Here’s another question that comes from our support lines. You see, of all the cables we have at Solid Signal, most are not rated for burial. In fact only a few are. So what if you want a cable for burial, and we have that type of cable but not in a burial rated version?
What is burial rated cable anyway?
Well, it’s cable that is supposed to perform well when you bury it. But there’s a little more than that. Typically, burial rated cable will have three characteristics that non-burial-rated cable might not have.
Visibility
It’s not always true, but often times you will find burial rated cable in a bright color that stands out. You’ll see burial rated cables in yellow, orange, blue, and other colors like that. The reason is obvious...
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There’s nothing better than coming home from a long day’s work, turning the car off, and going inside. The little things during the day actually get us through the storm. Sometimes, closing your garage door without any trouble is just that.
Think about it: who wants to waste another ten minutes struggling with their garage door? That’s the reality for people who still need to move on to newer methods and technologies. Manual labor days and traditional garage doors are a thing of the past.
This article focuses on smart garage door openers, exploring the science behind them and shining light on the benefits they bring. In addition, we will cover the importance of working with professionals and the value that they bring.
What’s Behind...
That’s right, longtime readers, I’m back to writing about Star Trek. Maybe it’s been on my mind since the long-awaited last season of Discovery finally made it to screens. Or maybe the idea of Trek never left.
This time around, I want to point to to The Roddenberry Archive. For the last year or so, this web site has been showing you virtual reality visions of pretty much every Star Trek location they can. These are really well-done 3D models. The Archive was originally only available to those with VR headsets, but it’s been rendered so that anyone with a screen can use it. There’s also an incredibly well-rendered series of videos which show you little snippets of stories using 3D renders of original actors. No word if the families of...
If you look at Solid Signal, you will see hundreds of parts designed for waveguides. You can shape a waveguide, connect a waveguide, cut a waveguide… all of this sounds great unless you’re asking yourself:
What is a waveguide, anyway?
You can think of a waveguide as a hose for radio signals. Signals that come in are kept inside and directed, in an orderly way, down the waveguide to somewhere else where they can be received and put on a cable.
The shape of the waveguide makes this possible. Depending on what sort of signals you are trying to receive, the waveguide could be shaped like a hot dog or a box or a mostly round tube. Different frequencies respond to different shapes of waveguides.
Waveguide theory goes back to the very end...
Here at the Solid Signal Blog we have staff members who remember 1984 like it was yesterday, and others who hadn’t even been born yet. It helps us keep a fresh perspective. So, the other day, we were spitballing about the way things were thirty years ago. Everyone agrees that 100 years ago the world was a very different place, but even the oldsters among us were surprised by how much things had changed since 1984. Sure, computers were coming and some old tech was on its way out, but just walking around homes or offices back then would reveal a different world. Here are 20 ways that things were done back then:
If you needed to know some obscure fact, you went the library for about an hour.
If you needed to make a phone call while you...
First of all, dear reader, thanks for coming to The Solid Signal Blog. I know you could get a lot of information from a site like Wikipedia. I like to think that people find this site because we offer not only information, but context. And when it comes to GMRS, context is really everything.
A quick definition of GMRS
GMRS is the General Mobile Radio Service, a set of frequencies in the 460MHz range which are designated for point-to-point mobile use. The FCC’s web site tells you a bit more about that, if you’re curious. It’s not the only service designed for this kind of use. There are several others, including FRS (the Family Radio Service) which operates on the same frequencies. The difference between FRS and GMRS is that you need a...
A while back I was talking to our Signal Pro Rob Young about the way that digital broadcasting works. Rob’s a smart guy and I’ve learned a lot from him. We were talking about some of the common terms that people use to describe the way that this kind of signal drops off at a certain point. I even wrote an article about this, and I called it “the shelf effect.” But Rob calls it “the cliff effect,” and so does Wikipedia. So it’s time to revisit that whole idea, talk some more about it, and you can call it whatever makes the most sense to you.
Before I start…
I guarantee there is some retired engineer out there who will point out that there is no such thing as “digital broadcasting” or a “digital signal.” I will say to a degree that is...
I was recently contacted by a customer with an interesting question. He showed me a picture of his Slimline dish and said it had only two lines coming from it. He wanted to hook up more equipment, but didn’t know the best way to do it.
