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Post by BuckSkin on Aug 2, 2022 21:10:07 GMT
Just in case I disappear for a couple weeks --- it will most likely be on account of my internet has went down and I am having to change providers.
I won't go into all the lengthy details --- we have DISH internet and --- big surprise to me --- DISH is no longer in the internet business and as peoples equipment quits working they just drop them.
They said they hadn't been supporting internet service since 2014 but I know that is untrue as they have sent service trucks out here at least twice since then.
Anywho....., I found the problem myself and was able to coax it back into action and here I am --- for who knows how long.
If it quits again, I may not be able to get it back up and running.
I found another company, but the soonest they can get out here is next Wednesday.
I didn't commit to them yet.
So---- if I suddenly vanquish from the face of the earth in the middle of a conversation --- like MacArthur, I will be back....
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Post by Lillias on Aug 2, 2022 21:49:00 GMT
Hope everything goes smoothly for you BuckSkin. |
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Post by pontiac1940 on Aug 2, 2022 22:23:05 GMT
"Like MacArthur, I will be back..."
I recall a spoof on that line in Mad Magazine about 60+ years ago.
"I shall return."
Anyway, good luck. We all love the internet, but it can drive us mad and can be most frustrating at times. We have high-speed cable at home and a dish at the summer place that gets a line-of-sight signal off a repeater off another repeater on a hill 3 miles away.
Can't complain (I do) as both have been reliable. Monthly rates in Canada are WAY too high. Oh well.
Good luck. We will not issue a missing person report.🙂👍🏻
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Post by hmca on Aug 2, 2022 23:46:30 GMT
Sorry, BuckSkin. Hopefully it won’t cause you too much aggravation.
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Post by VickiD on Aug 3, 2022 4:57:33 GMT
Sorry about the problems you're having, BuckSkin . We are so accustomed to having instant access to the internet that these kinds of problems can really be frustrating. I know when we lost electric during Hurricane Sandy, I had to keep charging my laptop, tablet and phone in my car and I had a hotspot for the internet. Thank goodness I had filled it with gas before the storm! I know for sure I'd go into withdrawal without my connectivity!
Good luck--hope you find a new, reliable provider.
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pete61
Junior Forum Member
Posts: 235 
Open to constructive criticism of photos: Yes
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Post by pete61 on Aug 3, 2022 17:08:01 GMT
"...I found the problem myself and was able to coax it back into action and here I am..." Buckskin, clearly you're a very self-reliant person, so one way or another like General MacArthur you will find a way to return (with or without a corncob pipe)!  |
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Post by cats4jan on Aug 3, 2022 18:04:23 GMT
Reminds me of the sad day my internet provider stopped providing cable TV - I had to go back to Directv and every time it rains even one drop - oops - out goes the satellite dish. It's so hard to change providers - that's probably why I've had the same internet provider for all the years I've lived here. I haven't even canceled my landline. It all seems like too much work...
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Post by whippet on Aug 3, 2022 19:17:12 GMT
Good luck. We will not issue a missing person report.🙂👍🏻  . Brilliant, Clive. Hope you manage to remain connected, BuckSkin.  |
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Post by BuckSkin on Aug 3, 2022 20:30:02 GMT
Thanks for everyone's concern and moral support.
It went out again as soon as I sent that last message.
The Modem's Power Supply (brick) is going out; it comes and goes; I can unplug it for several hours and I might then get a couple minutes or ten minutes or nothing.
During these short bursts of connectivity, I have sometimes been able to check on vital things and maybe respond to an e-mail; but, more often than not, it will quit again before my mission is complete.
It is a very odd 30-volt 2.7amp ; the wife found one using her internet at work; but, the soonest it could get here is ten days and no guarantee that it won't be more like eight weeks.
So....., here is where we are.....
Believe it or not, a couple or five years ago, I was nosing around in the graveyard on our place, poking through the pile of old flowers, seeing if there was anything in the way of hangers and whatnot that might be useful in other endeavors.
I saw an electrical cord and I thought "what the deuce use would a graveyard have for an electrical cord.
I fished it out and it was tangled with a whole bunch of various computer cords, USB, Ethernet, and what-have-you.
