Our house has at least 4 TVs, so there's a mass of passive splitters scattered around. There's a 2-way passive splitter outside (half to an upstairs bedroom, half to the main part of the house), and I have a 4-way active amplifier splitter where one leg enters the house. Without some sort of amplifier, at least a couple of the TVs don't get a decent signal. I've tried 3 different brands of active amplifiers, with and without special modem ports, with the same results.

On bypassing the 4-way splitter amplifier now, the network works just fine, but of course, the TVs don't.

I guess this means I need to put the 4-way splitter amplifier outside and get the signal directly from the pole. Of course, to gain access to that, I have to trim back some shrubbery, get on a ladder, then run a powered coax line (meaning I have to drill a hole through the foundation, etc., etc.).

(sigh)

Maybe it'll start working again on its own and I won't have to mess with that this weekend.

Fingers crossed.

Cheers,
Scott.

When they've diagnosed things over the phone, e.g. a few weeks ago, there's never a problem on their end, nobody in the neighborhood reports problems, signal levels seem fine to them, etc.

One time they came out and said something was introducing a bunch of noise and I swapped out a passive splitter and that seemed to help. (I can't figure out why a passive splitter would add noise (it should just attenuate), but there you are.)

I really can't spare the time from work to sit around waiting for them to visit during the week, either. :-(

There was a time when I was still in an apartment that my phone would always go dead when it rained. It took about 3 visits for them to finally fix the problem on the pole. :-/

I'll see what I can do outside this weekend. If it's still problematic, then I'll have to bite the bullet and have them visit.

I would like to think that optical fiber wouldn't have these weather/degradation issues, but I know that there are always special connections that can degrade with time (as ozone attacks the plastic, etc.) and there are various optical repeaters along the path, also too. There's no guarantee that it's any more reliable in the real world even though it should be...

Wish me luck!!

Cheers,
Scott.

I like your idea of using the 2nd leg of the external splitter as a dedicated line to the 4-way amplifier, keeping the network alone on the other dedicated half. That should be easy to rig up (a coax cable is already there - the analog cable was originally 2 coax lines). As long as the existing cable isn't too degraded, it should be a pretty easy fix.

But something's definitely not right outside. On coming back from the walk with Sophie, the network had stopped working again... I had to reboot the modem again and reset the router...

Would one of these Fluke TS-54-TDR jobbies help in my case? It's about $487 at Provantage. That would be painful, but within the realm of possibilities, and if it saves me from pulling my hair out or wasting another few weekends, it would be worth it. It's a lot better than $10k!! But if it really wouldn't help diagnose the problems, I have better uses for $500... :-/

After I cut the grass, I'll see about getting up on a ladder and working on the cables...

Thanks.

Cheers,
Scott.

I downloaded the Arris/Motorola Surfboard 6141 manual and will look at what it thinks is going on when I get a chance. With any luck, there will be some useful signal level numbers...

Thanks.

Cheers,
Scott.

The log started working around 4:30 PM today - before that the date is Jan 1, 1970. There was a big line of thunderstorms that came through this afternoon...

Everything seems normal and accessible in the modem - it says I've got 0 to -1 dBmV down, 57 dBmV up.

I assume the next time it crashes, I won't be able to access any sensible information...

We'll see. At least I can try to look at some numbers now!

Cheers,
Scott.

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.