BSB receivers and Squarial unboxing

An unboxing video of a Philips BSB receiver, a Nokia BSB receiver and a Matsushita BSB Squarial.
BSB (British Satellite Broadcasting) was a short lived five channel satellite TV provider available in the UK for a few months in 1990. The service ran in to financial difficulties and eventually merged in November 1990 with rival Sky TV to form BSkyB. The BSB service required a D-MAC receiver and Squarial (or BSB dish) to receive the channels from the Marco Polo satellite cluster. Transmissions ceased from Marco Polo altogether at the end of 1992 with the satellites sold and moved to other orbits and the remaining D-MAC/Marco Polo viewers moved over to the PAL/Astra 1 transmissions.
In this video I unbox two receivers along with a Squarial. Enjoy!

[@raythomas4812]

I remember I was so excited when I got my Squarial - also had about a foot of snow on it - and no sparklies ...wonderful times indeed

[@The70s80scollection]

The prices of those Philips and Nokia BSB receivers (with a Squarial) dropped from around £300 to £50 within a week after the merger, I bought one and installed it myself, and got about 2 years of use before the digital service was turned off and the MarcoPolo satellites 1 and 2 were sold to a Norwegian broadcaster, as of 2024 those satellites are more than likely in the junk belt. However, after the 1992 BSB digital switch-off, I repositioned the Squarial a few degrees east, picked up a modded BSB receiver, and got a French service that played movies in English and a music video channel (MCM) that was 90% UK and US artists, at the time they played the full version of Guns N' Roses November Rain and played Neil Youngs Harvest Moon video before the song was first played on the radio here in the UK.

[@toffeetone77]

I don’t know why but I find all this type of content really interesting. I feel that Sky and BSB are part of my teenage years and the intrest has never left me😂 this tech is barely used in this day and age but im still interested. As a youngster i was always team SKY!!

[@martinhodgkins9856]

Loved BSB, was gutted when SKY bought them out in December 1990. Really missed the Galaxy channel 😞

[@benjohnson3178]

I think this might be my favourite channel on KZbin. I love this kind of stuff!!! Have you got any old Sky analogue stuff that you could do a video about? I used to love the big dishes.

[@ppate8]

The first white Amstrad dish 1989-90

[@jkmac625]

We had the Philips BSB receiver back in 1990 and the standard squarial. I think the RF output was pre-tuned to Channel 38, presumably to avoid interference with a VHS recorder that were usually on Channel 36. At some point after the BSkyB merger the Philips box broke down and we ended up with a 2nd hand Ferguson branded one. If I remember correctly the Ferguson box was bigger than the Philips. I see your 2nd box is branded ITT Nokia, I remember ITT and of course Nokia, this must have been at some transition period when the company was known by both names. A bit like when Panasonic was known as National Panasonic.

[@steeviebops]

I have a video on my channel of the Nokia box in operation. I don't know if you've tried to run it but just a warning that there's a white RIFA X2 filter capacitor on the PSU that doesn't age well, chances are it would go bang shortly after being powered on. Gives a scary looking light show and leaves a smell that lingers for ages. The box will run without it but I'd recommend replacing it if you had any intention of powering it up.

[@interstat2222]

Hmmm… Nokia with Thomson (who were in the process of buying JVC/Telefunken/Thorn at the time) origins there by the looks of it.

[@rosstilley2308]

Ash! I think I spent most of my teens on sites you ran about ONdigital. Pretty coincidentally, I ended up working in radio too. Cheers for these vids, and keeping the OnHistory site going - spending hours in a nostalgic deep-dive makes me long for the days of the SDN test card and scrambling home after school to run an ‘Add Channels’ on my Pace DTR730. More than happy to add BSB to that list too. I think I may have become the TV equivalent of a Radio Caroline/Pirate radio fan, thinking of those early days of multichannel satellite and digital TV as ‘the golden years’. Incidentally Google Groups has been a great place to find old posts and info, especially as some of it goes back to as early as 1991. Cheers for the flashback! 😝Ross

[@ONhistoryplus]

Thank you for the kind words.

[@anthonyperkins7556]

Good system, excellent technical quality in picture and sound, but only with 5 channels, lasted 9 months before the inevitable dreadful merger with Sky Television PLC to form British Sky Broadcasting PLC. The receivers were meanly equipped to make the most of the excellent picture and sound quality possibilities that D-MAC could give, 1xSCART and 1xRF was not enough, there should've been socket-wise, 2xS-Video and stereo output sockets for high quality Y/C output to a S-VHS / Hi-8 recorder for flawless good quality recordings on S-VHS / Hi-8 videocassette tapes and high quality output to a suitable S-Video equipped stereo TV set and there should have been additional digital coaxial and optical audio outputs fitted so a decent AV amplifier and speakers could be connected to make the most of the digital stereo sound quality that D-MAC had.

[@jamesmitchell8922]

I hate Rupert Murdoch. He murdered British Satellite Broadcasting just as they were getting on its feet. The recession and the inflation rate were bad at the time and wasn't helped when Saddam invaded Kuwait in August.

[@sjcuk7]

Sure mine had a plug on it as did the TV I bought shortly after.

[@interstat2222]

Wasn’t RF out also for multi room TV use, as people used to do with Sky?

[@BarrySG]

You can transmit to one of these (and I think the ondigital boxes too) with a HackRF! Possibly something you should try

[@interstat2222]

That’s not even the plug from the time. Those Masterplug plugs probably came from Wilko and are only from 2007/8+. Someone probably reused an old plug from around their house and changed it before selling it on eBay because they worried it would be unsafe or something. I like Philips from this era. They were on top of their game.

[@ONhistoryplus]

Yes, I added the plug myself.