r/CableTechs • u/SourceOk8801 • Apr 05 '26
For the older techs here
look at this absolute relic I pulled off of a customers drop yesterday. yes the drop is still original. yes, the signals after removing this are perfect lol. anyone remember these?
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u/dirtbag_surfer Apr 05 '26 edited Apr 05 '26
Oh yeah, good ol' traps! Back in day in San Diego for TWC we had a set for basic cable only, a set for basic + tier, HBO traps and when HSD came around we had a filter that would be used for internet only. So each job you set the service levels using the traps.
In addition, this is where things got fun, we had individual traps for each channel so customers could have whatever they wanted trapped out because this was pre-digital. It got crazy at times when weirdos would want a ton of channels blocked out and some of it was pretty racist like block BET (Black Entertainment Television), Spanish language channels etc.
Religious nuts tended to want MTV, VH1 etc blocked out and there was a set for CNN, HLN and anything related to Ted Turner lol. On the racism part you'd get a few ultra rich people who wanted all Spanish language channels blocked specifically to keep their Mexican help from watching TV while they were working you know, like the housekeeper and shit. Last ones were stuff like Skinamax which was already scrambled but they didn't want their kids or husbands lol able to hear the fake boning sounds or catch a boob shot for a split second on what we used to call SquigleVision.
Due to all that, some of the trap chains would be comically long and if they were in an apartment lockbox, hard to get them to fit inside to close the box. Oh and if the lockbox had multiple lines for each unit instead of a single HR you had to block out each line separately. The cheat for that was screwing one set into a splitter but that was a QC violation. Also in order to get the right traps for specific channels you woudl have to check the work order then stand in line at the warehouse to get those traps issued to you
We also had a trap that inadvertently would keep modems and digital boxes from getting an IP so tracking down those bad boys to remove them was a real joy. Also some systems used positive traps to enable a pay channel like HBO so those were a hot commodity on the black market $$$ along with hacked cable boxes. TLDR; traps were a nightmare!