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Thursday, January 28, 2010

Fox News Blacks Out?

Joe, didn't know where I should put this. You may want to use your investigative skills and find out why Mediacom has shown a blank screen on the Fox news station one night a week for the past three weeks and coincidentally it always happens somewhere between 8-11, primetime hours.

Also 'coincidentally' it went off the air tonight right at 9:00p.m. just when Hannity was coming on when everyone knew he was going to go off on Obama's speech last night. Don't want to read conspiracy into it but it does seem strange. Have you heard of anyone with other cable companies having the same problem?

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just put it on Fox news and Hannity is on and I'm watching it.

joealbero said...

Are you on Comcast or Mediacom?

R. Budd Dwyer's .357 said...

I don't think it's a conspiracy per say. The problem with cable here on the shore is signal strength. When the cable companies started to add internet and phone service they split the signal did so without boosting their power to the signal coming to your house. Plus the further you live from the mainframe the worse it gets worse. Don't even bother calling the cable company they refuse to do anything about it, instead co to Lowes or Home Depot and go tot he electrical section and buy a signal booster that allows for two way signal. It costs about $30 and is well worth it. In fact go to youtube and type Comcast sucks in Salisbury, Maryland and watch my video on what I was going through.

Anonymous said...

Cable service does suck around here but if the company truly has 120+ channels like most do and Fox is the only one with no sound or picture it is a little odd.

Anonymous said...

No conspiracy. Mediacomm is just a horrible cable provider.

The politicians really screwed up when they granted these cable companies extremely long, exclusive franchise agreements. We're stuck paying 30% more for cable and we get crap service because there is no competition.

Anonymous said...

I dont know, but you go down there and get you some Jim Beam youll have you a buzz. Have a beer with fear. Dont go nutz its a song.

Anonymous said...

We have Mediacom and it went out as Oreilly was coming on. It's been happening alot lately. Usually during Hannity, Oreilly and Beck shows. It really ticks off my hubby. Mediacom seems to be getting worse and worse. I had to cancel my cable internet because it never worked half the time. My DSL never goes out.

Anonymous said...

try the website comcastmustdie,
even their employees hate them, I worked for an aviation company up in DE, the owner of comcast used to bring his private jet in to be worked on, then beat us up about the bill to get it reduced as much as possible. imagine a $50 million jet and crying about a bill for a few thousand $'s. Your car mechanic has a higher hourly charge then a FBO or repair station. funny how he doesn't let any of his customers get away with a penny!

Anonymous said...

10:07 your completely wrong about signal strength it's done by frequency allocation. The signal strength is very good on the shore in fact the cable system is maintained better on the shore then it is in the city .Most problems occur in the home after the home owner buys cheap equipment to add their own outlets . Every time you add an outlet you reduce signal and create an upstream hurdle . And be careful buying signal boosters some don't allow reverse signal passage and will knock you off line .

Anonymous said...

I have Mediacom and Fox came back on at 11:08 last night. Couldn't find another channel except Fox that was off the air during that time. Someone please explain to me how Fox was the only one going out at that time period. As stated above this isn't the first time this has happened the past few weeks.

R. Budd Dwyer's .357 said...

To Anon 6:45,

Hey Dummy. Did you even read my article. I said to buy a signal booster that allows for two-way signal. I have one line, and one line only from my the street box to my house and it's not split. It was real funny that before my booster, if the tempture outside went above 90 degrees or below 15 degrees, I would get no High Def. All of my signal problems happened AFTER Comcast started phone service, splitting THEIR line another way. Blaming the customer on buying cheap equipment makes me believe you work for the cable company. Blame the victim and not the cause. You wanna know something I've spent well over $15,000 on A/V equipment, and believe me it's the $h!t signal from the cable company that screws up my system.

Anonymous said...

The Fox News went out by some chance one of Oboma's Czars is starting their fight against talk show networks to silence them.

Anonymous said...

9:17 Your an idiot that is talking out your AZZ ! You have an issue in your house probably because you have messed it up or your drop line is bad . Make the service appointment and get someone that knows what they're talking about fix it not a rank amateur ! by the way what is your signal level coming into your house ? I'm sure you can't answer that so let the people who work on it everyday fix what ever the issue is. You have just bandaided your problem with the booster your problem will be back !

Anonymous said...

Why not just watch it online?

R. Budd Dwyer's .357 said...

Anon 10:00

Comcast was at my house 4, I repeat 4 times and admitted there was aproblem, but had NO CLUE how to fix it. There was a six month period were Comcast didn't make me pay because of all the credits they were putting on my account. How's about this you leave a PM on my profile and YOU come out and see what the problem is. I'll even be nice and buy an insurance bond so your "AZZ" will be covered for any damage you might do. Take the offer "Cable Guy". By the way you'll need to sign a waiver because it will be video recorded.
PS, my wall unit was delievering the cable signal at 4 to 5 dB, the industry standard is 15db and for HD it's more, so when I got my signal booster which boosts the signal by 15dB my problem was gone.

Anonymous said...

You should be thankful...at lest you didn't have to eat the crap sandwich Hannity was serving that night.

Anonymous said...

PEOPLE, evidently you're missing the whole point here!! Fox is the ONLY channel going out during the time period everyone is talking about!! What does that have to do with signal strength, frequency, etc.?

Anonymous said...

10:20 The optimum signal behind your TV set is 0 dBmV. Too much signal is just as bad as too little . As for your claims of your service history it sounds a little sketchy . You sound like you got your feelings hurt but your allegations of the cable company splitting the signal for telephone service is false and I corrected you on that . The phone frequency and the HD frequencies are completely different and have nothing to do with one another
and were not split or lowered. I'm sure you would love to video tape a guy in your house but I would never come to your house because I'm sure after you were schooled on cable troubleshooting you would try something out of "Pulp Fiction" .

Anonymous said...

Thought you guys might find this interesting about Mediacom. Fox was off air again last night and just this morning they've added a new channel to their free On Demand system called the 'Black Experience.'

Just press On Demand and you can't miss it. It gives you the option to watch movies, news, specials or documentaries concerning the black experience.

Personally, I think something's going on behind the scenes and would love to see your opinions.

R. Budd Dwyer's .357 said...

To Anon 11:12

I give you facts and you call me a fag. I guess any smart person (non-cable employee) can figure out who is right. Name-calling is the sign of a loser, good-day

Anonymous said...

3:13 You started the name calling! I was trying to correct your inaccurate explanation of cable television. And I know and you know I'm right I was just trying to help but you got all huffy and lashed out . I've been in the industry since it was teletype you obviously have not !

Anonymous said...

I work for a local cable company as an installer and just got home to read this post, and I must say one of your readers is very close and the other has no clue. I will say this, ever since we started to offer phone service in the area, our complaints to customer service is mostly about "lost" channels. A very simple video amplifier will correct the situation. The reason my employer won't supply, these until last resort, is money. We are scheduled to get a mainframe upgrade allowing us to boost our signal strength in the near future.

To the OP, it sounds like Medicom might have a bad QAM module in their system. Being it was8 pm and more people turn on their TV's at that time might have overwhelmed their defective tuner. You can try a video modular and if it fix's it, it's a signal strength problem. If not demand Medicom to fix the problem.
Keep up the great work Joe, and I'll be tuning in on Saturday morning.

Anonymous said...

A signal booster is appropriate if you have a lot of outlets with cable equipment on them like more then say 4. Or if your house is a long distance from the system but every situation is different . If your experiencing an issue let a technician check it out before you spend 40 dollars on a booster .Some recommend a booster instead of fixing the problem which if un repaired will be back !