Gas Station Sat Dishes

Does anyone know what the satellite dishes on service stations are used for?

Comments

Wow. I never even noticed gas stations had satellite dishes.

I wonder if they have any sort of specific functionality relating to the fuel business — say, tracking pricing trends across the entire Chevron network — or if it's for something less fancy, like getting cable TV or satellite sports?

D'oh. We both should have started with Google, which Knows All.

This article, about an entirely different satellite network, contains this line:

"...the small satellite dishes you might see on the roof of a convenience store or gas station that are used for processing credit card transactions."

Interesting. I wonder why that's preferrable or if might be more affordable than the standard phone/land line credit card terminal? Or, perhaps more likely, if it is tuned directly into the gas station company's own credit card system?

So now I know.

Next topic:

Hacking traffic control lights.

Has anyone tried strobing those little detectors on the traffic lights to get them to change the signals?

Er, no, Haken. I have tried reversing and idling forward over the ostensible spot where the sensors in the asphalt are (or maybe were, these days), though.

Yeah, those hardly ever work right. And you need a car across the street on the other sensor to trigger the traffic sensor countdown timer.

For the traffic light strobe detectors... I often thought about it and using the Hz function on my SB28 flash to trigger it. But if you notice the strobe on the light bar of emergency vehicles, the rate is varied and follows a distinct pattern. Emulating that with a lame-o flash rig might be a bit hard. Of course this was all pondered over cocktails...

I live in Los Angeles and I do alot of driving around town very late at night.
when theres no cars out on the street yoiu have a much better chance of using this because A. there arent cars in front of you to block the high beams, and B. you really need to be about 150-200 yards back from the limit line (the white line you stop for a red light at the intersection) all you do is flash your brights a couple times and the light will change before you get to the intersection.
It's been working for me for years.

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