Oak Industries, Inc.

Tony C Li

Graham S Stubbs

A method of controlling the operation of slave decoders in a cable television distribution system having a central control computer; in which each subscriber location having a slave decoder also has a master decoder; in which there is a control message connection between each master decoder and its associated slave decoder(s); and in which the central control computer can individually address each master decoder and each slave decoder. The method includes the steps of transmitting control messages for the slave decoders at the control message frequency for the master decoders. In response thereto, each master decoder will retransmit the control message to its associated slave decoders. Periodically, the central control computer sends deauthorize messages addressed to all slave decoders as a group; however, the deauthorization messages are preceded by an inhibit message addressed to all master decoders, thereby preventing the retransmission of the slave decoder deauthorization message to all slave decoders which are connected to a master decoder.

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Rancho Bernardo, CA, United States of America

Tony C Li