In order to answer him (and you) I need to explain a little bit.
How a Slimline dish used to work
DIRECTV’s HD dishes have been around since about 2003. They were redesigned in about 2008 into the Slimline version we know today. Before that there were a variety of different designs. One thing they all had in common was a set of four outputs. You can see them at the bottom of the picture above. This is the way that a lot of satellite dish LNBs looked for a long time.
There’s a good reason to have four...
If you’re updating your DIRECTV system, you might need an external multiswitch. Today’s DIRECTV dishes can support up to 13 tuners (meaning 13 receivers, a Genie and 6 receivers, or some other mix) but that may not be enough for you. For commercial customers or home theater fans, you may need more.
It’s easy to upgrade to a more powerful system if you know how to hook it up, but DIRECTV systems are designed for installers who already know what they’re doing. Luckily we’re here to help.
Traditional “Legacy” dishes
You’ll know that you have a legacy LNB if you look at it and it has four connections at the bottom. The more common “SWM” version only has one line but it’s not upgradeable. These four-line versions are in short supply...
If you’re thinking of cutting the cord, you’re probably thinking about an antenna. If you aren’t, you really should be. All of the top rated programs are available live, for free, using an antenna. 90% of Americans can get free television signals in their homes, and chances are right now you could be looking at a couple of dozen free channels that come in without affecting your data caps and without straining your home’s bandwidth. If you’re coming from satellite though, you’re probably worrying about aiming. Don’t be.
Aiming a satellite is hard
When you’re talking about satellite TV, you’re talking about getting a signal from 22,000 miles away. If your dish is off by as little as 1/32″, you’re pointing at an area 30 miles off course...
Quick. Think of your most prized possession. Is it your wedding ring? Your kid’s first blanket? A letter from a departed relative? You probably think it is. I’m here to tell you you’re wrong.
It’s your phone.
Now, maybe you’re not so attached to “this” particular phone. But the “idea” of your phone is critical to you. Think about how you felt the last time you left it at home. Think about what would happen if someone stole it. Now, try to imagine any other thing so valuable that you protect it with a password, your fingerprint, and your face. Your phone is the way you connect to nearly everything in your consciousness.
And it doesn’t actually work that well.
If you’re like most people you have bad cell service at least part of every...
March 9, 2024
Ken moderates a reunion of Growing Pains cast members Tracey Gold, Jeremy Miller and Julie McCullough at the Spring NorthEast Comic Con in Boxboro, MA.
I’m Ken Reid, a stand up comedian from Boston, MA and a life long television fan. I’ve been twice nominated as the Best Stand up in Boston and I have been featured on Comedy Central, NPR, Nerdist, and MSN. I own every issue of TV Guide. Each week a guest chooses an issue at random, picks their viewing choices from that week and the show is our discussion of the tough viewing choices of our past. We get into stories about growing up, people’s relationship with television, some cultural/media studies dissection and I spit out a lot of trivia.
Note: The Ken Reid TV...
Look at a luxury yacht and you’ll find one or two large white gumdrop shapes on the top. Those are satellite domes, and they’re a status symbol for a lot of people. “Look at me,” they say. “I have satellite TV on my boat.” I think that’s cool so I can understand why people brag.
These domes look like they’re pretty large and you would think with modern technology they could be smaller. Let’s dive in.
Are they really that big?
Your average home satellite dish is 39 inches wide. That’s no coincidence… there’s an FCC rule that says dishes smaller than one meter (39.37″) in any direction are ok on homes. Larger dishes could be excluded by an HOA.
Because we’re talking about marine satellite, let’s talk in metric. That dish is actually...
It’s pretty much universal. Love the service, hate the service provider. But does it have to be that way? Listen to this week’s podcast to find out more. Then shop at Solid Signal - Signal Solutions including HDTV Antennas, DIRECTV and DISH Network satellite equipment and home entertainment supplies and accessories and call 888-233-7563 for the best in customer service!
Listen to the podcast your way!
Just choose one of the following:
Option 1: Click on the image above to stream the podcast in your browser. If you use the YouTube player above, be sure to subscribe to get future videos delivered to you!
