Frequent RG Resets - Oh, not again!

The wife woke me up at 3 AM - no TV, no internet!  NOT AGAIN!   YES AGAIN!

20 or so link retrains in 24 hours but most happen @ night.

Called -2020 at 8 AM.  Got transferred to a T2 who said that he was on a "frequent responder" team or some such.  He had the gall to say "it's running now."  I wanted to reach through the phone and bop him, even though that meant reaching all the way to manilla.   He put us in for an 8 AM to noon TODAY tech visit and I requested a manager / supervisor to attend also.  He arrived at 11:30 and he mentioned that also was on a "frequent responder" team.  He went over possible scenarios but retreated outside the house for 45 minutes and during that time another PT arrived (his boss).

Guess what?  They finally said sometrhing that jibed with UVRT - AM (broadcast band) interference!  When he said that, I said "near 1.1 MHz?"  His eyes glazed over and he said, "yeah, eleven hundred AM."  He kept looking at me as if "how do you know this."  I mentioned UVRT and he said, we use that. Huh?  They use SJ's software?  SJ - Did you get a cut?

He also rerouted our groiund connections.

At any rate, the interference is widespread over the entire line (not just our house).  There are no locall radio stations between 1100 and 1120.  He noted that he put in a I&R trouble ticket and noted the interference.  He said that I&R should be able to ground away such interference.  My wife said that they are there, now.  We shall see.

I lost 4 more hours of vacation time, due to this. 

I hope this resolves that issue.  Last night my rg reset at about 8:15pm.  I thought the problem was back for me, but it only did it once.

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@RCSMG wrote:

I hope this resolves that issue.  Last night my rg reset at about 8:15pm.  I thought the problem was back for me, but it only did it once.

Not resolved but not quite as bad as it was.  I have been dealing with Roy and Andy at the Social Media team (maybe David's group?).  Today I got an email from Phillip and he said that his specialty is noise mitigation on VDSL over copper.  So that seems to fit my need.   He has instructed the manager and tech in my area  what to do.  It seems that there is some short, in the loop.  It must be affecting the entire neighborhood as my daughter at the end of our street who has Comcast, reports always seeing a U-Verse truck at the house on the corner.

Maybe, just maybe, we are making progress.

At least they are trying.

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@RCSMG wrote:

At least they are trying.

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Indeed.  I have heard from two members today of the social media team.  There is a premesis tech onsite as we speak.  One rep said "your line is HORRIBLE! "  He hinted at two possible bridge taps and noted all of the interference on the line.  Another tech has given I&R specific instructions.  Both thanked me for my work on the forums.  It pays to advertise, I guess.

This is extremely important to my wife and I that it gerts fixed, omce and for all.  This morning, the RG was flashing more red than green.  The wife's guilty pleasure of watching some wedding overseas, tomorrow morning, before sunup, hangs in ythe balance.   I have tried my OTA box and with a lousy indoor antenna, no local stations came in reliably.

They are really trying!

Both PT and I&M guys were out yesterday.  My POTS line and U-Verse are now on two separate pairs.  They replaced about a block of what the PT called "junk (main) cable" and the RG.   The RG is the new black one and as such, I had to get a Wireless adapter as I was using the PC-USB port as my NIC card was bad in my PC.

Phil from Tech Support in Texas said that there is still more work to be done but I should see immediate improvements and I have!  NO uncorrected blocks for 17 hours - normally I would see some in 17 minutes.  Awesome effort!!!

The main take away is that if I had "junk cable" on my run to the VRAD, others may too.  Why not test every piece of infrastructure on a weekly basis?  But again, they took it to ensure that I was taken care of.

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@flhthemi wrote:

 

Since we (U.S.) have gone digital, OTA, unless you are real close to the transmitting antenna, just about requires your antenna be connected to an amplifier. They don't broadcast OTA with as strong a signal as they used to. I use a little antenna I bought from Radio Shack that has an 10db amp and get great reception from Charlotte locals and i'm in Troutman NC. I'm lucky, my U-verse has only been out once in 2.5 years and that was just the other day. Too bad I'm leaving over another issue that I have no option to "Rethink Possibilities" with and have a future with U-Verse/AT&T.

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Actually, the transmit power level is the same as it was when the station was broadcasting NTSC analog.

But ...  (isn't there always a "but"? )

The ATSC digital OTA signal is much more prone to problems with multipath distortion, impulse noise (especially for VHF low frequencies e.g. channels 2-6), and doppler shift.  This makes it such that the ATSC signal does not cover nearly as large of a geographical area as the NTSC signal did at the same transmit power.

In fringe areas, the NTSC signal was receiveable but just had a bit of snow in it (which was noise caused by amplifying the very weak signal).  In those areas now, the ATSC signal will have the same amount of noise when amplified, but then the signal becomes non-decodable, thus no reception.

To put it short and sweet with Digital TV at your location it either works or it doesn't.