The Solid Signal Blog

March 12-18, 1983 This week Ken welcomes comedian and man behind the new Blonde Medicine Comedy lp “Ice Cream vs. Everything”, Paul Morrissey. Ken and Paul discuss Paul’s excitement being on the show, why he picked 1983, the early 80s mix of famous people guest stars, The Love Boat, Smokey and the Bandit, Paul Williams, Milton Berle, cocaine, 70s Variety Shows, Solid Gold, Tim Thomerson, Top of the Pops, Steelers Wheel, miming, Richard Marx’s Lionel Richie debut, cigarettes, David Bowie playing with Mott the Hoople, Robin Williams, Gen Xers vs. Boomers, buying awful products from TV Guide, horrifying children’s decor, having to pay massive fines for ruining a VHS tape, Diff’rent Strokes, video games, Silver Spoons, Jason Bateman...

DIRECTV has been around now for almost 25 years. In that time, it’s gone from being a DIY, bleeding-edge technology to the most trusted name in entertainment. Over 24 million homes depend on reliable satellite television from DIRECTV. It’s easy to use and easy to understand. But what if you have questions? What if you really want to customize your system? You could start with DIRECTV’s own resources. I’ll admit the people at DIRECTV have assembled an impressive array of videos and tutorials at their own site as well as on their own YouTube channel. I know some of the people who have created this stuff and they have done excellent work. I think that the best thing you can say is that their tutorials are easy to use and cover a lot of...

Successful fast food franchisees eventually learn one important lesson – they need a manager to help run their restaurants. As the owner, you can’t be everywhere at once, and you certainly can’t work from open to close, either. A manager you can trust is the next best thing to you being there. Typically, fast food managers are hired after a successful job interview, which can take up to an hour. When you advertise that you’re hiring for a management position, you’ll get hundreds of applications and resumes. You won’t have time to interview all these people using the traditional job interview method. What should you do for your fast food chain? The answer is a simple but effective three-round interview process. Each round is...

Every day we depend on our phones in a million different ways. Yet, we’ve gotten used to the fact that our phones don’t get great reception. We wish they did, but instead of taking action we hold them up to the sky, walk from room to room, or go outside in the elements. If only there were a way to fix this problem. The problem with your cell phone is generally that it has a tiny antenna which is covered by your hand, your body, the walls of the room you’re in, and the outside of your home or office. That’s one of its biggest limitations, other than its battery life. We all want sleek, pocketable cell phones. That’s pretty clear. Sometimes we also want great reception and we don’t know what to do about it. One thing you could do is...

Spend even a little bit of time reading this blog and you’ll realize that I’m a pretty big satellite TV fan. I’ve personally had DIRECTV satellite at my home for over 20 years, and I’ve spent a decent amount of time behind the scenes trying to improve the product. I hung in with them during the bad days of AT&T’s ownership, when it seemed like the company wanted nothing more than to self-destruct. Yes, I’m a DIRECTV aficionado. It doesn’t stop me from calling them out when there’s more work to be done. This is one of those times. DIRECTV’s flirtation with streaming DIRECTV management first announced their streaming product in 2016. In those days, the idea of paying more than $10 for a streaming service sounded absurd, and here was...

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This back-to-basics podcast discusses the difference between cable, satellite, and over-the-air antenna signals in a way you probably hadn’t considered. Listen, then shop at Solid Signal - Signal Solutions including HDTV Antennas, DIRECTV and DISH Network satellite equipment and home entertainment supplies and accessories or call us at 888-233-7563 for personal service. Listen to the podcast your way! Just choose one of the following: Option 1: Click on the image above to stream the podcast in your browser. If you use the YouTube player above, be sure to subscribe to get future videos delivered to you! Option 2: The Solid Signal Podcast is available on several podcast aggregators. Search for us, or tap on the links below on your...

It may be the least-understood DIRECTV device in the company’s history. And yet it’s one of the simplest. It’s found in the majority of DIRECTV installations, but it’s really optional in most of them. Let’s take a look at the DIRECTV DECA, what it does, and how it’s evolved. What a DECA is DECA stands for “DIRECTV Ethernet (to) Coaxial Adapter.” So yes, calling it a DIRECTV DECA Adapter is a little repetitive, I’ll admit. It has one and only one purpose: to move Ethernet traffic from category cable to coaxial cable. Within that role, it can be used many different ways. What this all means Strictly speaking, “Ethernet” isn’t a physical thing. It’s a set of standards which define how data goes from place to place. What we tend to call...