Option 2: The Solid Signal Podcast is available on several podcast aggregators. Search for us, or tap on the links below on your...
The other day I was mindlessly scrolling through reels and TikToks, as one does in 2024, and I came across a couple of them that seemed both interesting and a little weird. I won’t link them here because honestly I don’t want to give them the exposure. But if you are interested in antennas you have probably seen them too.
The videos are basically the same. Someone solders a SIM card to a USB cord or to an RG6 cable and bingo, they get fantastic results. Sometimes it’s not a SIM card. Sometimes, it’s just the charge cord itself or some other random piece of gear. No matter what, the end result of these videos is amazing reception of hundreds of channels, just by doing this:
There’s only one problem.
It doesn’t really work.
Or, I...
Power banks. They solve a problem that we never used to have. A generation ago, cell phones weren’t that important. A decade ago, a charger that was less than one inch on each side was all we need to keep going. Today it seems like a power bank is a must-have if you’re traveling. I know people who keep them in the car for emergencies. They fill an important need today: more power. If your phone is your best connection to the rest of the world, and it doesn’t even last a day on a charge, you need something to help you keep it charged easily.
Why have a power bank?
Truth is, you know the answer to this question. We love our phones. We love being connected. Try to go a day without touching yours, I bet you can’t. We panic when we leave...
Sometimes, something changes and you don’t even realize it. I’ll admit that this is one of those times.
Here’s the quick answer: If you get an HS17 Genie 2 from Solid Signal, you will probably not be able to connect an external hard drive. There was an inline change to the manufacture of the Genie 2 and in the process, they removed the eSATA port. Let’s dig a little deeper.
eSATA and external hard drives for DIRECTV
DIRECTV’s first HD DVR, the HR20, had a 500GB hard drive. That was enough for about 100 hours of HD depending on whether it was recorded from the satellite or over the air. That’s a lot of capacity, but it’s not unlimited. Keep in mind this was 2006, and USB hard drives were not very fast. Instead of using USB for...
As home theater fans, we’re pretty much conditioned to want the best quality. But, as installers, we have to realize what’s possible and what’s not possible. Here’s a case that I dealt with a few weeks ago:
One of our installer partners was upgrading the satellite system on a boat. Pretty much everything went well except there were a few TVs that gave this message:
On other TVs, the screen would look fine for a few seconds and then go black. They called us at Signal Connect and we had the answer for them: this is generally caused by inferior quality HDMI cables or by older TVs that don’t support the latest content protection. You see, all HD programs on DIRECTV have some sort of copy protection on them so that you can’t just make...
What you see above is a top view of DIRECTV’s AIM meter. It’s a great tool for working with DIRECTV dishes, and in fact it’s the only tool I recommend. Why? Because it’s the only meter that reads every kind of DIRECTV signal. It also has a guided mode which can help even the greenest novice get the dish perfectly aimed.
However, there have been some folks over the years who say that they can’t get any results from their meters. Generally this boils down to two issues: either the meter isn’t set for the correct dish type, or you’re connecting to the wrong port. I’ll go through both issues in this article, which should let you get moving quickly.
IRD or ODU?
The simple answer is that, the line to the dish should always connect to...
The post 50% OFF – Test your USB Chargers and Ports appeared first on The Solid Signal Blog.
Continue reading...
If you have kids in the house, try telling them this horror story.
At that point your kids will just roll their eyes at you, but that’s how we all grew up, right? Caller ID didn’t even hit our lives until the 2000s. Before that you just had to take your chances.
Could we be heading back to that point? It seems ridiculous.
The case for landline phones
A landline phone isn’t a terribly useful thing by today’s standards. You can’t go online with it, and you can’t even take it outside the house, except maybe a few feet if it’s cordless. But we don’t talk too much about the benefits of landline phones, and there still are some.
A landline phone is usually more reliable
Cell towers have batteries in them that can keep them going for...
Believe it or not — and you probably believe it — I get questions like this all the time. In real life people actually walk up to me and just ask them. Sure, they’re people I already know. I know I’m not some sort of real-life celebrity.
So let’s get down to business.
Carrier-to-noise ratio
Carrier-to-noise ratio, or CNR, is the proportion of how much “raw signal” you have vs. how much noise. This measurement is very easy to get, all you have to do is find a carrier wave and then measure its strength. You can also measure the strength of adjacent frequencies to get the noise level without the carrier wave, although modern meters can measure both on the same frequency.
