I had to take some vacation time and today was one of those days. The cable TV channels started acting up Saturday (blocky, jerky sound, channels not appearing, etc.) and none of my messing with the cables, amplifiers, resetting the cable box, etc., got it working perfectly. They had an appointment available, so we scheduled it for 3-5 PM today.

He called at 4:55 PM and said he was on his way...

We talked a bit, he did some looking around and checking. He said we were "at the end of the line" which probably explains why nobody else had reported problems whenever we called to complain. (It also makes me wonder if everyone else in the neighborhood has FIOS or DirecTV though. ;-)

He ran a new "commercial grade" cable from the pole to the house, put a new splitter just before it passed through the wall, and did some checking and said everything should be fine. And it seems to be. He said the amplifier I got from Amazon checked out fine and wondered where I got it - he was surprised that Amazon carried it.

He was here a little over an hour.

The smoke test will be the next heavy rain, but we're optimistic. So unless things changes, we'll probably not look into FIOS and the like for a while.

Cheers,
Scott.