After getting only three days per work week in December (business in the casinos tends to be slow around the holidays), Mom and I decided to trim some expenses. We had long since cut back to “basic cable”, which is basically the local broadcast channels, but with the reception that cable provides. So, she bought a coupla sets of cheap rabbit ears, found that we could good enough reception that we didn’t need cable, called Cox and cancelled.
Then it started to get weird. She went into the setup menu on her TV and selected “cable”.
We’re picking up all the channels. Comedy Central, SciFi, History Channel, the Discovery Channel, ESPN, MSNBC, and the list goes on. I watched Teen Titans and Justice League Unlimited for the first time tonight.
The reception isn’t awesome, the picture is snowy, but with a bit of fiddling with the antenna, we can get a picture that, depending on which channel we’re watching, ranges from watchable to pretty damn good.
But, how is this possible? How, with a set of rabbit ears you can pick up at Target, can we be getting the full range of non-premium cable channels? Is it a fluke?
Chances are there’s a leaky cable line out on a pole nearby. It’s rarely so leaky that you get decent reception an all the channels, but it does happen. Normally, you can expect spotty reception on a few channels, if anything. Consider yourself lucky. They’ll find the leak and fix it eventually, however. Periodic testing, including reflectometer readings will pinpoint places where signal is radiating away.
There’s another, and possibly more likely, mechanism I just though of. It could be that a neighbor with cable has it hooked up to a signal amplifier in such a way that large amounts of signal are being radiated. This can happen with unterminated cable runs, for example. Again, it’s likely the untintentional emissions will be doscovered and corrected eventually, so who knows how long it will last?
It could be that your cable service has been restored (or never actually cut) and you have both signals comming in together. As you move the rabit ears to get better reception what you are most likley doing is repositioning the antenna to get a weaker signal so the cable signal comes in stronger.
In short: yes, it’s possible. I spoke to the resident expert (my boyfriend) who works for a major cable company (not the one you mentioned) and he explained.
Basically, Q.E.D. has it correct. There is what is called a “leakage” problem, or you have neighbors who have an amp (probably to correct the weak signal your neighbor is receiving due to leakage) and you’re picking up from them.
At this point, you’re not doing anything illegal, so personally I’d say to enjoy it. However, Himself says that technically if they’ve got that strong a leakage, your local cable company is in violation of FCC guidelines. And if (or, I should probably say when) they notice there’s a problem and fix the leakage, one day your magic will go away.
FYI, Himself just told me that at one point, there was a cable system that had such a LARGE leakage problem that the FCC made them go dark for 1 day until it was fixed, and then they took another 2-3 days to come back to full operation. (He doesn’t recall which one.)
we have 2 tvs, one has a cable box, one has a direct line into the tv. around mid sept cnn went “wonky” on both tvs. then it cleared up on both then went wonky again. after a few more days cnn came back on the tv with the box but not on the one with direct line.
Let’s try to narrow things down. First, try swapping the cable box from one set to the other. If there is no change, try swapping the TVs themselves. If that doesn’t do anything, then find the splitter the TVs are connected to and swap the output connections. If you have unused outputs on the splitter (for example, only two outputs used on a four-way splitter), then pick up some terminating resistors at Radio Shack and cap them off. If you have unused cable runs attached to the splitter(s), disconnect them and cap them off as above. Report your results here.
I’m not so sure that’s true. I remember reading about a court decision regarding a device on the market designed to do just what you’re doing. The cable company owns the signal, and by setting your tv and adjusting your antenna you’re intentionally capturing that signal without paying for it.
But, maybe not.
I got rid of my cable because of Shaun Hannity. :eek:
I’d think that if you told them to cancel your cable, and then got a plain old set of rabbit ears, and the cable company’s equipment is pumping their signal into the public space so that your antenna does pick it up, that’s THEIR problem and not yours. Not the same as tapping into their cable or circumventing their system.
I’m in a slightly similar boat - the people I bought my house from must have had cable because I found out that my cable is “on”. I’ve never asked for it (and in fact yanked a lot of coax from under the house when I bought it) and never gotten any kind of bill, so I figure that Comcast or whoever just forgot that it’s still live. I’m enjoying it while it lasts but I suppose they’ll eventually turn it off (it’s been over two years, though).
You probably don’t want to broadcast (hehheh) that info, Valgard.
As I understand it, if you’re using cable’s signal you gotta pay for it. There have been threads on the SDMB about this. you might want to search.
When I was in High School we had morning announcements made via video – and one day, the reception was exceptionally fuzzy, although the sound came in perfectly. After the announcements we realized we hadn’t plugged the cable in :smack:
My reading of this is that reception of programming meant to be distributed by cable is illegal, unless specifically authorized by the distributor (in this case, the cable company), including reception caused by inintended leakage of signal. I’d like to hear the interpretation of one of our lawyer Dopers.
When I switched to satellite in 1997, I dropped my cable service to the very basic level (to get local channels). I’m only supposed to get channels 2-14. However, I also get (with varying degrees of clarity) 22, 23, 75, 76, & 77.
I called the cable company and they sent a guy out. He told me there was nothing he could do. He closed the work order out and that was the last I heard of it. I still get the channels today, but I only have cable attached to one TV (in the bedroom) and I only watch it late at night (11pm news & Leno). If the cable company doesn’t care, neither do I.
There’s a current thread regarding stealing a neigbor’s WiFi signal for use on your own laptop that is highly apropros.
Wish the squirrels would gaze upon me with love and let me find the blasted thing. Anyone ??? The Doper lawyers have already chimed in on that account.
It is theft of service that is not freely provided over the airwaves. Kind of plain and simple. You are drinking whiskey from a leaky keg, and we all know that whiskey is not free.
Cartooniverse: Your whiskey keg analogy is suspect, because the cable company is (as I understand it) operating in contravention of FCC rules relative to how much noise any given piece of electrical equipment can put out. If they do try to stop someone from tuning in, they would first, at least in my understanding, need to show that either the FCC rules don’t apply to them or that they’ve somehow not broken them.
The OP isn’t doing anything to enable himself to acquire the channels beyond turning on his TV set, a necessary precondition of getting a TV signal at all. Since getting a TV signal without paying anyone anything is legal in this country, the cable company can’t very well ask the court to issue an injunction against him operating a TV set. The OP has no control over the state of the cable company’s lines, so he cannot take steps to rectify the anomaly that has allowed him to view unpaid-for channels. (In fact, an attempt on the OP’s part to alter the cables would be an actionable offense in and of itself.) Finally, while the OP theoretically could refrain from tuning into the extra channels, the cable company in my opinion has no grounds to expect any such restraint given that its own equipment is obviously faulty to the point of being worthless at its purported task (that is, keeping unauthorized people from viewing the channels), and possibly illegal to boot.
I inherited a setup that uses a splitter to connect two cable – i.e., a one to two splitter apparently used as a splice. Does the unused connection/terminal “leak” signal? If I find a terminating resistor to cap it will that improve the signal strength on the working circuit?
Terminating resistors simulate the expected load impedance. In the case of TV signals, this is 75 ohms. Without proper termination, the results can be unpredictable. Basically, what happens with an unterminated connection is that the signal - or at least part of it - is reflected back, causing interference and weak signal effects. Whether this is a problem or not depends primarily on the length of the unterminated circuit. A carefully-engineered length of unterminated feedline can actually be used to improve reception, in fact, in the case of an impedance mismatch between the antenna and the receiver front end. This is called stub matching.
