# cable tv



## Barry J (Nov 21, 2008)

I get Comcast on demand, last Wednesday, comcast was doing something on my poloe, then did something on the outside of my house. After that I did not get "on demand" programing. I called them out and after 4-5 days they sent someone out.
He looked at the pole and said they put a "bullit" on the line at the pole.
Supposily, my house was one of the houses on the street that was "leaking" and causing backfed disturbance. So, they put this bullit in line to prevent it., which also blocked my "on-demand".
So, he started checking my lines in my house. The first line he checked..he said was "junk", he had to replace it. So, he did..then he went to the next line, yes that was junk too, then the third and then the forth. Then he got to the line that I just replaced with a brand new RG-6 line, two weeks before. He said that was junk also. I said could that come out that way if it was hooked to an old tv, he said yes, so I disconnected the TV, and still on his monitor, it was junk. 
That's when I told him to stop, and I would replace all my lines on my own. He was going to replace all the lines thru out my house, because he said they were all "junk", according to his monitor.
I stopped believing him when he said my brand new one was "junk".
He was going to replace it with the same type cable.
My question is if I start to replace all there cables, is there some way of me checking them on my own to see if they are "really" junk
Oh yeah, he also replaced the wire from the pole to the house cause that was "junk" and the cable going into my house cause that had "water" in it.
I really need someone with good Cable TV experience.
Thanks
Barry


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## jerryh3 (Dec 10, 2007)

The problem is usually more with connections than with the cable itself. Who installed the new cable(the 2 week old one)? What type of terminations did you use?


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## Barry J (Nov 21, 2008)

I bought the cable at Lowes, the connections were on it and I ran the cable


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## nap (Dec 4, 2007)

first, let me say; I also have Comcast and have serious doubts about much of their technical staff. Rarely have they actually diagnosed and fixed a problem. It's more of a try and try again all the while refusing to turn on the lights to they can see what they are doing.



anyway; I suspect there is something other than the reason they gave you for putting in the filter (bullet). While it is very difficult for them to prove when somebody is either stealing or (and this does happen) a customer is getting a service they are supposed to be paying for but getting it for free, a lot of the time they simply use their abilities to turn things off, whether it be via signal sent to a cable box or physically with filters, to block a service for a suspected customer, or even an area, and see who yells. This often gives the the opportunity to come into a home and kind of look around for illegal boxes and such, if there is suspicion.

Now, I am not saying that is what happened in your case but it is one of the more common situations I have seen where such things have happened.



anyway, there is very little you can do to check coax lines unless you have use of their many many thousand dollar testers or something similar.

and if they found water in your service drop cable, tell them to use the proper connectors so water does not get into the cable.

yes, that is a real problem and unless the drop was real old, it was simply their lack of skill or lack of proper equipment that caused it.


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## tpolk (Nov 7, 2009)

people not happy with comcast around here. junk= $$ in their pocket to fix. if you had on demand legally tell them you want it back cause they took it away. it was working before they *fixed it* with your junk


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## Tonglebeak (Dec 28, 2009)

Barry J said:


> I get Comcast on demand, last Wednesday, comcast was doing something on my poloe, then did something on the outside of my house. After that I did not get "on demand" programing. I called them out and after 4-5 days they sent someone out.
> He looked at the pole and said they put a "bullit" on the line at the pole.
> Supposily, my house was one of the houses on the street that was "leaking" and causing backfed disturbance. So, they put this bullit in line to prevent it., which also blocked my "on-demand".
> So, he started checking my lines in my house. The first line he checked..he said was "junk", he had to replace it. So, he did..then he went to the next line, yes that was junk too, then the third and then the forth. Then he got to the line that I just replaced with a brand new RG-6 line, two weeks before. He said that was junk also. I said could that come out that way if it was hooked to an old tv, he said yes, so I disconnected the TV, and still on his monitor, it was junk.
> ...


I have the same job, so I'll give you a rundown as to what it sounds like was going on.

Someone put a high-pass filter on your drop, probably because your drop (or something in your house) was shooting back a noise floor on the lowend of the spectrum. When that happens, services that require a return path back to the headend (i.e. internet, phone, and on-demand services) are knocked out or severely affected, on the node that you reside in.

Take it from a service tech: we don't replace drops for fun (btw, the drop is the line that runs from the tap (on the pole) to your house).

I had been in a house where the homeowner had wired EVERY single cable outlet, and with screw-on fittings at that. Yes, believe it or not, EVERY outlet was shooting back a noise floor: not only that, but the interference was so bad, it was knocking out the color on analog channel 50. It had evolved from a simple noise floor on the return, to something that was actually affecting downstream (tv picture). After changing EVERY connector in the house, everything was working just fine.

