after a bit a checking around, i have found that the problem happens to anyone in my neighbourhood using direct lines. anyone with a box is fine. i’m wondering if this is the cable companies way of getting more money.
you pay for the cable line, get basic cable. if you want premium channels you get the box. cnn has been fine for years except from mid sept on.
would this be something cable companies do? force the box charge? couldn’t they pick lifetime or some such rather than cnn for this?
I guess I read the OP a little more literally than you. I consider “selecting cable” and “fiddling with the antenna” to be enabling himself to aquire the bonus channels. The OP has the right to protect himself from harm caused by the cable company’s negligence, but no right (IMO) to reap any benefit.
Besides, I liked the keg analogy.
Hmm. I have read the document, and I respectfully disagree. I didn’t see anything specifically addressing the issue of leakage, but there was a subsection regarding the manufacture and distribution of gadgetry designed to intercept cable signals.
My rabbit ears were not designed to intercept cable signals, only to pick up broadcast signals. And assuming that what I am doing is illegal, by prosecuting me the cable company would basically be admitting that they were doing something even more illegal by allowing their signal to leak over the airwaves. And I do think the “problem”, if you want to call it that is, in fact leakage. When we had cable, in rainy weather, our reception would usually become quite crappy, and it was not uncommon for us to lose our cable signal altogether even in clear weather. It happened so often that we quit calling the cable company about it. It would usually come back in a few hours, or at worst by the next day. Right now it’s raining, has been all day, and our reception started to go bad and we finally lost it just before noon. The day my mom had been playing around with the antenna and found that she could pick up the local channels and a couple of cable channels with bad reception, it had been raining, but by the time I got home from work, the rain had stopped and that’s when we started being able to pick stuff up.
I live in a low-income area, and it’s likely that in this part of town the cable company doesn’t consider it financially worth their while to check and maintain their equipment. I seriously doubt that anyone in this part of town is going to complain to the FCC that the cable company is spilling cable signal all over our nice, clean airwaves.
Does the FCC send people around to check on this sort of thing? I mean, do they have a Leak Patrol that goes around testing the cable companies’ equipment to make sure unauthorized signal isn’t contaminating the environment?
In some municipalities it’s illegal to leave your keys in your car. Does this mean that if I find a car with the keys in it, the car is mine?
But yeah, go ahead and use the signal. The worse they can do (I think) is charge you for all those months you’ve been using it. It’s not exactly grand larceny.
Do you know that generally if your cable is off for a couple days they don’t nave to refund you for that? You’re messin’ with big business here, fella.
There was a thread on this four or five years ago, and I remember it being mentioned that the FAA and/or the FCC was very strict about cable leakage interfering with aircraft navigation. Lo and behold, about a year later the cable company shows up at my door asking for permission to do a leak test. Sure enough, they said the amplifier I was using was the source of the leak and they replaced it at no cost. So, at least in Orlando, they do check.
Depends on the signal. The father of a friend bought a “decommissioned” USAF distress beacon to hang on his wall as a novelty – the amplifier and transmitting antenna were removed. By chance, however, he hung it on a nail that was a precise fraction of the signal’s wavelength, or a wavelength-distance from an outlet, or something like that (his daughter, my friend, was not 100% on the physics of it). How do we know it was a fraction or multiple of the wavelength?
Because for about a week he had planes buzzing his house, and then one day two men in dark suits showed up and told him he was being fined $10,000 for broadcasting a false military distress signal. He showed them the beacon, they confiscated it, and after about a week of his lawyer arguing with them, they dropped the charges and the fine.
…but they probably don’t do that for premium cable channels. 
Ya’ know, I can remember when the law was that “the airwaves are free”. It’s been within the last ten years or so, (I think) that if a person had the technical wherewithal to grab cable signal out of the air without actually tapping into the cable company’s cables, it was perfectly legal to do so. While some people did just that, the majority of folks who wanted cable still shelled out for the service, and the cable companies made beaucoups bux.
And really, I have no way of blocking the cable signal from entering my apartment, so it’s not like I have the wherewithall to “return” the cable company’s property. And really, the “key left in the car” analogy doesn’t work. If I stole the car, the owner would be without a car. If I “steal” cable signal that happens to be floating through my apartment, by picking it up on an ordinary set of rabbit ears, the cable company isn’t really out anything. If I couldn’t pick the signal up with the antenna, I would simply do without it, so it’s not like the cable company would have a paying customer were it not for their own failure to maintain their equipment as required by law. Also, auto theft is a felony, and leaving the keys in the car is a misdemeanor. As long as I’m not using the signal for commercial purposes, by not maintaining their equipment in a way that prevents the signal from leaking out into the public airwaves, they are committing a far more serious offense than I am. Near as I can figure, if I were caught and prosecuted, at most I would have to pay a $100 fine.
I think the situation is more akin to somebody leaving a book at my house, and in a situation where it is a lot easier for them to come by and pick it up than it is for me to return it by physically taking it to them (say, a 20 minute drive vs. an hour and a half by bus, which would not be unusual in this town) If I were to read the book before they came back and got it, it would be no skin off anybody’s teeth.
For those that feel that it is illegal to watch a signal that comes into their TV screen uninvited, consider this scenario. I have an antenna, and it picks up signals from leaky cable systems, neighbor’s amplifiers, and standard, over-the-air free TV stations.
One fine day, there is a loud knock at the door.
“TV Police! Open up!” :eek:
“Yes?” :dubious:
“We have a report that you are stealing channel 7. This is a serious offense, Sir! You are under arrest – come with us!” :mad:
“No, no! I was watching channel 6! And 8! But I skipped over 7!” 
“Oh, that’s OK, then. Sorry – our mistake. Carry on.”
This message brought to you by the letter “C” and the word of the day is “Leakage”:
Himself says,
"Per FCC regulations concerning egress of cable modulated signals, there indeed are several ways they capture data to see if a cable operator, or in this case a MSO (Multi-System Operator) is in compliance with the following called CLI or Cumulative Leakage Index:
‘The FCC has set maximum individual signal leakage levels for cable systems. As a further measure, the FCC requires cable operators to have a periodic on-going program to inspect, locate and repair leaks on their systems. In light of the potential for catastrophic harm that may be caused by a cable system interfering with aeronautical navigational and communications radio systems, the Commission requires more stringent regulations for cable systems that use aeronautical frequencies (which are located on channels 14-16, 25-53 and 98-99).’ (Information located here .)
The cable operators do this with Fly-overs twice a year (warmest / coldest month of the year) and roving patrols (either service technician related or task specific leakage patrol duties).
Check out this link for a case where a cable operator did not comply with the leakage requirements. The post is a copy of a court document filed by the FCC.
(this was really really kewl)
Anyway, hope that helps out the discussion on leakage - and as a side note, if a cable service technician comes to your door and asks to investigate a leakage problem - please let them in, because in the long run it will improve your reception. Thank you. "
IANAL, but he is a cable technician & does know his stuff - he has to. Hope this gives you some more information from the G-man’s mouth.
Himself reallly really likes his work.