On the other end of the cord was a big power brick, HP brand.
I thought it was probably junk; else, it would not have been thrown away; and, what a funny place to discard all that junk --- in the corner of a graveyard landlocked on private property.
Anywho, the hoarder in me came through and I fished all that stuff out and put it in the shop.
Now, during my dilemma, I happened to think of that old power brick that had laid out there through who knows how many rains and probably a few snows as well.
It could have been miles away from being the correct voltage and most likely would not even work at all.
I got the magnifying glass and read the fine print on the back --- 32-volt 625ma
I plugged it in and put my voltage tester leads to it and BINGO --- it was reading 32.6-volts = a little over 30-volts but close enough in a storm.
The 625ma was a far cry from 2.7-amps though, and might not be enough kick to power the thing.
This thing had a weird three-prong connector as well; so, some butchering and splicing was going to be in order no matter what route I took.
I puzzled it over and decided to double them up --- piggy-back this graveyard brick into the cord of the one that is failing --- that constant 32.6-volts 625ma just might be enough boost to keep the other one alive.
I got me some short jumper-wires and spliced the two together.
I plugged in the original one and then immediately plugged in the graveyard one.
The Modem immediately lit up and started setting into action.
It has now stayed up and running much longer than it has been.
But then, the next time it quits, it may never come back.
So....., I may yet drop out of sight again.
Here in this 3rd-world area where we live, our options are very limited; we are talking to Hughes NET; do any of you guys know anything about them ?
They may very well be our only choice... so the decision will be easier.
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Post by BuckSkin on Aug 3, 2022 23:18:05 GMT
I had to go back to Directv and every time it rains even one drop - oops - out goes the satellite dish.
Way back when they first invented electricity, we got fed up with the local telephone/cable TV/internet provider as they insisted on having our whole community on a single line and as each additional person decided to use the internet, it became that much slower.
They were charging us just as much as those who weren't having to share a connection.
Plus, they had a huge problem with the TV due to something haywire in a big junction box that they could never figure out how to fix -- at least twice a week, we would lose TV, internet, and everything for a few hours until one of them came out and opened that box and wiggled the right wire.
Only a single coax cable provided TV and internet; you could watch any of over five hundred channels and use the internet and the rest of the neighborhood doing likewise, and all of it on a single strand of copper wire.
Then they replaced all of that with fibre-optics and things went really South from there; our telephone used to be crystal clear no matter where the caller was nor what the weather; now, with this fibre-optics mess, the phone buzzes and fries and will start a keen popping noise, then your voice will start to echo and anything you say will be heard again about fifteen seconds later.
The longer you use the phone, the quieter and fainter it will get until finally you can no longer hear the other end.
The techs at the phone company keep saying it has to be our phones as we are the only ones having the problem ----- everyone else who has a phone tells me their's is doing exactly like our's.
The neighbor girl, without me saying a word about what our's was doing, described what is happening word for word; it's as if she had been using our phone for weeks and knew all the quirks --- and then, she said "I bet they told you it has to be your phone and nobody else is having the problem"
We ditched the cable TV and cable internet and went with DISH for both = everything is/was way better.
Now, here is where you come in.
The little chain-smoker guy who hooked everything up for us set-up the TV dish on a metal post beside the pasture fence and oriented it almost straight South.
He put a harness on with a bunch of gauges and flashing lights and hooked the dish to it and he loosened bolts and pivoted this and that and used these little adjustment bolts for fine-tuning and played and fiddled with it for over an hour and finally decided it was as good as it was going to get.
Like you, a bird could light on the dish with his backside pointed over the business end of things and if he evacuated himself, the TV would go out.
The slightest little sprinkle would put us out of business for hours.
We put up with this for years; then, one day, I noticed the eye on the internet dish was about half-full of water; and, I had noticed that the internet seemed much slower.
Here come this little-bitty kid in a big DISH van; he could barely see over the steering wheel.
His glasses looked like they had been cut out of the bottoms of Coke bottles.
He replaced the internet dish and fine-tuned it; and, then, he noticed the TV dish over there by the fence --- he wasn't even there to fix the TV...
