[conspire] One service visit, three existing services demolished

[Rick Moen]

I wrote:

> We have top antenna installer AV Solution Pros of Mountain View
> scheduled to visit Tuesday to un-do O.C. Communications's sabotage of his
> 2011 work, which per se would also leave Cheryl with no Comcast cable,
> so I'll ask him if he can also do that work competently as it should
> have been carried out last Friday.  If he's not OK with that, we have
> others who can.

We're all done, now.  

Arden from AV Solution Pros saw the severed antenna feed coming down
from the garage roof, and not one but _two_ cut-off cables going inwards
from there, in addition to a third to which the inbound Comcast cable
was connected.  It's still a little unclear exactly _what_ Timothy
Almacer of O.C. Communications (the Comcast installer) did  -- let alone
why -- but in retrospect it's apparent he sliced the antenna cable
_pointlessly_, because he didn't use any of it!

Wow.

Arden used a toner-signal unit and receiver[1] to verify which of the
two cut coax cables goes to the office room housing the TiVos and large
monitor, then reconnected the antenna to that.  Arden didn't need to
touch any part of Comcast's setup.  So, no need for the second guy from
Comcast to visit.

After Arden respliced the antenna cable, we verified TV signal is back,
Cheryl verified that Comcast cable Internet still works, we called the senior
Comcast installer tech to say his services were no longer required, and
we were done.  Cheryl paid Arden $100, and Arden's invoice saying 'Work
to reconnect antenna cable cut by Comcast installer' got PDFed and sent
to Comcast Loyalty Dept., who had already promised to reimburse Cheryl
whatever AV Solution Pros charged for the repair.

Why were there three coax cables inbound from the edge of the garage?
Not sure.  Morever, I currently don't care.  Speculation:  It may be
that long coax lines, originally for cable television, _all_ the way
from the three indoor rooms ran to the water meter box.  That would be
stupid and wasteful, but as such within expectation.  Maybe Almacer saw
three lines, knew he wanted to use one but wasn't sure which, cut the
antenna line to simplify his life (at our expense), used to a toner to
determine which cut line lead to the living room, and spliced into it
for his use.

I could have insisted today's scheduled Comcast installer visit and run
new cable to the living room so we could preserve the ability to
activate antenna TV in the living room -- but can't imagine us wanting
to do that, so fine.  So, we were done at 2pm rather than 6pm, with no
need to let Comcast come back.  Win.


[1] It's common to find where cables go using a combination of a tone
generator and an inductive amplifier.  I have a pair of these for such
uses.  (Arden has a pair specialised for coax cable.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_generator#Pitch_generators_and_audio_generators
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_amplifier