CNR is important because it gives you a raw measurement of how...
In a recent article at Inside the Magic, Disney’s Bob Iger was quoted speaking candidly about Disney+. In a CNBC interview, Iger said,
Disney in general has had a fairly rough half decade. The company obviously lost a lot on its theme park business in the beginning of the ’20s and while that’s bounced back, other segments of the business clearly haven’t. ABC has very few bona fide hits on its broadcast schedule. ESPN seems increasingly marginalized due to competition from dedicated sports apps and regional sports networks. Disney’s movie divisions seem incapable of creating a hit. And then, there’s Disney+.
Now, this is far from the first time I’ve complained about Disney+. The first was when it was announced back in 2017. I was...
This winter, DIRECTV’s Signal Saver has really come in handy. But it’s not for everyone. SignalSaver is a technology that automatically switches to streaming when there’s a problem with the satellite signal. This doesn’t happen very often, but in the case of severe rain or snow, it can happen. Most signal problems fix themselves quickly, but in the case of an outage lasting more than a minute, it’s nice to have the option to keep watching without switching to another device.
How SignalSaver works
In the case of a signal outage, you’ll see one of two screens. If you have a standard receiver you’ll see a message on screen that looks like this:
Genie clients and Geminis that are totally disconnected will see the same message...
See if this sounds familiar. You’ve left your boat alone all winter, and you’re getting ready to go out on your first big trip. You turn on your satellite TV system, and you get this message:
If you have a KVH HD7 (not the newer UHD7) there’s good news and bad news. The bad news is that basic steps like rebooting everything isn’t going to fix the problem. The good news is that there is a fix, and you don’t have to completely upgrade your system even though you have an older satellite system. All you need to do is follow these steps.
Step 1: If you have Starlink, turn the Starlink system off, turn the HD7 off and on again, and test to see if the problem is still there.
Starlink signals can interfere with satellite TV reception...
Chances are if you’re reading this article, you’re looking at an upgrade to some fairly old DISH equipment. The ViP series of receivers from DISH were made from the mid-2000s until the late 2010s. There’s still stock of the ViP222 out there, because it’s a reliable receiver that just plain works.
But, it’s not the latest and greatest device out there in the world of receivers (in other words, non-DVRs.) That title belongs to the Wally, a slick little receiver that takes the great stuff from the 222 series and builds on it.
Here’s what you get if you get a Wally:
With a Wally, you get the Hopper user interface and the Hopper Voice Remote. That means your internet-connected receiver can use the power of Google to control your TV...
WARNING: This article may cause irritation or agitation of the forehead due to hitting it or rubbing it with your palm.
We live in an age of AI. We’re rapidly getting to the point where it will be impossible to believe anything you see, even on video. We’ve been through this before with still images, when Photoshop became common in the 1990s. The world didn’t end then, and at least I hope that the rise in deepfake technology will not cause the world to end now. If we can all believe that things will be ok, it gives us the ability to lean back and laugh at some of the ways the technology is being used.
Like, for example, this YouTuber
YouTuber “There I Ruined It” has been using AI voice generation and the latest generation of audio...
It seems like a silly question, but it’s a good one. In fact until about five years ago it wasn’t technically legal. It wasn’t technically illegal either but there was enough confusion that some companies felt they couldn’t wait. Good news though, and I’ll put it in big letters:
Cellular Signal Boosters are legal for business use.
The problem comes back to the rules that were published back in 2014, and that means we have to talk a little history.
Back in the old days, cellular signal boosters were sort of the “bad boys” of the cell world. Officially, none of the major carriers supported them and they even told you that the use of cellular signal boosters would void your phone’s warranty and even open you up to criminal charges. The...
Here’s the good news: If you have a DISH Wally, you can connect a hard drive to it and turn it into a DVR. The process is automatic – all you do is connect it via USB and plug it into a power source and it “just works.” Yes, there’s an extra fee for DVR service on your account but when you call us at 888-233-7563 we’ll help you with that quickly.
