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How to Increase Wi-Fi Range for Hotels and Motels

As a hotel or motel owner, have you wondered how to increase Wi-Fi range for hotels and motels? The answer is a Wi-Fi access point, which Signal Connect is happy to discuss. Chances are you haven’t given much thought to the Wi-Fi connectivity at your hotel/motel property. In this service economy, Wi-Fi is as important as clean sheets and temperature-controlled rooms. Think about it. Even gas stations and fast food restaurants advertise their enhanced Wi-Fi connections. Society has become used to this easy signal availability. Your guests expect a reliable and fast Wi-Fi connection when they’re staying at your property. Signal Connect shows you the best way to add and extend Wi-Fi on your property. What is a Hotel Wi-Fi Access Point...
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OBSOLETE TECHNOLOGY: Morse Code

There was a time not that long ago when Morse code was all around us. Boy Scouts learned it, pilots and sailors were required to use it, and of course everyone still knows the familiar term SOS which does not stand for “save our ships” but actually derives from the dot-dot-dot,dash-dash-dash,dot-dot-dot of its Morse code designation. Morse code once formed the backbone of all our long-distance telecommunications. A little bit of the history of Morse code Morse code, of course, refers to Samuel Morse, who invented the electric telegraph. Morse had a simple, revolutionary idea: to send the simplest possible signal over a single, long wire. His code was very simple, and was quickly expanded upon by Alfred Vail and others to the code we...
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How to “Keep” a recording on your DIRECTV playlist

With two terabytes of recording space, it’s pretty rare that you run out of space on a Genie 2 DVR. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible though, and sometimes you just need that extra level of confidence. DIRECTV DVRs have always automatically managed space by deleting the oldest recordings to make way for new ones if there was a need for more space. Of course when DIRECTV’s DVRs only held about 50 hours of HD programming that was far more important than today, when you should be able to get well over 300 hours of HD programming on your Genie 2 DVR, and there simply isn’t enough 4K programming for it to become worrisome at this moment in time. If you want to make sure that a program isn’t auto-deleted, there is an easy way to do this...
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A Wi-Fi antenna in your attic? Is that a good idea?

A customer recently contacted us with an odd solution. They share Wi-Fi between buildings using powerful access points. For whatever reason, they wanted to know if they could mount their Wi-Fi antenna inside, in an attic-like crawl space. The answer we had to give might not be what they were looking for. “Yeah but” You can absolutely mount a Wi-Fi antenna inside a crawl space and it will pull in “some” signal from outside. However, the gain of your typical Wi-Fi antenna is about 6dBi. In lay person’s terms, that means the antenna will pick up about 400% as much signal as a reference device. That sounds like a lot more signal, but typically, walls or roofs will cut that gain by 3dB. In other words, that Wi-Fi antenna is only going to...
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Wiring Solutions from Signal Connect

Whether you’re building a home or a commercial property, you’ll need at least one type of wiring solution, maybe more. For example, there’s electrical wiring, network wiring, radio frequency installations, and low-voltage wiring. You might not understand the complexities between these different wiring installations, but Signal Connect does. Our team of experts has planned and developed a huge variety of wiring solutions for residential and commercial spaces across the country. We’d love to add your wiring installation to our long list of success stories. Remember, when we work together, everyone wins! Introducing the Enterprise Team We’re so committed to commercial installations that we’ve put together a dedicated team to head up...
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STREAMING SATURDAY: What happens if all sports go to streaming?

I’m absolutely willing to admit when I’m wrong, folks. I had my doubts that even Google would be able to pull off something like NFL Sunday Ticket. But at least up until this point, it’s gone off without a hitch. But, there’s a dark side to success. It’s true that NFL Sunday Ticket has worked, but what happens when an organization without Google’s money and resources tries it? It’s a very valid question. For the last 30 years, sports in this country have been propped up by an increasing number of “regional sports networks.” You know these channels. They’re the ones that carry your local teams — for example MSG and YES in New York. That system worked for a long time, until the mid-2010s when the companies that owned them got greedy...
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How to skip ahead quickly on your DIRECTV DVR

I don’t remember who said it first, but the problem with instant gratification is that it’s never fast enough. I think about this a lot when I’m fast forwarding. Luckily there is a way to make this process faster. This is a simple tip that will let you get a lot further, a lot faster using just your remote. For customers with older DIRECTV boxes or Genie clients If you have a remote that looks like this: or one that looks like this: …then read ahead. If your remote doesn’t look like that, scroll down to the section on “Gemini customers.” How to do it When you are fast forwarding, you have four speeds. Pressing the fast forward button over and over again will get you to speed level 4, which is fast enough to get you through a 1...
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A deep dive into the DIRECTV power inserter

What you see above you is DIRECTV’s standard power inserter. It’s little changed from the version that debuted with the SWM-5 in 2007. It’s not a terribly high tech piece of equipment; it’s really just a power supply with an internal splitter in it to let you pass signal through if you want to. This device supplies 29 volts at a maximum of 1.5 amps. It’s hardly mysterious. It’s also the only power inserter I personally recommend for any DIRECTV equipment. However, two things have recently been brought to my attention, and that’s made me want to explain my position a bit when it comes to this device. Specifically, when it comes to this device compared to this other one: This is DIRECTV’s PI-21 power inserter. The big thing you’ll...
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Honoring Veterans on Veterans Day!

