Mike wrote:
The cable guy was out here today and I found out several interesting
things that I'd like opinions on.

1. The guy says that there's hardly any signal coming into the house.
So the signal will have to be boosted at the tap. He also said that we
are the only house hooked up to this tap. Everyone else on this road
gets their cable from another tap on the same road. The road is a very
short, dead-end, private road so I find this to be a little weird. I
told the guy that for the past 8 years every time the cable co. comes
out here which is usually twice a year they boost the signal and it
does absolutely nothing. He couldn't figure that out. Anyone got any
ideas about this?

2. About 2 years ago and 6 months ago the cable from the tap to our
house was cut. The first time it was supposed to be replaced but I
don't know if it was or not. The second time it was supposed to be
completely replaced but my dad says it was partially replaced and
spliced together. He says the cable that they did replace was RG59
instead of RG6 so that the RG6 and RG59 were spliced together. Is that
bad?

3. I found out that the wiring inside the house was different than
what I was told it was years ago. The cable is split at the house
where the first split goes into the basement and is split again. One
split goes to the 1st floor family room and the other split goes to
the 1st floor bedroom. The second split from the outside ends up going
up along the side of the house (where it is exposed to sun, snow,
rain, etc.) to the attic where it is split. One split goes down to the
2nd floor bedroom and the other split goes down into another 2nd floor
bedroom.
What I ended up doing after the cable guy left was remove the 1st
splitter and hooked it up so that the cable from outside goes to the
one in the attic and the one that went to the basement was completely
disconnected. This did improve the pictures on the two 2nd floor TVs
so that all of the channels were viewable but they were all still
extremely snowy. So then I changed it so that the attic cable was
disconnected and the basement cable was connected and the two 1st
floor TVs got almost crystal clear reception. There was hardly any
snow on any of the channels.
So wouldn't that mean that the exposed cable that goes onto the side
of the house into the attic was damaged? The connections are all fine,
nothing is lose. Well, the cable co. doesn't want to believe this and
they won't fix this problem. They want to believe that it's the low
signal but it's obviously not just that.

4. The guy did say that it's possible that the main line which I
assume is the one that goes from the tap back to the cable co. could
be damaged. But then wouldn't there be other people on that same line
and wouldn't they have problems too? It appears to be just us. I think
there are two taps on the private road from which we get the cable. We
are the only people using the one tap and the other one is shared by I
guess about 8-10 other houses if that's possible. As far as I know,
none of them have problems. We've had this problem for at least 8
years but it just keeps getting worse every year and especially every
summer. Any opinions on this?

Now I should say that we have a contract with the cable company that
clearly states that we get free cable for life. This is due to the
cable company who originally installed the cable making a huge
"boo-boo." I'm now wondering if this is why our cable is so crappy.
The contract says we get free cable, it never said anything about
giving us viewable/clear cable.
I don't know what to do at this point. It was suggested by others that
I call the local franchise authority but I didn't know that they were
run by the county government. Since that's the case I have a strong
feeling that they won't help one single bit due to reasons I'd rather
not share. If they refuse to help, who else can I contact? Does the
FCC handle problems like this? I really hate getting a lawyer involved
but why should I have to pay for someone else's stupidity and
mistakes. I suppose I could try calling the main cable office wherever
that is located, think that would work?

So any helpful/productive opinions and advice would be greatly
appreciated.

Hi...

I can't speak for the USA, but I'd think if the cable
company is providing you with a signal that provides
good reception to one set with no splitter is fine, then
they're meeting their obligation to you.

Regardless, get rid of those splitters... each split
costs you 3db - and if I read you right you have
splitters that go on to be split again. Don't do that.

What you need is either to use one tv set, or...

Buy (for only a few bucks) an amplified splitter.
Install this near to where the cable companies input
to your house is. (indoors, of course) Then from that
point connect a plain line to each of the sets you
want to operate - in other words no more splits
along the way!

Hope this helps.

Ken