Friends, what you see is DIRECTV’s Gemini. It’s a little confusing to look at, because the same exact box can serve two different purposes. There’s a version that connects to a Genie DVR and is used with satellite TV service. There’s another version that is used with DIRECTV’s streaming service. It’s no longer sold as new, but you can still use one if you have it or if you get one used. Make no mistake, these two things are the exact same hardware, but the software in them gives them two different purposes. This article is about the satellite TV one. DIRECTV has a streaming service, which they rather confusingly call “DIRECTV.” (They also call their satellite service “DIRECTV.”) If you have that streaming service, you can use your...

For your great-grandparents, he was the news. Edward R. Murrow reported on the invasion of major cities in World War II, but more importantly, he was responsible for the invention of television news, not as it is today but as we want it to be. In the 75 or so years since Murrow read the news on CBS, the very idea of news has changed so much that I doubt he’d even recognize it. Who was Edward R. Murrow? When Egbert Murrow was born (he would later change his name, and who would blame him), there was no radio, no television, and no internet. In 1908 most Americans didn’t even have electricity. Starting from humble beginnings, he attended college in 1926, which was rare at the time. Majoring in speech, Murrow was already a popular and...

Have you heard of “the shelf effect?” In some ways, digital broadcasting just doesn’t make sense to most folks. It’s much more sophisticated than old-school TV. Of course that’s on purpose — the whole goal of digital broadcasting is to get a high-quality, high-definition signal to your TV in the same space that was originally designed for a black-and-white standard definition one. That’s going to take some magic. If you think of the old-school antenna TV of your youth, you remember a snowy picture like this one: In this image, it’s possible to barely make out a person standing in front of something. You don’t get a lot of detail but you at least get that. Old-school broadcasting (we call it “analog”) takes away a little bit of the...

Tyler “The Antenna Man” recently posted this article on his channel, talking about putting an antenna on an existing satellite mount and using existing satellite cable. Here it is so you don’t have to look for it. It’s not very long, so you might want to watch it before reading the rest of this article. Before I start, I want the whole internet to know that I have a lot of respect for Tyler. He’s one of the leading proponents of over-the-air antennas out there and he’s almost always right. He does miss the mark here a little bit though and I need to explain why. Mounts Most mounts for satellite dishes are between 1.66 and 2 inches in outer diameter. This is done to make sure the dish is nice and stable. Even a 1/32″ movement in a...

In recent weeks, I’ve read a lot of articles that start with “(Streaming app) adds 50 new channels of live content.” The big story for streaming the last 12 months has been the rise of so-called “FAST streaming apps” like Tubi, Pluto, Sling, the Roku Channel and that sort of thing. People really like the idea that there’s a source for free TV out there, and they’re willing to accept a few commercials in order to keep it free. With costs going up all along the streaming world, it’s nice to see apps that try to give you more content without asking for more money. It’s the exact opposite of what the major streaming apps are doing right now. But, we’re getting to the point where a lot of the content being added isn’t very consistent in...

This article comes courtesy of DISH installer Brad Hall, who made it public at the Satellite Guys forum. The Solid Signal Blog is very grateful for this tip! If you have other tips to share, use the “Contact the Editor” link at the bottom of this article. In July 2023, DISH finished moving all its programming off its satellite at the 129º location. At that point, the satellite effectively went dark. This whole process was handled so well that most DISH customers never even realized it happened. However, if you have a mobile or marine dish, you might still be having some problems with this transition. What’s happening here? The issue is that if you are using a single-satellite mobile or marine dish, it’s going to search for all of...

Everything has to start somewhere. Today we take the idea of icons for granted. They’re part of our computers and phones and we all understand why. Sometimes they’re well-designed and sometimes they’re just pictures that kind of remind us what we’re doing. If they’ve been around long enough they can be really vague and still work. Want proof? Remember this? It was the Instagram’s original logo. (Side note: remember when icons actually looked like a thing? Now they’re all just squggles.) It’s obviously a camera, although if you’re “of a certain age” you know it’s this particular camera. Way back when, that camera meant fun, instantaneous images, and sharing. That’s what Instagram was shooting for. Except, then Instagram got way...