unanounced visit from VM engineer

grog68

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Just been sat here working away and my broadband went off, looked out of the window and saw vm engineer at the green box, 'ah he's probably doing something and it will be back on shortly' I thought. He then came knocking at the door. Aparently there is a 'spike' showing at the box, when he disconnected my the spike leveled off and he wanted to check me connections at the brown box.

He asked what I had connected, and I explained I used to have the TV package but now just have the Broadband. OK great, let me trace the cable from router back to brown box and I can check it he says.

So at the brown box I had a 3 way splitter, he has taken that out of line and just reconnected the BB connection, tested and said that's all good now and the spike is no longer showing.

I asked if it was detected automatically or just after regular maintenance/checks. He said the master box showed a spike so he now has to check the smaller boxes and that's when he discoverred the issue was coming from us.

So what does that mean for me - I've got no cable TV at the moment as each feed to the TV's came from brown box which he has now disconnected.

The upstairs box is not important as it has a sat feed and really is only used for watching recordings on main box or freeview channels and I think that was probably the bad cable as there is a join in it outside which may have water ingress.

Now, I have two options, get a splitter and reconnect downstairs tv back to brown box, or run a cable to a splitter at the router but that's in another room so a pain in the rear end.
 
Just been sat here working away and my broadband went off, looked out of the window and saw vm engineer at the green box, 'ah he's probably doing something and it will be back on shortly' I thought. He then came knocking at the door. Aparently there is a 'spike' showing at the box, when he disconnected my the spike leveled off and he wanted to check me connections at the brown box.

He asked what I had connected, and I explained I used to have the TV package but now just have the Broadband. OK great, let me trace the cable from router back to brown box and I can check it he says.

So at the brown box I had a 3 way splitter, he has taken that out of line and just reconnected the BB connection, tested and said that's all good now and the spike is no longer showing.

I asked if it was detected automatically or just after regular maintenance/checks. He said the master box showed a spike so he now has to check the smaller boxes and that's when he discoverred the issue was coming from us.

So what does that mean for me - I've got no cable TV at the moment as each feed to the TV's came from brown box which he has now disconnected.

The upstairs box is not important as it has a sat feed and really is only used for watching recordings on main box or freeview channels and I think that was probably the bad cable as there is a join in it outside which may have water ingress.

Now, I have two options, get a splitter and reconnect downstairs tv back to brown box, or run a cable to a splitter at the router but that's in another room so a pain in the rear end.
Very suprised he didnt ask to see equiptment that was connected at the time but i think they are not allowed to just turn up without a pre booked appointment etc.
Do you know what your router power levels were like before he disconnected the splitter.
If he has indeed spotted a fault im suprised you had not noticed with broadband dropouts etc.
 
Very suprised he didnt ask to see equiptment that was connected at the time but i think they are not allowed to just turn up without a pre booked appointment etc.
Do you know what your router power levels were like before he disconnected the splitter.
If he has indeed spotted a fault im suprised you had not noticed with broadband dropouts etc.
I've not had any noticable drop outs in broadband, and no he just asked what I had connected and then disconnected the unused feeds. he said there was a lot of noise on the feed but once he had removed the 'unused' feeds it was fine. I did quickly disconnect two connected boxes while he was outside just in case he wanted to check, one (h52tc) I left just connected to sat (for freesat of course) the other I put in cupboard. I do know the one upstairs has an issue of some channels not clearing but they clear downstairs which I have always put down to poor cables.
 
I've not had any noticable drop outs in broadband, and no he just asked what I had connected and then disconnected the unused feeds. he said there was a lot of noise on the feed but once he had removed the 'unused' feeds it was fine. I did quickly disconnect two connected boxes while he was outside just in case he wanted to check, one (h52tc) I left just connected to sat (for freesat of course) the other I put in cupboard. I do know the one upstairs has an issue of some channels not clearing but they clear downstairs which I have always put down to poor cables.
Yeah if the joined cable is outside i would probably bet the connection is damp and interfering with the power levels and signal etc.
Shame you still aint got virgin tv box you could have asked them to put a new cable in lol
 
just get another splitter and reconnect. your splitter could have been casuing the issues
it may well be, it was the orriginal splitter they put in 10+ years ago.

I have a 2 way splitter here so am going to connect it tomorrow, wanted to make sure he's left the area before reconnecting LOL
 
I've not had any noticable drop outs in broadband, and no he just asked what I had connected and then disconnected the unused feeds. he said there was a lot of noise on the feed but once he had removed the 'unused' feeds it was fine. I did quickly disconnect two connected boxes while he was outside just in case he wanted to check, one (h52tc) I left just connected to sat (for freesat of course) the other I put in cupboard. I do know the one upstairs has an issue of some channels not clearing but they clear downstairs which I have always put down to poor cables.
I said last year long cables cause problems, you said yours were fine upstairs.
unless they're calibrated by vm at instalation, they can cause noise which will cause missing channels and also interference to other connections
 
I said last year long cables cause problems, you said yours were fine upstairs.
unless they're calibrated by vm at instalation, they can cause noise which will cause missing channels and also interference to other connections
Mine was fine last year, things change over time and the cablle going upstairs is actually shorter than the one going to my router which is at the back of the house.
 
When you put a splitter back in the equation you will need to check power levels in the router
If they are out you may need a HDU as per @Abu Baniaz suggestion earlier
ok my power levels, although have dropped dont look bad.

Before I installed splitter (just router connected this morning)
powerbeforesplit.png


and power levels after I installed splitter and connected the box (just one box)
poweraftersplit.png
 
Power levels look a bit high without the splitter...some are 8 and a few others approaching 8
If you have an attenuator it may help the upstairs box get more channels
 
I've left the upstairs disconnected from cable, just got sat connected to is which gives us what we need when we go up as we normally just watch recordings up there anyway.
 
Yeah i bet if you connect the dodgy cable with the join in it the levels will go through the floor lol time to get them ladders out or a rocket powered jet pack if you got one handy lol :X3::ROFLMAO:
 
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