OT - trade frags for your cable/AV help

[aztbs]

One of you reefers has to be an A/V kind of guy, right?
I need some expert advice/help with my TV/Cable/Internet setup. I am willing to pay for some help if you have to come to the house, and I will gladly pay in frags if that works for you.

Here's the scoop. I have Cox cable, the complete pack with phone/TV/internet. We have a TV in almost every room of the house (5 or 6). (We are not TV junkies, I swear, and I want no lectures about it, lol) We have two of the digital receiver boxes, the rest have regular cable.

The problem is, we get terrible signals in some rooms and have trouble with quality on higher channels. The Cox people are terrible. They have been out three times and have run new cable to the house and put in different splitters. Each guy that comes out says something different and undoes what the last tech did.

One guy put an amplifier on the wall next to a TV that was getting poor quality. Even I realize that you can't amplify a bad signal, it would have to be amplified from the source, wouldn't it? I want to improve my TV signals without hurting my internet speeds. So I guess I need design help. What kind of splitters/amplifiers or other equipment should I buy and what's the best configuration? Is there a good product for testing the actual lines?

I'd appreciate your help, or a decent resource for reading but I don't want to get on an AV forum and look like an idiot. I'd rather look like an idiot in front of people I know. :lol:

 

[corivus]

I can ask my roomie, he used to do a lot of av stuff, also there's a setup program on the cox cable boxes that will tell you what the signal is at I know its supposed to be at a certain strength but not sure what frequency to actually get a good signal in

 

[Philwd]

If some rooms are ok and some not then its probably safe to assume the line to your home is ok.

Now the rooms that are bad. Are all down wind as it goes from the input to the home? In other words are the good rooms right off the cable input to the house and the bad further down the circuit? It can be a low signal causing the issue. Its called signal to noise and if the signal gets too low the TV can't distinguish it easily from the interference on the ground line. But I would only expect that if the problem worsens as you go down the home.

Next if it is random rooms is think about noise. Or if you use any electrical devices that may put out high electronic interference(ie ballasts). Use any X10? Maybe try a noise filter in that room between the device and plug. If it is interference it does little good to boost the signal.

Since Cox re-ran cable I would think it can't be a RF signal leak caused by a nick somewhere.

We also have the full Cox package, TVs in only 3 rooms( ) but have no problems like that. Even with my 3 eballasts.

 

[guppie]

I work for cox and I am sorry you have had such bad service. I use to do the house work so I know what you are talking about with your bad pic's. You need to call in and tell them you want to talk to a sup. That will get you the service you deserve. When the person comes out to your house don't let him leave until all of the pic' s look good to you. Also get his number if there is a problem later on. If you are not happy with anything that cox does or does not do for you let them know they will bend over backwards for the customer. I f you still have a problem send me an email at christopher.guthrie@cox.com

 

[Hifiguy]

I also used to do custom home av installation in San Diego. I can help you if you need it although I agree with guppie in that you should make Cox do the work. A lot of the guys just don't want to do it and its true some of them just don't understand. I guess I'm lucky in that I explain exactly what I want them to do and watch them until they do it right. But even then you can have problems. My new house out here I had them come out a few times and finally I just hooked it up because I was tired of waiting on them to do what I asked them to do.

Its frustrating I know.

If you need any help just let me know.

Shaun

 

[joeyf]

I went through something similar in my house. Our amp was just unplugged (dunno why the previous owners did that...) but Cox was pretty good at taking care of us. One thing that I learned is that your cable box can read signal strength. If you press and hold the little button in the middle of the Vol. and Ch. buttons on the box (I think its the select button??) until the little "mail" light on the left starts to blink, then press the info button and a screen will pop up that shows a bunch of different values. IIRC, the value that you want to check is the "FDC", which should be anywhere between -10dB to 10dB. I used both my Hi-def box and standard box to do this (same steps for both), and I used the standard one to go around and check all the jacks.

 

[aztbs]

Ok, here is a cheesey map of my house and my TV locations. Not quite accurate scale but anyway... Like I said, we have been through the loops with Cox. The last tech they sent out rescheduled after I took time off of work so that I could be home. Showed up late for his second time, and then kept saying "oh man..." everytime he looked at something. He cursed about our entertainment center and our wires to the TV, fiddled around, told me the last tech didn't know what he was doing and left. Came back and replaced the same wire the last guy replaced and changed the splitter again. When I talk to the "supervisor", they tell me it is not their problem that I have this many TV's. I can't be the only person with a TV in every room. Two of them are little 13in things, it is not like I am trying to run hi-def in every spot.

This is what we have right now, one line runs to each box and we completely disconnected the two in the lower left. So by not splitting the lines further down the road, we have decent picture on all the sets. But how do we hook up the other two?

Do I need a six-way splitter? Is there an amp I need to put in front of it?

 

[phlipper84]

Let Cox do it. I would personally start with a large video amp between the line-in and the first splitter. I would also pitch a fit about the fact that appears their digital boxes are the ones with the cruddy pics. They really like to tell you how great the boxes are. Also, if you have a VCR you could probably hook it to the splitter and feed the whole house the signal. That way you can be relatively sure that it is not the cabling that is at issue. One tip if you do the VCR thing, make sure the tape is not from the "adults only" room at your local blockbuster. Don't need your kids seeing naked scuba-diving reef-bimbos 3.

