[IRCA] Noisy Cable TV - Part III

["W. Curt Deegan" <WWWR@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The Ongoing Saga of Cable TV Noise, part III:

I'll not bore you with all of what has gone before, but for those who have 
an interest, I thought an update was in order.

This is all about extreme radiated interference from the cable TV coax 
which is seriously affecting reception on MW and doing even more harm on LW.

Having identified the problem noise as emanating from the cable TV coax, a 
service call placed on 10/2 resulted in a repairman being dispatched on 
10/4.  That repairman found my contentions to be unbelievable but did 
acknowledge he detected noise on the cable.  He submitted a work request to 
maintenance who would be out to fix the problem in 7 to 10 days.  Something 
somewhere within the cable system with which he was not qualified to 
tinker, I had to presume.

And there the battle with Them began.  There have been repeated calls to 
Adelphia Cable TV following the promise by the first technician.  No one 
came out in the 7 to 10 days.  Three times since, I was promised a 
maintenance supervisor would at least call and explain what was being done, 
no one has ever called.  Each time I call, the first thing I am told is 
that they are working on buying my cable.  Each time I have had to explain 
that isn't what this is about.  Finally, following a tirade yesterday, I 
was promised another technician who could deal with the problem would be 
dispatched today between 1 and 5.

At 11:30 the cable guy showed up.  Early is way better than not at all, I 
thought.

It turned out this guy was a contract cable installer, not even a repairman 
with test gear.  He had been told he was to finish a partially completed 
installation.  Amongst my complaints all along has been that some of the 
existing coax has been here for over 25 years; hardly an incomplete 
installation issue.  When I explained the real problem, which no one had 
hinted at before dispatching him, he told me I was wrong.  When I 
demonstrated the noise, he said that's just the way it works.  "Do you 
think they would have built it that way if that wasn't the way it should 
be?" he asked.  Certainly a type of logic with which it is hard to 
argue.  His expertise reminded me of the news media, what they believe is 
the way it is and facts have nothing to do with it.  The discussion was 
less than cordial.

However, he gets paid for installing cable, so when I suggested that at a 
minimum the old cable needed to be replaced, that did not meet with similar 
ridicule.  He set about reconnecting the ground block, replacing the 
splitter and fittings, replacing the old coax from the back to front of the 
house -- carefully routed away from my antennas, but on other pretexts -- 
and replacing the connectors on the cable drop from the utility pole.  The 
quality of my cable TV reception -- especially on lower channels -- was 
markedly improved.

The noise was down to previous observed minimums.  He left explaining to me 
how the problem had been the old coax, conveniently forgetting his 
explanation that it was "just the way it works," when he started...whatever.

A couple hours later, as has happened at different times on a daily basis, 
the lull in the noise that had come at just the perfect time to deceive me 
into believing progress had been made, came to an abrupt end, and the noise 
was back as bad as ever before.

Now confident that customer service will never get past sending out people 
who can't deal with whatever the problem really is, I decided to take it up 
a notch.

This afternoon I sent an email to the FCC Complaints department briefly 
describing my problem of cable TV interfering with AM broadcast radio.  I 
explained I had been unable to convince Adelphia Cable they had a 
problem.  On the email, I copied the only Adelphia Cable executive I could 
find with a listed email address, the VP of Corporate Communications.  I 
also copied the Boca Raton City Manager, since the city franchises the 
cable TV service monopoly to Adelphia.

The email copy to Adelphia has already bounced as undeliverable.  In lieu 
of that, I included the text in a fill-in-the-blanks on-line problem 
reporting form and sent it off.  I previously sent one of my complaints 
this way and did get a response, though it was just another customer 
service phone number, who eventually transferred me to the same 
incompetents I had been dealing with.  At least they have the word 
somewhere within the Adelphia organization.

Adelphia is bankrupt or in receivership, whatever.  This the result of 
their former corporate executives, who are now in federal prison, stealing 
from the company coffers for personal use.   The company itself is on the 
block to be broken up and sold to other monopoly operators.  Maybe their 
familiarity with the feds will inspire the current crop of executives, 
assuming this ever results in anything.

Truthfully I have little faith any of this will make the slightest 
difference.  After allowing a reasonable period for responses -- of which, 
quite frankly I expect none -- I'll take the next step and demand the 
problem be fixed or the cable removed.  I don't want to go to satellite, 
but as things stand now, if this is the way cable TV is, I can't put up 
with the noise.  I suspect they will gladly lose me as a customer.

The only problem with making the ultimate threat is that my neighbor has 
cable TV too, and it runs as close to my antennas as does my own -- closer 
now that my cable has been rerouted.  So even if I have my cable TV 
removed, it might make no difference in the level of noise with which I 
would have to contend.  I just wouldn't have cable any more.

We'll see...

Oh, and by the way, as a part of my campaign on this problem, I insisted my 
DSL service was being interfered with by the same cable TV noise.  I could 
hear it on the line and when the noise was at its worst, I had no DSL 
service.  The phone company, amongst others, poo-pooed the idea -- can't 
possibly happen, never heard of such a thing before, etc. -- but they did 
replace what tested as a marginal circuit from my house to the main 
junction box.  My DSL service has been much more reliable since.  Even 
though, each time the cable TV noise kicks in, my DSL modem looses 
synch.  In the past it couldn't recover and DSL would be out until the 
cable noise subsided.  I suspect the balanced phone circuit was not so well 
balanced and common mode noise was not being rejected as it should.  Now 
with the improved circuit, after a minute or so the DSL modem seems to 
recover from the initial noise spike and the Internet connection is 
restored.  This was something else that couldn't possibly be happening, 
according to the cable TV guy and the phone company guy...but it sure as 
hell was and to a lesser extent still is.

God save us from the experts...and the cable company!  So far the hero in 
all this is the phone company.  How weird is that?

Curt
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W. Curt Deegan
Boca Raton, (southeast) Florida


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