Dillinger Posted September 25, 2015 Share Posted September 25, 2015 Or, “What you can do yourself, and what you need the cable guy to do” – from an old cable guy’s experiences. Welcome class, I recognize several of you from a couple of our other courses, so this may be a bit preliminary for some, but hopefully there is good information for all contained within. Let’s see. Scenario (this will re-occur): You have just added (______New and Shiny kit goes here________) and you are having trouble. We are going to assume for the sake of this scenario that you have everything wired and connected properly, you have consulted the guide( for whatever reason) and you are confident in this lone fact: 1. Everything was “fine” before this recent change – “Fine” in this case assumes that as far as you know, you weren’t getting issues, nothing was randomly happening, there are no “carry over” issues that “also” happen. a. This is important, so read it again. If you have intermittent problems that you have “lived with” or “accepted” prior to this, you haven’t met the criteria. As an “in-your-home” cable technician for many years, I can’t tell you how many hours I have WASTED hunting problems that didn’t include the COMPLETE STORY; but more on that later. b. IF you have had “other” issues, make sure and THOROUGHLY document them. Times of day, frequency the problem occurs, “it only seems to happen when I….”. Write all that down and keep a Journal*. I can NOT stress this enough. If you want help, you need to help the people called in to fix it, help you. Assuming you have met the previous criteria, let’s take a look at the very basic premise of signal travel (both downstream as in your TV channels/videos from the web/”broadcast” items, and upstream, as when uploading pictures/files/whatever from your source to the WWW. What you see there is a garden hose. I am sure you are all familiar with its operation. You have a “source end”, the faucet on your hose, and you have a “load end”, which is the nozzle you equip to spray stuff. The median used to transport the water (hose in this case) serves the same function as Cable TV, Telephone or Internet lines on your street and in your neighborhood. It carries the signals to and from your house. The main thing to always keep in mind when you are dealing with any type of signal is that this same case holds true. There is a source end, where the signal is either created/generated/”sent” and you have a load end where that signal becomes usable to the end consumer (in this case you, but a “consumer” could be a device that amplifies or extends the range of the signal also). If you are talking about your TV signal, your TV is the load end. It gets a little tricky with internet, because signal travels two ways in the same “hose” from the example above, but I will get into that in a bit. We are going to start with the easiest problem, which is when your broadcast TV doesn’t look clear, is grainy/fuzzy/”yucky” (ßtechnical term) or you have Digital Cable and your TV has what is called pixeling or “boxing”. Like this: This is a grainy television picture: This is a digital picture that has pixeling or "boxing" Both of these are very common problems, but they have VASTLY different causes. The nice thing is, you can test for them both BEFORE you even have to worry about calling the cable company and beginning that fight (The next thread idea is HOW to talk to them on the phone and get what you need - any interest?) Scenario Example 1: Same as before, with the above happening when you watch TV. We are going to assume a modern connection where you have a connection to your DVR/cable/satellite box and you have a shiny, metal splitter like the one pictured below, where one line also feeds your cable modem or other internet device. One line from outside, into your living room (or other) and then it’s split into two lines. · One line to the DVR/TV · One line to the modem/router · This example also shows a line to the PC, but the illustration is good and the troubleshooting is the same http://i.imgur.com/QzstRKM.png For this scenario we are going to assume that your TV has either grainy images, or you have pixilation, but we are going to assign a FALSE belief that the signal coming from the wall is PRISTINE for this test. Keep in mind, this is test one. Okay, on the right we have the line coming in from the outside. This is your SOURCE for this testing process. We want to connect the SOURCE cable, DIRECTLY to the unit that is having the issues, so for this example that is the input to the TV. You have removed the 3-way splitter, knocking out signal to the modem and the PC/Tuner combo, and taken your SOURCE cable and plugged it directly into the back of your TV (NOTE: Yes, if this was a DVR issue, you should plug it back into the DVR and leave the output to the TV for this first test). Check the same channels on the TV. Are they better? Or was there no “discernable” change? BETTER: What you have done is provided MORE signal strength to the TV and eliminated the 3-way splitter, the modem and the PC/Tuner as possible causes to your problem. You have a line from the wall, directly to your TV (or DVR) and the picture quality is better. RESULT: The problem is either right there at your feet (the stuff you just unplugged is the cause), or the signal coming in from the outside is too low. NO CHANGE: You have just proven that the signal coming in from the outside of your house is where the problem is located. It’s obviously not inside your house, the result was the same whether all that stuff was hooked up, or if you bypassed all of it and gave the best possible signal to your TV. THIS IS CALLED THE “HALF-IT” RULE The “Half-It” Rule is a troubleshooting process that I drilled, repeatedly, into every single tech or installer I ever trained. It’s very effective, it’s faster than some methods, and while it will lead you astray at times if you aren’t paying attention, it can DRASTICALLY shorten your troubleshooting time frame. Here is an artist’s rendition of the Half-It rule. With the Half-It rule, you just continue to make checks at locations based on (1) factors with two possible outcomes. 