And there are other reasons why we care about leakage. Mainly the FCC gets down our throats. Btw, leakage is when the RF signal (cable uses radio waves) egresses, which is either through a bad connector, a broken cable, or a bad piece of equipment. Keep in mind that where there's egress, there's the potential for ingress (interference entering the cable system).

The "monitor" you saw him looking at, is a meter. Where I work at, they're $5k pieces of equipment: they're not cheap, and they provide a wide range of information (there's a heck of a lot more to cable tv than just watching it).

Any questions? Feel free to ask. BTW, I do not work for Comcast, so this is NOT a biased post


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## tpolk (Nov 7, 2009)

good post tongl


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## Barry J (Nov 21, 2008)

ok, that was an informative post.
My question is why would his $$$ monitor be showing my cable to be "junk", when it was just bought from Lowes, it was RG 6, it was not attached to anything else on the other end, and yet essentially junk.
And better yet...when I asked him where I should pick up the cable, his answer was "Lowes".
So, I'm kind of confused????
Brand new RG 6 cable, purchased just a week prior...yet junk to Comcast.
And seems kinda of strange when he says all my cables were bad.

As mentioned above, he checked the drop, and said that was junk, and replaced it, also said run going into house had water in it, so he replaced that..wouldn't those two cables cause the feedback he was looking for??
Thanks
Barry


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## Tonglebeak (Dec 28, 2009)

Barry J said:


> ok, that was an informative post.
> My question is why would his $$$ monitor be showing my cable to be "junk", when it was just bought from Lowes, it was RG 6, it was not attached to anything else on the other end, and yet essentially junk.
> And better yet...when I asked him where I should pick up the cable, his answer was "Lowes".
> So, I'm kind of confused????
> ...


I have no idea what Comcast's policies are, but more likely it would've been the fittings on the cable that would be causing a problem. Rarely is the cable itself, inside a house, ever the issue (and if it it, it's due to a bad installation, such as driving staples through the cable and other things).

Leakage can be caused by ANYTHING. A bad drop could cause it, or even a loose cable behind your tv can cause it. And where there's leakage, there's a potential for a noise floor, which would lead to service interruptions for not only yourself, but others as well. (I _think_ Comcast has about 500 customers per node, but don't quote me on that).


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## Barry J (Nov 21, 2008)

Ok, so let's just talk about my one cable,
so, he is in my cellar, and is attaching his monitor to the cable (where it connects to the splitter), So on one end of the cable his monitor, on the other..nothing because I un-hooked the TV from it (cause previously he said it was "junk" before when the TV was on the other end)
So just the brand new RG 6 cable bought from Lowes and no staples anywhere. The connections on the cable are the ones that come already on.
The cable is "junk"
Is that possible???
Is Lowes selling "junk" cable, because if that's true, I'm bringing it back.
BTW..thanks for all the experienced info
Barry


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## Tonglebeak (Dec 28, 2009)

It depends. Was this a cable pulled off their spools, or was it a cable purchased in a package? The packaged ones usually give us a lot of problems: most of them have very poor shielding on them. With that said, they'll usually work most of the time, but if they start allowing interference into the system, then they are "junk." The cables also don't need to be hooked up to check for issues, BUT, the cable should have a terminator on the unhooked in: if the connector is left wide open, then it will happily receive ingress.

Although I wouldn't use that vocabulary with a customer: customers are always treated well by me, unless they start giving me attitude problems. Then the "don't bite the hand that feeds you" (or fixes your cable in this case) philosophy kicks in.


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## Barry J (Nov 21, 2008)

Great, how do you feel about taking a trip to Massachusetts and work on my cable ????
Hey, So, I go to Lowes get the spooled cable, any certain type of ends???
And any suggestions of crimping tool???
Do I need Quad shield or would RG 6 be fine


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## Tonglebeak (Dec 28, 2009)

Barry J said:


> Great, how do you feel about taking a trip to Massachusetts and work on my cable ????
> Hey, So, I go to Lowes get the spooled cable, any certain type of ends???
> And any suggestions of crimping tool???
> Do I need Quad shield or would RG 6 be fine


Sorry, MA is too far for me. Plus, I don't own any of my tools or my meter; it's all company-owned.

The type of connectors we use are compression fittings. They're also known as Snap-N-Seal. They're 2 piece connectors: one piece is the metal fitting itself, and the other is a plastic ring with an O-ring around it. There's a special tool used to attach the fittings onto the cable. Here is a youtube video I found that shows the proper way of doing this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw3Zhc1zQwM


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