John R. MacDougall, also known as Captain Midnight, is an electronic engineer and business owner, who jammed HBO's satellite signal in 1986 to broadcast a message protesting their rates for satellite dish owners. Electronic engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the emission, behavior, and effects of electrons (as in electron tubes and transistors) and with electronic devices, systems or equipment. ... HBO (Home Box Office) is a premium cable television network with headquarters in New York City. ... 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

In the mid-1980s, controversy erupted in the cable programming world in the mid-1980s as cable operators began scrambling their programming and charging fees to home satellite dish owners who accessed the same satellite signals cable operators received. Many satellite dish owners were forced to purchase descrambling equipment at a cost of hundreds of dollars in addition to paying monthly or annual subscription fees to cable programming providers. Programming costs for home dish owners were often higher than fees paid by cable subscribers, despite dish owners being responsible for owning and servicing their own equipment.

When HBO scrambled its signal, it offered subscriptions to home dish owners for $12.95 per month, which was either equal to or slightly higher than what cable subscribers paid. Dish owners felt they were being asked to pay a price that was designed to be anti-competitive, and it triggered a national movement among dish owners to more strongly regulate the cable industry and force them to stop anti-competitive pricing. While some dish owners called their elected officials, others took a more direct approach to send a message to the large industry.

On the evening of April 27, 1986, at 12:32am, John R. MacDougall, a satellite TV dealer in Ocala, Florida, was working at Central Florida Teleport, a company that uplinks services to satellites. He was overseeing the uplink of the movie Pee-wee's Big Adventure. At the end of his shift, he swung the dish back in to its storage position, pointing directly upward which happened to be the location of Galaxy 1, the satellite that carries HBO. As a protest against the introduction of high fees and scrambling equipment, he transmitted a signal onto the satellite which overrode HBO's airing of The Falcon and the Snowman. The text message which appeared on the sets of HBO subscribers across the Eastern time zone: April 27 is the 117th day of the year (118th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 248 days remaining. ... 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Ocala is a city located in Marion County, Florida. ... Pee-wees Big Adventure is a 1985 film directed by Tim Burton and written by Paul Reubens, Phil Hartman, and Michael Varhol. ... Galaxy 1 was the first in a line of communications satellites launched by Hughes Communications in 1983. ... A satellite is any object that orbits another object (which is known as its primary). ... The Falcon and the Snowman is a 1985 film about the American walk-in spies and convicted traitors, starring Timothy Hutton as Christopher Boyce and Sean Penn as Andrew Daulton Lee who became agents for the Soviet Union out of angry disillusionment at American foreign policy for Boyce and personal...

GOODEVENING HBO

FROM CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT

$12.95/MONTH?

NO WAY!

(SHOWTIME/MOVIE CHANNEL BEWARE)

MacDougall chose the name "Captain Midnight" from a movie he had recently seen, On the Air Live with Captain Midnight. After media pressure forced the Federal Communications Commission to act, MacDougall was charged and plea bargained a $5,000 fine and was placed on one year's probation. 1941 Big Little Book Captain Midnight was a U.S. radio serial broadcast from 1938 to 1949. ... On the Air Live with Captain Midnight is a 1979 movie directed by Beverly Sebastian and Ferd Sebastian with Tracy Sebastian as Marvin Ziegler, aka Captain Midnight, who runs his own pirate radio station and become an underground cult hit. ... The FCCs official seal. ...

Today, MacDougall owns MacDougall Electronics in Ocala, a satellite dish dealer. Special dish for up to 16 satellite positions (Ku-band) Satellite dish antenna for C-Band DTH redirects here. ...

External links

• The Story of Captain Midnight
• MacDougall Electronics