Happy Veterans Day, veterans! Today is your day in more ways than one! Today, November 11, 2023, is Veterans Day, aka Armistice Day. It’s the day when Americans honor those military veterans who’ve served during a war. Everyone here at Signal Connect admires the men and women of the armed forces. We have a deep respect for all you’ve done to help keep us safe. There’s no amount of appreciation we can show that could even come close to paying you back for the sacrifices you’ve made. Veterans can save on Signal Connect services Our Signal Connect division is an AT&T Dealer, a DIRECTV and DISH dealer, and we have special affiliations with internet service providers all over the country, too. It puts us in a special position to help...
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Signal Boosters for Hospitals

Based on the way hospitals are constructed, cellular phone communications inside these building can be severely limited or nonexistent. This can be a huge problem in today’s world. People have become so dependent upon instant communication that they assume it will be there wherever they go. Medical facilities that are total dead zones will clash with these expectations. Fortunately, there is a way to improve cell phone coverage at hospitals and medical centers. A cell phone signal booster system inside your hospital helps reduce or eliminate dropped calls and missed data. Why Hospitals Need Cell Phone Boosters Most hospitals and similar medical centers need a cell phone signal booster system because of the way these buildings are...
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How to Choose the Best Cell Phone Booster for Home

Reprinted with permission from the weBoost blog. Most of us have faced frustrating call drops or painfully slow downloads due to weak cellular signal. Common causes for this include distance from the nearest cell tower or physical obstructions like building materials or outdoor terrain. A cell phone signal booster is designed to amplify the existing signal to overcome these factors and deliver stronger signal inside, so you get more reliable calls and messaging, and faster data speeds. But in an increasingly crowded market, how do you choose the best cell phone booster for home? This article will show you. 1. Understand how a cell phone booster works Cell phone boosters are becoming increasingly popular, especially in areas with...
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FUN FRIDAY: Image quality vs. quality images

First off, I have to tell you that this article was inspired by this video. In a lot of Fun Friday articles I will actually embed the video that inspired me, but I’m not doing that this time. Why? Because the truth of the matter is that I didn’t care too much for the video. I thought there were kind of some good points here and there, but it took way too long to get there. I’m not encouraging you to spend time watching it. This is especially true because you could spend that time reading this article. What is “image quality?” These days, I shoot images with a pair of 24 megapixel cameras, each with lenses that costs about $300. If I find myself without those, I have my newly minted iPhone 15 which has a triad of the largest lenses...
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NICE AND EASY: What is BIII?

Another one of those antenna terms out there, BIII will eventually confound and confuse you, especially if you’re looking at antennas made outside the US. Even the name is confusing because when you look at it, you don’t even know if those three vertical lines are “L’s” or “1’s” or “I’s.” It’s a term most people won’t encounter unless they get an antenna made overseas. But considering that most antennas including our line of Televes antennas are made overseas, you might see that designation on spec sheets. Here’s what it really means BIII is the abbreviation for “Band III” (in other words band 3). It’s a designation used internationally for a set of frequencies. Here in the US those frequencies are referred to as VHF-High and...
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Can you have multiple remotes with a Gemini Air?

Solid Signal’s customers love the Gemini Air. It’s DIRECTV’s streaming-only box that’s barely bigger than a teaspoon. This tiny box sits behind the TV and gives you access to DIRECTV’s live streaming package, plus all the apps you know and love. It will turn your old TV into a modern smart TV. Here’s one thing people really like about the Gemini Air: the remote. A lot of folks think that today’s streaming box remotes are too hard to use. There are touch sensitive surfaces, buttons that don’t make sense, and icons that don’t seem to mean anything. On the other hand, the Gemini remote, which looks like this: …has easy to understand buttons labeled in plain English, plus universal buttons like Fast-Forward that everyone understands...
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DIRECTV renames its satellites back to “D”

Special thanks to Tom Speer and the team at Satellite Guys for this tip! Sometimes you just have to own who you are. And sometimes, little things that never made a difference to anyone else might make a difference to you. If you have a Ph.D., for example, you might correct someone when they call you Mr., Mrs., Ms., Miss, or Mx. (or whatever else is appropriate to you.) You might ask them to call you Dr. instead. This is one of those cases. The team at Satellite Guys has obtained a copy of a letter, sent to the FCC, informing them that DIRECTV satellites are heretofore to be referred to with a “D” instead of a “T.” It’s a little change, but it’s the latest indication of how much DIRECTV wants to distance itself from the AT&T days...
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