🚀 go-pugleaf

"Brad Bishop" <bsbishop@newsguy.com> wrote in message news:<c8ss1s0q39@news4.newsguy.com>...
> > >Just got notification that Comcast is "improving" their service on
> > >6/2/04.  The net effect of this "improvement" is, if we want to get
> > >the same basic channels we do now, our monthly bill will increase
> > >from $15/month to $42/month.
> >
> > Heh heh - good old Comcast! The one thing they are good at is raising
>  rates.
> > They can't fix the snow and interference in the picture, but they excel at
> > lining their pockets...
> 
> I'm not complaining about Comcast, specifically, here but I was a little
> annoyed back when I used to have cable (I now have DirecTV) and my basic
> problems were:
> 
> * Whenever it would rain the cable would go out. I never called them on this
> one but I assume their boxes got flooded out and it shorted out their
> signal. It's interesting that they tout 'rain fade' was one of the things
> you don't have to worry about with cable. With cable, though, it'd take a
> good number of hours (up to a day or so) for the signal to clear up after a
> storm. 


 This defently sounds like a case of "box flooding" to me. Usualy it takes
several hours for the water to evaporate and stop shorting out the wires.

>With DirecTV (and a properly aligned dish) the only rain fade I've
> experienced was when the storm was so nasty that you'd want to unplug
> everything anyway.
> 

 agreed. I start unplugging things when i begin hearing thunder, no
matter how distant. Paranoid, perhaps, but lightning can strike 
several miles away from the actual storm, and there have been cases
of lightning travling more than 20 miles from the storm to it's target
(hence the phrase "bolt out of the blue".

> * Some local channels were so bad that they were unwatchable. I called them
> on this a few times. Each time their answer was the same, "You're getting
> interference from the local channels and it's wiping out the cable
> channels." 

 That shouldn't happen if the system is properly installed, and there
is no problems with the coax sheilding.

> Well, that's fine but I'm paying the cable company for cable and
> I couldn't get some local channels. It seemed like the proper answer would
> have been for them to find the signal leak or, if it were impossible to fix
> for that particular channel, move the channel to a new location (obviously
> not just for me but it would seem like it'd be a system wide problem if they
> couldn't fix it for me and that was their answer).
> 
> The end result it that I went with DirecTV. The cable company could have
> done something to address the signal problems I was having but they showed
> no interest. I'm not anti-cable or anything. I've had some good experiences
> with cable companies (CableVision comes to mind). I've had really good
> experiences with DirecTV so, until they screw up, they've got my business.
> 
> Brad