It’s always a fascinating experience to hunt down and eliminate bugs. It is even more so when the bug is “no satellite info” displayed on the TiVo screen. So it was with great surprise and unhappiness that I found this message on my TV last night and no signal present on the TiVo.
I checked the usual suspects: tree branches blocking the dish, loose cables, a TiVo reboot, temperature check, etc. All of these turned up empty. Since it was late I went to bed and wondered what the problem could be.
This morning I trekked out to the cable closet at the end of the complex. There I found dozens of coax cables cut completely through. Seeing this, I decided to go pickup a cable / line tester at Fry’s. To my reserved amazement, yes, some of those cut wires were indeed mine. How did this happen? Why would someone do this?
Just a few hours after doing all of the legwork to determine this, a Comcast technician drives by. Our conversation goes like this:
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Me: Hey. Were any of your guys out working at this building [pointing to my home] this week?
Tech: Yeah, they were out all this week.
Me: Well, did they go into the cable closet? My neighbor and I have no TV signals now.
Tech: Oh, really? Did you file a trouble ticket?
Me: Uh, no. Neither of us subscribe to Comcast. We’re satellite owners.
Tech: Oh. Someone probably should look at that.
Me: Yes, they should. Why would they cut our cables if we aren’t even on Comcast?
Tech: Hmm. I’ll write it up.
After that he sped out of the parking lot faster than I’ve ever seen an installer go. Something tells me that they probably did this on purpose, since clearly there are bits of cut cable and coax ends strewn all over the closet. I think I’ll be having some words with Comcast shortly.