Here’s the bad news: DISH doesn’t sell the hard drives. They’ll tell you the requirements: It has to support USB 2.0, connect via USB-A, and be powered from a wall outlet. (Here’s more information on that.) They also say the capacity has to be under 1 terabyte, but there a plenty of sources to tell you that it’s ok if it’s up to 4TB.
So what can you do?
I’m happy to say that Solid Signal...
If you’re a DISH customer who’s moved from one place to another, you might have heard the term “Western Arc” and “Eastern Arc.” DISH has two complete satellite fleets and there is quite a bit of overlap in them. Both have all the national channels and there are even local channels that are on both actually as well. This would seem a little wasteful. Let’s take a look at how the two US providers handle their satellite fleets and why you would choose one or the other.
First, a little bit about satellite orbits.
All communication satellites orbit the earth at about 22,000 miles. above the equator. They use a trick called “geostationary orbit.” I wrote a whole lot about this a while back, but to put it simply, stuff orbits the earth...
Back in 2012, this blog had just relaunched. I didn’t know exactly what kind of content was going to really work. So all year I worked to bring tutorials, support articles, and occasional laughter to my audience. It wasn’t a very big audience back then but you have to start somewhere. The blog had been largely ignored for about two years and people moved on.
In December I had the idea to recap the year, something I’ve done at the end of every year. I called the first one, “The Year in Signals.” You can check it out if you want, I’ll wait.
Something that’s stayed with us: sports fees
The first ever regional sports fee was levied by DIRECTV in 2012, when the company agreed to pick up “The Lakers Channel” (TWC SportsNet, as it was known...
DISH launched its satellite service in 1996, close to 30 years ago. That’s long enough that there have been several generations of receivers out there. One of the most popular were the ViP series of receivers and DVRs which were available in the 2000s. Even though most ViP hardware is coming on 20 years old, it’s proven incredibly reliable out there in the field. That means a lot of people are out there still wondering if they should keep their old hardware or upgrade to new hardware.
What is the DISH ViP series?
The DISH ViP series were receivers and DVRs capable of high-definition reception. The DVRs had something that made them unique in the marketplace: one DVR could feed two TVs. That made them beloved among thrifty satellite...
There’s a neat feature on all DIRECTV DVRs that lets you record a series quickly and easily. You’ve probably heard about it. All you have to do is press the record button twice on a program in the guide, and that’s it.
The trick is making sure that the recording is set your way. You need to make sure that everything works the way you want. Luckily, this handy guide will help.
If you have a pre-Genie DVR
The feature you’re looking for is called “Record Defaults.” Here’s a step by step guide for finding it.
Press MENU.
Arrow down to Recordings. Press SELECT.
Arrow down to Record Defaults. Press SELECT.
You’ll see a screen like this. It affects how all new series recordings act. In this case, I’m saying that I only want to record...
May 25-31, 1991
This week Ken welcomes author Jason Brant and his wife and co-host of the EXCELLENT YouTube show, “So Bad It’s Good”, Erin Brant to the show.
Ken, Jason and Erin discuss the risk of Erin and Jason wrecking the show forever, loving bad movies, how horrible a person Steven Segal is, vanity project, Neil Breen, how 1991 was the hangover of the 1980s, being barred from watching South Park, growing up in rural Western PA, Hershey, Pittsburgh, cigarettes, Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, Kevin Costner, Waterworld, T2, Transformers, childhood movie trauma, Space Camp, National Geographic, Boston mobsters, vomit bags, how amazing Steven Webber is, Wings, the wonder of Roy Biggins, America’s Funniest People, Kidney Magazine...
Over 90% of people experience bad cell service at some point in the day. That’s because almost every modern building is constructed to block cell phone signals! That’s right, all the same energy-efficient upgrades that keep heat and cold out also block cell phone signals.
Luckily there’s a way to bring great cell service into your home, office, or vehicle. It’s easy to install, has no monthly fee, works with all phones, and is futureproof. It’s called a cell phone signal booster, or cell booster for short.
How a cell booster works
Courtesy of weBoost
Cell boosters use three parts which, when working together, give you great service inside your home, office, or vehicle. There’s an outside antenna which is mounted up as high as...
