TV DVR hook up help question...

[PrincessaC]

Can anyone tell me why a cable box would be hooked up into a splitter going into the wall and into a power strip?

What the does the power strip do? It all ready has a power cord plugged up.

 

[BalooTheBear]

My guess, without seeing the connections, would be that the power strip also serves as a surge protector. If there is any surge of power along the cable line it will not damage your DVR/TV.

 

[PrincessaC]

Ok, that makes sense. So there is power going through the cable line? The main power cord from the DVR is also plugged into the power strip.

The reason I asked is because for some reason the tv guide is not working on our dvr and when I called the service provider they asked me to unhook the splitter and hook up the cable box directly into the wall.

I also asked them why it would be hooked up to a splitter and into a power strip and the guy said maybe it had something to do with a receiver.

His answer didn't sound right to me because the reciever I believe is hooked up to the tv not the dvr.

Anyhoo, my hubby is the one who hooked all this up and he's deployed and I have no idea what I'm doing but I can't get behind the tv to hook the cable.

So now the recording options on the dvr won't work because I don't have the tvguide.

Ugh... few more days till hubby gets home.

 

[bicker]

My guess, without seeing the connections, would be that the power strip also serves as a surge protector. If there is any surge of power along the cable line it will not damage your DVR/TV.

The concern would be that a power spike coming down the coax (such as from a lightning strike) could fry whatever the coax is connected to. Passing it through a surge protector would buffer that. There is always some power in any electrical connection, albeit a low-power one in the case of television coax. (Note that telephone over coax sometimes requires higher power -- the coax incoming to our house is marked with big orange warning stickers because of that.)

I also asked them why it would be hooked up to a splitter and into a power strip

I suspect what you're describing is the connection to a signal amplifier. Generally, cable television signal coming into your house can support two or three outlets. However, in some neighborhoods it could be as little as just one. The more neighbors who hook up, the less power there is available to the rest of you (unless they boost the power at the head-end, which they may or may not do). One way to address the gap, at least for your own home, is to install a signal amplifier. I was having a lot of problems with cable, bad reception and so forth, due to lower power coming into our home, and so we had the cable company install one of these signal amplifiers. Comcast charged us $45 for it. It looks like a splitter. Coax goes in one side and out the other, with a third cable connecting to an electrical socket, powering the signal amplifier. This should greatly improve your reception.