Common Sense And Customer Support
Wow! Post number 50! and it’s December already. My months go by like seconds these days. If you don’t have your coupon yet, better get it now at www.dtv2009.gov or call 1-888-388-2009! Time is flying by fast!
You’d think in today’s business climate, that customer support would be stellar since they are trying to attract customers, and retain them. That may not seem to be the case, and in defense of some of them, they really aren’t prepared for some of the issues consumers are having.
It’s difficult for a phone service rep to work through all problems without actually seeing the symptoms. I can tell merely from looking at a picture what is causing the problem. It is often described to me in vague terms like the screen went black for a second, but when I see how the screen goes black, I know right off what caused it. I’ve been around a long time, and although I’m sure I haven’t seen everything, I’ve seen my fair share of problems.
I got a call today from a nice lady that has been using her box for six months, and wanted to know when we were going to begin broadcasting in digital. When I told her we have been on the air for about 8 years, she explained she was getting all the channels except us, and she called the customer support number for her set top box and they could not help resolve her problem. (Naturally, they told her we were not on the air yet and she would have to wait.).
OK, there’s no way this service rep could possibly know about stations in Raleigh unless they had an Internet connection and could pull it up on www.antennaweb.org or www.tvfool.com. I’m sure they are reading the same troubleshooting guide contained in the manual, and it may not list these sites. And to be totally fair, not everyone has access to the web yet. (The FCC is pushing for free wireless basic family friendly web service, and I hope they are successful in making it available).
I had to ask the basic questions like where she lived, how the analog channels looked, what type of antenna she is using and so on. Everything checked out, and I asked her about the other stations and how she was getting them. She said she had some break-up now and then, but adjusting her antenna corrected it. She said she had re-scanned several times, and still no NBC. I asked her to punch in channel 55 directly, and she almost broke into tears when our signal popped up. I then helped her go into the menus and manually add the channels for us. She was amazed, and extremely happy.
Your cable and satellite providers are in the same boat, and really don’t know exactly how different equipment reacts to these signals. As I have mentioned before, the signal in the data named PSIP is responsible for telling your box how to display the channels. The box should find us on channel 55, and tell you it is actually 17-1, etc. If you read my post on Kyle’s antenna at NC State, he had the same issue. An older set that did not map us to 17-1 but had us at 55-1. Another issue I have encountered is with Microsoft’s Media Center PC’s. They have us as digital 17 in their database on earlier versions, and you have to enter the correct channel 55 in it or download an updated database. It will be correct in 2009, but for now it may have the wrong data.
Give customer support a chance, and if you don’t get the answers you think are correct, get a second opinion. That why I’m here. That’s why we have email links to help you anyway we can. Sometimes you have to get more than one side of the story before you can resolve a problem. And don’t be embarrassed by asking for help.
Naturally, I tried to duplicate her problem using the old RCA box in my office, but it was displaying the info fine. I checked the PSIP generator PC and is was running fine. I really have no idea why some receivers do this, but it does pop up now and again. That’s also why I listed all the stations actual channel numbers in a previous blog. I guess it’s like an Easter egg hunt in the airwaves!
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Channel Master 4228HD EXTREMEtenna. Has anyone installed one of the new version 4228 yet? If so how is it performing?