 

[glassguy]

you could always switch to dtv

 

[guppie]

Like I said before there is no reason that you should have bad pics. In my house I have 6 tv 2 with dvrs and hsi. I remember you saying that they put in a house amp, that needs to be were the splitter is. is it a single port or 4 port amp? if it is a single port run it before the splitter, then take 2 of the lines off the splitter and put a jumper with a 2 way splitter on each leg that you took off then you can run the other tvs, if it is 4 port amp just take the 4 port splitter out and do the same thing with the 2 2 way splitter. You are right you don't want to amp bad signal, that is why you start were you have good signal. as I said before it sound like cox needs to fix your problem, if you want email me your address and I will see what I can do to help you, I know when I was working as a repair tech we were giged for stuff like this. Was it cox tech or contractors that have been to your house?

 

[AZDesertRat]

What....no TV in the bathroom?

 

[joeyf]

One thing to make sure is that you don't let them run new lines without being informed on how they are going to do it. When we had our problem, the dip-sh** tech (a contractor, btw) decided that he wanted to half a$$ a line from the outside box to the living room, where a line already existed. We now have this beautiful cable sticking out between the wall and the shed, going around the corner running across our patio, it is buried at one point, but it pops up next to the AC units and goes into the house. No, I'm not bitter

He did all that before checking the amp., which pi$$ed me off, and he kept saying "crap!" every 15 minutes after he tried something new.

It did work out in the long run though, because the original line in the family room was "T'ed" to go into my room on the other side of the wall, which messed with the 2 boxes, so now there are 2 lines, one for each.

We have 5 TV's in use, 1 with an HD box, 1 with a regular digital box (plus 3 TV's not in use, so you're not crazy ), and 7 jacks. The internet runs off its own, up in our loft, and the second one in the loft would never get used if a TV was there. No more problems... yet. I am glad that we have that service plan that Cox has, its worth the $4/ month to have them fix any cabling problems (we just make sure that we don't get contractors anymore).

 

[army67romeo]

hey i put a amplifier on the cable coming in the house at my at my DADS house and it fix his

The amplifier has to be the cable coming in to the house frist the split it to the modem run one line to it .... and the other line you split it up from there

Keep in mind the each time you spilt it it cuts in half

I try and get the name of on the amplifier i got from Cox it goes out side and a power box is in side and feeds it power throw the cable ...werid
----------------- cable modem
inline cox amplifier------
----------spilt to others maybe spilt again i would have to look at it for ya

we had tryed every thing and cox even put in all new wiring and the put in a new feed to the house and it didnt help

you might have to run amplifiers before splits


i would come out some time a look at it if ya want my cell is 602 628 6029 my name is mike i have to go out that way to get my blue tubs soon i hope

 

[Cody Ray]

Too many splits IMO. My mothers room which is before any splits gets perfect picture, the tv in the kitchen which is the farthest away and has the most splits looks like crap.

 

[army67romeo]

if you use a amplifier before them it works beter then after if you split it cuts the single ... how you then think the cable company split it they have amplifier and amplifier spliters i have seen and other those for a house in a long time

if you have lots of tvs and cable internet you have to split it chinchek787

 

[Mr_Romine]

i agreee with Glass guy go with direct tv, cut out the middle man (Cox) cause that is where they buy their signal from

 

[AZDesertRat]

Pardon the intrusion but I could also use some help/advice on a cable internet question.
I just had Cox high speed internet hooked up last night and now I would like to set up a wireless network so I can bring my lap top home from work. I have no idea where to start, what to buy or how to install it.
My laptop has a Proxim LAN Gold ORiNOCO 11b/g PC Card, whatever that means? On the back it says IEEE 802.11 b/g PC Card, Model 8470-FC. They guy who hooked up the internet said he recommends a LinkSys wireless router?
Any help would be appreciated.

 

[aztbs]

Thanks for all the replies. I was a PrimeStar customer for years and they were bought out by DirectTV. I would say that the DirectTV service was OK, but I had issues with them the last time I moved. Besides, I use cox for internet and do not want to change my email addresses.

For those that suggest to make cox do the work, they do not want to help beyond the 3 TV's I have. They will do everything to make the two TV's with the receiver boxes work, but not any more. Can someone link an example of an appropriate amplifier?

AJ - since your wireless card on the laptop is capable of 802.11g, then make sure you buy a router that is also. Here are a few examples:

DLink

Netgear

Linksys

The router will probably have four wired ports for your desktop PC if you have one. I have a DLINK router myself and I am quite happy with it. There are all different price levels as you can see depending on what kind of options you want. If you are just looking for connectivity, the DLINK above with the rebate is a great deal.

Whatever you do, you MUST set up a password/some security in the configuration. THe startup guides that they come with are very clear to help you do this. Otherwise, this board is full of IT geeks like me that would gladly help you out.

(and I don't habe a TV in the bathroom - that's what the video ipod is for... )

 

[AZDesertRat]

SuperGeek !
Thanks Tif.

 

[joeyf]

I have been using a Dlink router for quite some time, but I cannot reccomend them. They are unstable IME. I can, however, reccomend Linksys. I really like their 11g routers. The speedboost one is pointless if all you're doing is internet, but go with it if you are planning on large file transfers.

A couple things to make sure that you have done on your router to ensure security are- 1)make sure that you have WPA encryption and MAC filtering set up, and 2)turn SSID broadcasting off and do not have your SSID as your router's model #. It may sound like a foriegn language, but if you have someone help you set it up (that actually knows what they are doing) they will know what these are.