1. With the FIRST Half-It check, was it found to be good, or still a problem? a. If Good – The problem is from where you are now, going forward towards the problem location (in this case the TV) b. If Still Bad – The problem is between your current location and the location you assigned the False Pristine value. Now in the scenario above, where we assigned a FALSE PRISTINE value at the wall, with the cable plugged directly into your TV, if the picture is still bad, and you are still seeing the same (or almost the same) picture problems, you need to go further UPSTREAM. In this case, you have to assume the problem exists BEFORE it comes out the wall in your living room. Possible causes? A litany of them, too many to list, but a lot can go wrong in your average home. Even more if it is a rental property. Which is way the Half-It rule is so powerful and how it can save you time. Instead of following the line back into the wall, up into the attic, down the outside to what is called the Grounding Location (where the cables from the road meet up with the cables for your house), I can just walk outside and check the signal there at the grounding location. Doing this eliminates ALL the wiring in your house, and any “existing” things that COULD have gone wrong, without you knowing or finding them. Now we need to find out if the signal quality is good at the side of the house as opposed to just “inside your living room”. As a cable guy, you can take a meter to the side of the house and measure it there, but the average home user doesn’t have a $2500 signal level meter. This is what a lot of grounding locations look like on the side of your house. As you can see, the conduits going INTO the ground are where the signals come IN to your house from the street. The boxes are where the outside connections are made (phone, cable TV, Internet), so this is your next HALF-IT location (if you have access). Scenario Example 2: We will assume we have done everything in Scenario 1, but we found that the picture DID NOT improve and we are still experiencing the same (near the same) issues. When we plugged the wall cable directly into the device (TV, Modem, etc) and the quality didn’t get any better, we know that our initial assumption that the “WALL WAS GOOD”; wasn’t correct. That’s okay; we gained valuable knowledge here, so DON’T CHANGE ANYTHING. **This assumes you have LEGAL access to the side of the building you live in and that property is “owned” by others (legal owner, CATV/Phone/Internet/Fiber Company). If you cut the lock of something, you will probably face legal charges. Be smart. On the side of the house, we can now modify our initial assumption from “The Wall is Good” because we know that not to be the case, to “Coming out of the Ground/Conduit is Good”. This now becomes our new Half-It location. The TV(modem) is the load/problem, the Half-It location is the ground-block/side of the house, and the upstream/good is the road/street-side plant off your property. If you have the ability, you can connect a brand new cable from this location straight to your TV(modem). You may need to purchase some cable to do so, or run an extension cord from the garage and get a portable device you can bring to the side of the house where the connection is located. You have to kind of think outside of the box here, but this will give you VALUABLE leverage when it finally does come time to call in the “professionals” who get paid to do this stuff. 1. Now with this SECOND Half-It check, was it found to be good, or still a problem? a. If Good – The problem is from where you are now, going forward towards the last Half-It location. At this point you know where the problem is, so you can replace it yourself, or show the exact same tests to the professional. b. If Still Bad – The problem is between your current location further upstream towards the new source. At this point, you need a professional. At this point you know where the problem is, but there isn’t much you can do about it, so you need to update your Journal* with this information as you may need to show the professional yourself to get them up to speed. If you were able to find where the problem did not exist, and rewire or replace/fix, any issues going forward, you then just need to reverse your steps. Go back and check the TV(modem) where you had it wired inside. It should work now if you fixed it, or had it fixed. Now rewire the other gear with the splitter and the wires. Is it still good? Congratulations. Send me $20 and I will send you a certificate suitable for framing for achieving Technician Level 1 Is it bad again? Uh-oh. What happened? You know it’s good at the wall, you just fixed it, so what are you going to do now?? Papers are due sometime next week, so please feel free to hit snooze a couple of times before our next class. Thanks for your attention and I wish you the best of luck. 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Administrators Netduma Fraser Posted September 26, 2015 Administrators Share Posted September 26, 2015 Fantastic informative post once again Dillinger! Would definitely love to see the post on how to talk to them on the phone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzy clam Posted September 26, 2015 Share Posted September 26, 2015 JD,you are a vast river of flowing knowledge my friend.And yes I would love to know what and how to say to make the cable guy my new best friend... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zennon Posted September 27, 2015 Share Posted September 27, 2015 Sir, I've brought you an apple Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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