TV Land, part 3

The cable guy came today. Remarkably, my appointment time was between noon and 5pm, and he showed up at 12:00 on the nose. Too bad I was at Rotary. After 45 minutes or so of head-scratching, cable-swapping, and complaining about how complicated my setup is, he isolated the problem: the satellite installer used diplexers to save himself from having to run another set of cables. The installer is convinced that the fact that the satellite receiver sends 18V to the LNB is the problem, but I think it’s much more likely that the diplexer sends 2-856MHz to the TV output and 950-2250MHz to the satellite output. The DCT-5100 FAQ says to make sure that you have full 2-1000MHz signal from pedestal to cable box, so I think the diplexer’s bandwidth is at fault. To fix it, I’ll have to run another cable through the basement, then add a port to the wallplate so that I have a clean run from the cable service entrance to the box.
I must say that the Discovery HD picture was stunning, for the few minutes I got to see it while installer-man was doing his thing.