He said "how's your TV reception ?"
Without me even opening my mouth, the look in my eyes provided him with the answer.
He said "I bet you lose signal in the slightest shower and even when the wind blows - it ain't no wonder - I don't know why he does that - it must be the smoking"
He got his signal gauge thingie and some wrenches and the first thing he did was to turn the whole mess more than 90°, pointing it almost due West.
He fooled and fiddled about ten minutes and said "there, that should be a lot better; and, it will have to be coming a monsoon before you lose signal now."
He told me that the satellite the first guy had it pointed at was over ten times farther away than the one he aimed it at.
I must say, after he re-aimed the dish, we have a much stronger signal; and, it has to really come down hard before we lose it.
It may not be your problem, but it might be worth looking into. |
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Post by pontiac1940 on Aug 4, 2022 4:04:56 GMT
Your story makes me have to tell mine..... We all have communication service and device stories. We have a TV dish at the summer place and although there have been issues with the receiver, it generally works well even in the rain and we are not here in winter. The biggest issue is (if there IS a technical issue) is actually getting hold of the provider. That drives me crazy. I want to throw things.  Until this year, for the past 12 years I've used a high-gain antenna to suck free Wifi signal off a router about 300 yards away. The antenna, pole and other supplies cost me $200 in 2010. So that's a decent cost over 12 years. Lucky me. But tree growth seems to have started interfering with the antenna signal so I bit the bullet and now pay a monthly fee (too much) for the internet dish through a local rural provider. Our new internet dish has been humming alone very well. |
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Post by BuckSkin on Aug 4, 2022 5:37:29 GMT
The biggest issue is (if there IS a technical issue) is actually getting hold of the provider. That drives me crazy. I want to throw things.
It is a complete act in frustration to get past that automated guardian of the phone lines.
Now, instead of "if so-and-so, press a number", it is "if your problem pertains to ___, say ___"; I say ___ over and over and it keeps telling me it cannot understand what I am saying and repeats the question all over again; it's like it is on a loop that you can't get past.
I almost never got to talk to a human at Hughes NET.
I think companies do that to weed out the not really necessary problem calls, hoping people will just give up and hang up. |
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Post by cats4jan on Aug 4, 2022 10:46:53 GMT
We have amazingly good service from our internet provider. Nice people and quick to get a tech out here. Main reason I’ve stuck with them.
This is a town with 65,000 people but you’d think we were on an island. There are people who need to go outside to use their cell phones. Luckily AT&T works well in this house. That’s why I’m sticking with the status quo. I don’t want to rock the boat
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Post by BuckSkin on Aug 4, 2022 16:42:40 GMT
There are people who need to go outside to use their cell phones.
I never use a cell phone except when I am out somewhere; if I am on the property, my cell phone is turned off and laying in a drawer.
The wife, on the other hand, is an entirely different kind of animal --- she stays on her's constantly; this kind of lifestyle just doesn't fly inside a metal structure; so, she spent the majority of her life outside in a lawn chair.
First, I got her a Wilson cell phone booster with antenna, actually two antennae; one for the house and another for the vehicle; you mount the antenna outside and run an antenna cable inside to the unit.
With the Wilson, you place the phone in a holder and use an earpiece to roam away from the phone; that thing is amazing; you can take a phone that is showing no bars/no signal, place it in the Wilson, and immediately see the bars jump from zero to five.
In a vehicle, it really helps with those remote places where there are no towers for miles.
Alas, something about later model smart phones changed and they no longer work so well with the Wilson; so, she got this big box that mounts on the wall in the center of the house that has a very large cable-connected antenna that goes outside; with this outfit, the phone is not restricted to staying with the unit like it is with the Wilson, so no earpiece necessary.
The Wilson does have one big advantage over this new outfit in that it will also work in a vehicle. |
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Post by cats4jan on Aug 4, 2022 20:13:54 GMT
The cell phone companies offer boosters. Some people have had success with them. All our houses have plywood with a reflective coating as our roof sheeting - used to reflect the tremendous heat generated by the Florida sun. Unfortunately, the cell phone signal gets “reflected” too. Oops
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