The other day I was looking through some old stuff on YouTube and I was reminded that it wasn’t that long ago that 256GB of flash memory cost about $500. Today, you can find that same amount of memory on some large shopping sites for about $7. But generally, the stuff you see on sites like Amazon from brands you’ve heard of cost about $20. These are the prices for MicroSD. If you look for CFast cards, which is what our Blackmagic cameras use, they’re about $50 on those other sites and $250 on Amazon.
Does it really make a difference?
Simple answer: yes
CFast cards, MicroSD cards, even solid state drives (SSDs) and flash drives are essentially the same thing. They are a form of computer chip that has two unique qualities. The first is...
It’s summertime and you’ve decided to pile everyone into the family truckster for a road trip. When you were a kid, you got through the long drives by counting Volkswagens or playing “I Spy.” You probably know your kids well enough to know that’s not going to quite do it. You’ll be lucky to get them to look up from their phones when you actually get to Mount Rushmore, never mind getting them to look out the window before that.
No, the family’s going to want to be on their phones, that’s just life in 2018. And it’s your job as the parent to make sure that happens, because the last thing you want while you’re on the road are cranky kids. You want this to be the kind of trip that everyone will look on fondly for years to come.
Here’s how...
We take a look at the lasting impact of Larry David on culture, and it’s pretty, pretty, pretty big. Want great service? Shop Solid Signal - Signal Solutions including HDTV Antennas, DIRECTV and DISH Network satellite equipment and home entertainment supplies and accessories or call us at 888-233-7563.
Listen to the podcast your way!
Just choose one of the following:
Option 1: Click on the image above to stream the podcast in your browser. If you use the YouTube player above, be sure to subscribe to get future videos delivered to you!
Option 2: The Solid Signal Podcast is available on several podcast aggregators. Search for us, or tap on the links below on your mobile device. If you want us to add another aggregator leave a comment...
Over 90% of people experience bad cell service at some point in the day. That’s because almost every modern building is constructed to block cell phone signals! That’s right, all the same energy-efficient upgrades that keep heat and cold out also block cell phone signals.
Luckily there’s a way to bring great cell service into your home, office, or vehicle. It’s easy to install, has no monthly fee, works with all phones, and is futureproof. It’s called a cell phone signal booster, or cell booster for short.
How a cell booster works
Courtesy of weBoost
Cell boosters use three parts which, when working together, give you great service inside your home, office, or vehicle. There’s an outside antenna which is mounted up as high as...
This question came to me the other day, and it took me a while to figure out the right way to answer it on this blog. The first thing I needed to do was write a title for this article, and that was one of the hardest parts! Here are some of the other ones I thought of:
Why does a bar owner pay more to show baseball than a person at home?
Why can’t you stream movies at at bar or restaurant?
Why can you watch MLB.TV on your phone in a bar, but they can’t put MLB.TV up on the bar TVs?
Why is sports programming treated differently in bars than other kinds of programs?
These all might seem like different questions, but they’re not. Why? Because the answer to all of them is really the same. It comes down to some basic parts of the law...
According to several sources, DIRECTV will start offering customers the option to opt out of local channels in their satellite packages. It looks like you could save $12 a month by opting out, and you might have that option as soon as this summer.
I don’t know how popular this option will be. I will say that you can get a lot of prime-time programs through Hulu, Peacock, and Paramount+. But not every city has local news and sports available over streaming. I’m a big believer in local media whether it’s TV, local web sites or even newspapers. There’s an old saying that “all politics is local politics” and I think that it’s never been more important to watch what’s going on in your community.
But, it’s great that you’ll have a choice...
A customer asked this recently. It’s really not that weird of a question! After all, we’re in the age when it seems like every box in your home theatre is trying to be “the only one you need.” Your TV has streaming apps built in. So does your satellite TV box. Your streaming box has ways to give you live content as if it were a traditional cable box. And, if you have a dedicated gaming console, it probably lets you use the major streaming apps.
Before I answer, there’s a surprising history here.
DIRECTV Game Lounge
As further proof that you can find literally everything on YouTube, here’s a short history of DIRECTV’s Game Lounge:
Game Lounge was an interactive service that ran on DIRECTV satellite receivers in the late ’00s and...
The post Connect more TVs AND boost their signal! appeared first on The Solid Signal Blog.
Continue reading...
