A wino friend of the wino that lived upstairs knocked on my door one day and asked me if I wasnted Cable. I said Huh? How you gonna hook me up with cable? Dude said watch this...and he climbed his drunk ass up the pole with no ladder. I watched in awe and was a lil skurred for him as he fucked with some wires and then climbed down the pole.

Try it now, he said! So I turned on my TV and was like Whoa! i think I paid him $20 for that and I had cable. About 6 months later, a cable truck pulled up out side my crib and the cable man got out and came to my door and knocked.

I didn't answer and when he left, I had snow on my TV. Shyyt! I thought about getting the wino to hook me back up, but I did not.

#2
1992-Sacramento CA
I lived upstairs in an apt complex. Nigga was barley getting by. My neighbor was cool so we ran a long coaxil cable wire from apt to apt and split the bill each month. I paid him like $10.00.

This must have looked funny to anyone who came up the stirs, but we were kicking it..

Holla

[Tastey]

My free cable days have always been due to the cable companies stupidity.

In 1994 I paid the bill in cash to some guy who came around collecting. He didn't turn in the money so they turned off my cable. I had a receipt so I called in with the receipt number and they called him to find out why he didn't turn in the money (he had quit since he collected it). He came back out and turned everybody in the building on but the company didn't know it.

I called in to find out why I wasn't getting bills and they told me I didn't have any cable. I said "Yes I do" and they said "Hold on." I sat on hold for 20 mins before I hung up.

I had free cable until I moved 3 years later.

Then again in 2002 I had basically the same type of thing over a payment discrepancy. They thought it was off, stopped billing me. This time I had cable and the cable modem for my computer. Had it for about 9 months until I moved.

[mystkev]

I wish the cable company would forget about my ass.

I've never had a cable hook up

Wish I could get one right about now.

[Admin]

Mrs Admin had the same issue before the marriage. She had free cable on her TV. She said that the cable was on when she moved into the apartment, so she never called and they never sent he a bill.


Holla

[OhSoPrecious]

I remember a time when my brother would have an illegal box in the basement and we had the legitimate boxes upstairs in the bedrooms. . we've always paid for Cable!! :cool:

[missbuttabutt]

my mom always had about 5 boxes in the house...but she never paid for more than 2...

did anybody else have a zapper? the little gray remote-looking thing that you held on top of the box when it went on E4? or was my family just EXTRA durty like dat?

[mystkev]

Originally posted by missbuttabutt
did anybody else have a zapper? the little gray remote-looking thing that you held on top of the box when it went on E4? or was my family just EXTRA durty like dat? My mother had one in her room :(

Ain't that a bitch?

I could go in there and watch pay per view on special saturdays :rolleyes:

[Andre98]

After a big thunder and lightning session in 82 or '83 in my first apartment in Hampton, I had gone from Basic plus HBO, to all channels! Showtime, Playboy, too bad I had a 9 inch screen. That ain't so impressive in TV size. Lasted a couple months before the truck showed up...I think some dumbass neighbor called...

Now here in NJ, when the cable was TCI, I sent for a box from Florida, and it gave me the pay per view channels. I was sweating bullets when I had family over to see a Tyson fight in Jan '99. The party was over a few months after that when Cablevision took over, but it was a few years of money saving bliss.

[Melotic]

When I was in the military, we had cable in the Brackets in each room, with a hundred splitters on the roof coming off the Dayroom Cable hookup...

My first apartment in college, whoever lived in the place before me, didn't turn it off... I had free cable for about 3 years, then they caught me on an audit of the system...

[redphoenix2002]

Right now I have a friend who does sub-contracting for the cable company. So, every time they come and turn it off, I call my cable guy who then comes and turn it back on!

[Admin]

Mel, yous crazy with all them splitters.....you mean to tell me that you did not losse any picture quailty?

Personally, I think this is how Radio Shack raised it's stock and have been able to be around for a long time.

Holla;)

[Melotic]

Yeah, the quality was reduced, but it was free... Army nigga have to make due with less sometime...

[seductive_tee]

Please....bootleg cable is still out.....all you have to do is catch one of the guys on the street.

you just won't get shows like HBO, SHO, TMC

[Juicey1]

No bootleg stories from back in the day. Only thing we did was buy the spliters and hooked them up to other tv's without having to buy another box.

Right now we have Dishnetwork and my husband unplugged the cord from the phone jacket, so when we order movies, we are not charged for them. But fo some reason or another, he plugged it in and the movies showed up on our bill. I ordered yesterday, hope it doesn't show up on the bill. I don't think it will:D

[Brightness]

I never bootlegged either. . .if I couldn't afford it then that was that.

However, I've always done the splitter trick instead of having more jacks installed or paying for extra boxes, etc.

[swtjamaica]

...my tv is 'rigged through my folks cable and run into my room...no problems or issues yet!

[Brightness]

That's not true bootleggin', that's being resourceful.

If I weren't so lazy. . .I'd run a line to my bedroom since I've got it in the spare bedroom next to mine but I don't feel like taking the time.

Maybe this winter when I'm home bored and looking for projects to do.

[adaya]

Originally posted by Andre98
After a big thunder and lightning session in 82 or '83 in my first apartment in Hampton, I had gone from Basic plus HBO, to all channels! Showtime, Playboy, too bad I had a 9 inch screen. That ain't so impressive in TV size. Lasted a couple months before the truck showed up...I think some dumbass neighbor called...




something similar happened to us. my mom paid for cable, but refused to get HBO or any of the other movie channels. one day a lightening and thunder storm rolled thru, i saw a ball of lightening right outside the window..... it phucked up the stereo system but knocked the tv back on. we had cinemax and the movie channel for about 4 months before my mom even knew. it stayed that way for a few years until the city switched cable companies.