Monday, October 16, 2006

Zart goes Hi-DEAF!!!!!!!

So there I was, 18 feet up the tree in my front yard, pulling up a saw I'd attached to a rope around my torso so I wouldn't have to climb the tree with it in my teeth - and that's when I got busted... My daughter was in her room (which I was kind of looking down on, being up in the tree and all) and she exclaimed loudly

"Daddy! Why are you cutting down the tree!?!?"

My wife hears this..... She comes into my daughter's room holding the telephone(which is for me by the way).

"No way!" She tells me through the open window. Crap!

"Your friend Jim is on the phone, he is going to that big park off Trim road.. And you are NOT about to cut down half the tree so you can watch TV!"..

I got an HD satellite receiver on the weekend, finally ready to join the HD revolution. I first put a sat dish up about 4 years ago, but it was pretty easy.. A single LNB, I even left it to the default Azimuth, 90, hit the sat bird in the sky no probs, Bob's yer uncle.. But TODAY! No luck.. A High Def install needs a second LNB, you need to hit sats 89 and 91, and you need to tilt the dish to 100, Heading 208, elevation 38.4. You run a whole mess of wires into a switchbox, an SW-44 in this case, you power channel 1 on it and that's all there is too it..

Needless to say it was dead in the water.. All I had was 55% on transponder 11. Not enough for a lock. And on a clear day at that. Add a little bit of snow or rain and you can kiss the reception goodbye! So I took a good look at the tree, and how much it had grown in the last 4 years, and figured I had a line of sight problem after I tilted it ever so slightly.. That had to be it. Hence the trip up the tree for a surgical sawing of a major branch which would give me a clear path to my TV programs. As we discussed the matter, I started to get tired of holding onto the tree with one arm and one leg and suggested to my wife that we discuss it further with me out of the tree. Poor Jim on the phone had no idea what he had just stepped into(grin). I took a break and went to the park.
After I got back I decided that my wife was right, I let the tree off the hook and played with the dish pointing some more, with no luck. It was then, after about 4 hours that I gave in, and called frickin BELL. I'm too stupid to install this, please send someone and charge me money!!! They were happy to oblige. As it turns out, my stupid dish was pointed right all along. I had a bad cable coming down from the roof into the switch, which threw that all off (because it is powered) and after the Bell guy changed the ends, it all started to work..

Crap.... I bought a new coax stripper from Home Depot that day.. I won't be making any more cables with my knife anymore. $100 later. Easiest call the guy had that month I'm sure..

BUT HI DEF TV IS COOL!!!!!! You can see wrinkes and zits and stuff on the actor's and actresses faces. The Desperate housewives all look like they are in their mid-40's(like they are in real life).. Hockey is a blast as well..

Me Likey Hi Def!

1 comment:

captain hook said...

Should called a good tech you know next time. First thing he would of said would be meter you frkn cable.