 Message seen in 1986, as superimposed on the SMPTE color bars | |
| Date | April 27, 1986 |
|---|---|
| Time | 00:32 EST (05:32 UTC) |
| Duration | Four and a half minutes |
| Location | Ocala, Florida, U.S. |
| Type | Broadcast signal intrusion |
| Motive | To protest against charges for access to scrambled satellite channels |
| Target | Home Box Office (HBO) |
| Participants | John R. MacDougall |
| Outcome | Fine and probation |
| Resulted in the development of the Automatic Transmitter Identification System | |
On April 27, 1986, American electrical engineer and business owner John R. MacDougall (using the pseudonym "Captain Midnight") jammed the Home Box Office (HBO) satellite signal on Galaxy 1 during a showing of the film The Falcon and the Snowman. The message, broadcast for four and a half minutes, was seen by the eastern half of the United States (accounting for more than half of HBO's 14.6 million subscribers at the time) protesting HBO's rates for satellite dish owners, which he considered too expensive. MacDougall was working at his second job as an operations engineer at the Central Florida Teleport uplink station in Ocala, Florida, and vied with a technician at HBO's communications center in Hauppauge, New York, for control of the transmission. The technician attempted to increase uplink power but gave up because of the risk of damaging the satellite. MacDougall eventually abandoned his control of the satellite.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), with assistance from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), investigated the jamming. After the FCC identified the transmitters and stations equipped with the specific character generator evidently used during the broadcast signal intrusion, MacDougall surrendered to the authorities, after which he was served with a subpoena due to a tourist having overheard him discussing the incident on a payphone off Interstate 75. Under an agreement with the prosecutor, he plea bargained and was sanctioned with a $5,000 fine, one-year unsupervised probation, and a one-year suspension of his amateur radio license. The jamming received much attention in the U.S., with one executive dubbing the intrusion an act of "video terrorism". As a consequence of the incident, the United States Congress passed the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (18 U.S.C. § 1367), making satellite hijacking a felony. The Automatic Transmitter Identification System was also developed in response to this incident.