Over 90% of people experience bad cell service at some point in the day. That’s because almost every modern building is constructed to block cell phone signals! That’s right, all the same energy-efficient upgrades that keep heat and cold out also block cell phone signals.
Luckily there’s a way to bring great cell service into your home, office, or vehicle. It’s easy to install, has no monthly fee, works with all phones, and is futureproof. It’s called a cell phone signal booster, or cell booster for short.
How a cell booster works
courtesy of weBoost
Cell boosters use three parts which, when working together, give you great service inside your home, office, or vehicle. There’s an outside antenna which is mounted up as high as...
Congratulations! You’ve decided to go with an outdoor antenna. You’re serious about cutting the cord, that’s for sure. Outdoor antennas will help you get reception up to 70 miles away, and you’ll pull in the strongest possible signal. They’re the real deal.
Almost immediately after you decide though, you’re struck with a question:
How do I mount this thing?
Good question. Obviously there are a lot of choices out there. Smaller antennas tend to work best with J-mounts, which attach easily to the side of the house or to the roof. If you’re desperate not to drill a single hole, there are non-penetrating mounts, which rely on cinder blocks or other heavy objects to keep them in place. Although they are most often seen on flat roofs...
That’s right folks. It’s taken over a decade of hard work, but the Solid Signal YouTube Channel now sits at 10,000 subscribers! It hit that landmark about two weeks ago with a sudden rush of subscribers in the middle of March. (Chances are that had something to do with DIRECTV’s satellite problems around that time.)
But, I wanted to take the time to reflect back on the history of the channel and why I’m so glad to report 10,000 subs when other channels have millions.
Our YouTube channel circa 2012, and now
I took over our YouTube channel in 2012 when there were a grand total of two videos on it. Specifically, this one and this one. Those videos received a total of about 8,000 views in the four years between the time they were posted...
Our customers tell us all the time how much they like the Gemini Air. There’s just something about having a remote with real buttons. People understand what they need to do, and it’s a real source of comfort for people who are moving over from cable. Plus, it’s not just about great DIRECTV programming. The Gemini Air is a full-featured 4K streaming device powered by the Google Play Store.
There are a few people who have said that they’ve experienced audio drops. It’s hard to know where these audio problems come from, but there’s an easy way to fix them.
The issue is Dolby Audio
When you get your Gemini Air, it’s set to use Dolby Surround as the default. This means that your content will sound great when put through a surround system...
Netflix’s supposed blockbuster 3 Body Problem has come and gone, and I think it’s fair to say that it didn’t have the impact that we all thought it would. For months, we’ve been primed to think that this was going to be the next Game of Thrones. The problem is that while it’s stylish, it’s not thought provoking or really even unique. Season one ends without any real resolution (no surprise there) and there were scant few really interesting things about the show along the way. So what went wrong?
(Vague spoilers ahead, you’ve been warned)
Problem 1: Netflix dumped it all at once
The entire season was available on day one. In most cases that’s fine. I actually like when streamers do this, because it lets me take things on my schedule...
Your car is smarter than you think. It knows how you drive, in many cases it even knows where you drive. Today’s cars are really miracles of modern technology, full of computers and diagnostic tools.
Of course it wasn’t always like this. There was a time that a qualified mechanic needed a collection of arcane tools and a keen intuition in order to understand what was going on with a car. Those days are gone, and today’s mechanics rely on computer diagnostics more than their eyes and ears. You may think that’s a move in the wrong direction, but sometimes progress doesn’t work the way you want.
In order to make it easier for computers to interface with cars, you need to have a standard interface. Otherwise, a repair shop would need a...
Ask anyone of a certain age what their favorite adventure film is, and there’s a good chance you’ll say Raiders of the Lost Ark. Forget for a minute that, apparently, Indiana Jones is completely irrelevant to the events of the film. Forget also, that the film itself is an homage to films from 40 years earlier, hardly original, and a little hard to follow the first 6 or 7 times you see it. None of that really matters. What matters is that somehow, that recycled plot, those hack actors, and that irrelevant main character somehow add up to great fun, something that was as short in supply in 1981 as it is today in 2024. It’s no wonder that the film still has its ardent fans.
How else could you explain…
YouTuber “Gluecement” has put...
