The Husband talked to someone at Wild Blue again yesterday and this time they say there’s a part of the antenna that’s gone bad. I forget what he called it but I think it’s the thing in front of the dish. It would cost $95 to send a guy out and to fix it, and we already paid a guy forty dollars to come out and tell us it was the modem that was bad so we’re switching to Hughes Net. That will cost some money too but we’ve heard good things about them and this is a good excuse to switch. Tuesday is the big day.
What happened with the cable company is just weird. The first guy who came out to fix it didn’t have a signal amplifier so he said another guy would come out and install one. He did yesterday. But that guy didn’t have the gadget he needed to adjust the amplifier. Is everybody following this? One guy has the gadget to adjust amplifiers in his truck but has no spare amplifiers; the other guy has amplifiers but no way to adjust them. What a way to do business. By the way, this signal amplifier is not the thing on the pole outside; it’s a little box they hooked up behind the cable box inside the house. Anyway, some channels are working better some are not. We watched History Channel HD last night and it was fine but there are some channels that are still unwatchable. So in a few weeks we are going to switch to Direct TV. That means we will have two satellite dishes on our roof! Sheesh! How high-tech-redneck can you get?
June 10th, 2011 - 7:29 am
I don’t know what it is with techs in this state, but I remember back in 2007 when I switched to digital cable and cable internet I had all kinds of problems (not least the creepy, “I want to be your new best friend” guy they sent out to install it).
they sent me a broken modem. I only found this out after taking my computer in for an $80 tech-check at the local computer place (cable company kept telling me the problem was my computer). The good news is they upgraded me to a better modem and I’ve not really had problems since, but it seems like when you get a string of guys who don’t know what they’re doing…you really get a string of guys who don’t know what they’re doing.
June 10th, 2011 - 11:47 am
I had pretty good luck with Hughes, years ago, before I switched to cable (bundled with the tv). Apparently the owners mother, Georgia, sometimes answers the phones…
The big companies are a mixed bag. My brother is a field supervisor for Comcast and is a workaholic who tries very hard to deliver the best service. But above his level it is layer upon layer of infighting middle management who are quite content to buy substandard equipment and lay off expensive (i.e. competent and experienced) personnel in order to make some quarterly projection. Get him started on the quality of the outsourced contractor help and you’ll get quite an earful.
My current cable service works well, as long as the temperature is below 75F indoors and 90F outdoors. Above that I’ll get dropouts and loss of signal. So much for the 21st century…
June 10th, 2011 - 6:21 pm
I seem to have a DirecTV dish on my roof left from the previous tenant. Along with about thirty feet of leftover RG6. If the dish is still good, it’s all yours.
Why would they put an amplifier in the box on the house? If the signal isn’t making it to the house, how is an amp at the house (Where the signal doesn’t reach) going to help? Must have not brought the bucket truck today.
Would be nice if Cox would purchase TimeWarner or whoever your cable company is this week. Their infrastructure is nice and organized.