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Ken Reid and Will McRobb

This week Ken welcomes writer, director and co-creator of The Adventures of Pete & Pete, among other things, Will McRobb to the show. Ken and Will discuss growing up in Ithaca NY, suburbia, Nickelodeon’s “kids point of view” era, doing corporate videos for Goldman Sachs, working in the promo department at Nick at Nite, MTV Networks, Rin Tin Tin, Mr. Ed, Donna Reed, The magic four ingredients: Funny, Sad, Strange and Beautiful, Green Acres, Patty Duke’s double, MTV’s Remote Control, Lassie, My Three Sons, Bub vs. Uncle Charlie, The Monkees, live action cartoons, the reason you’d go live action instead of a cartoon, Snow Day, added farts, working for the man, the shift on TV Land and Nick at Nite to newer “quality” shows, punk rock...
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Why can’t Solid Signal sell DIRECTV equipment meant for other countries?

In case you’re curious, the item in the picture is the DIRECTV L14 receiver. It’s smaller than a Genie Mini Client. You’ve never heard of an L14? There’s no reason you would have. It’s used in Latin America for standard definition service and isn’t sold at all in the US. There are a few of them here, all found in DIRECTV’s El Segundo CA skunk works, and your intrepid author is lucky enough to have seen one. You’re even less likely to see one now that DIRECTV US isn’t affiliated at all with the satellite operations in Latin America with the same name. Why is any of this important anyway? The L14 won’t work with your US DIRECTV service, but we’re sometimes asked by those who travel if we can get equipment for DIRECTV service in Puerto...
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Podcast #541: New DIRECTV Hardware is finally here!

It’s been a long time since there was this much DIRECTV hardware news in one week! Listen in for mini-reviews of the Gemini Air and H26K, then check out blog.solidsignal.com or our YouTube channel for full reviews. 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 mobile device. If you want us to add another aggregator leave a comment below. Amazon iTunes Google Podcasts Overcast TuneIn Spreaker Player.fm Spotify Option 3...
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Will a cell booster help you with T-Mobile home 5G internet?

I don’t know about you but I get a lot of calls about T-Mobile’s 5G home internet. I think that for a lot of people, it’s an excellent solution. On the other hand, it’s not available for everyone and there’s a reason for that. T-Mobile only pre-qualifies people with very good 5G service, and you need very good 5G service to get the speeds that they claim you’ll get. I think fixed wireless is the future I’ve been saying it for over five years. I think fixed wireless will overtake fiber in the home, and it can’t come soon enough. Fixed wireless is the industry term for internet service using a permanently-placed cellular router. It’s available across the country from several carriers. The real benefit is that you’ll pay one bill for...
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MINI REVIEW: DIRECTV Gemini Air

DIRECTV’s Gemini Air was offered to beta testers about six months ago. As I understand it, this was supposed to have been a closed test with full confidentiality. Well, that didn’t happen. Details of the device leaked all over the internet, as you’re probably aware. The device is now officially live and that’s good news for everyone. It’s available at Solid Signal. Why Gemini Air? Gemini Air is a response to customers wanting a smaller, simpler device to run DIRECTV for Internet. Customers also said they wanted something with better Wi-Fi performance than the original Gemini (also known as the DIRECTV Stream or Osprey device, it’s all the same thing.) What I like most about this device is that now, the original Gemini is only for...
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What is RoHS Compliance?

If you get bored, take a look at pretty much anything with a plug in your home. It seems like there are a million little badges on your average piece of computer hardware, and almost as many in something as boring as a blender. What’s more the badge-a-palooza has migrated to otherwise simple devices like light bulbs. The only exception is your cell phone. Due to some sketchy legislation from about a decade ago, cell phone makers aren’t required to put compliance badges on the back of phones. Any device which can store that data in read-only memory can be exempt from that regulation, technically. It’s just phone makers who take advantage of it. Each one of the symbols you do see has some sort of legal reason for being there. They...
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What can you do if you get the “wrong” Gemini?

Beam it or Stream it… same programming. That’s what DIRECTV’s been all about since it spun off from AT&T. They doubled down on that promise this year when they introduced the Gemini for Satellite. Using the same hardware as their popular “Osprey” box, which was renamed Gemini for Internet, they gave users a choice. It doesn’t matter whether you get your TV over the internet or from the sky. You get a great experience with channel numbers in the guide, a voice-activated remote, and a very similar channel selection. The only issue is when people get “the wrong Gemini.” This was a very common problem until recently. DIRECTV’s new Gemini Air makes it much easier to tell the satellite product from the internet one. Satellite users get a...
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With regional sports networks collapsing, will pro sports return to live TV?

Caution: “hot take” ahead. As I told you a few months ago, the system of regional sports networks that has kept pay-TV prices high is rapidly falling apart. No surprise, either — at the prices they were charging there’s no way they could sustain themselves. In major cities, there could be four of them, each taking their piece of the pie. It makes me wonder if live sports will return to the home it had before RSNs were “a thing.” Growing up, my local UHF station carried baseball, while local VHF stations carried football, basketball, and hockey. Anyone could watch the games live if they weren’t blacked out. Yes, many times they were, especially baseball, but when local sports was on TV it was a real treat. And, it was free. I’d love...
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NICE AND EASY: What does the CE logo mean on electronics?

Chances are the logo above looks pretty familiar to you. You’ve seen it on pretty much everything you own, from your phone to your blender. It’s not a terribly attractive logo and really, it owes a lot to fonts used for monograms in the mid-20th century. But it’s not really the looks that matter here. It’s what this logo represents. The “CE Mark” It’s called the “CE Mark.” Folks, they couldn’t even come up with a cool name for it. The CE Mark is issued by the European Community to those electronic devices that meet all requirements for being sold in Europe. You’ll usually see it in conjunction with the FCC logo which pretty much means the same thing for the US. If you’re in the US, the CE Mark means very little to you. It’s there...
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Can you run two TVs from one HDMI2COAX adapter?

If you have an older RV, you know the struggle is real. If your ride was built in the 2000s or 2010s, it’s pre-wired with coaxial cable. That’s all well and good but today’s entertainment products use HDMI cables. Until recently, that meant you couldn’t use those in-wall cables and it meant that distributing video through the RV was a pain. The “RF modulators” that we all used in the 20th century don’t work with HD, and the modulators they sell today cost thousands of dollars. That’s where HDMI2COAX comes in The Tech Choice HDMI to Coax adapter, shown at the top of this article, takes care of everything. You can read my review of it here, or just shop for one at Solid Signal. It’s a pretty simple little device. You connect HDMI cables...
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How long does it take for a Tailgater Pro to start up?

Satellite TV anywhere. That’s the promise of the KING Tailgater Pro. For one low price, you get a portable satellite TV system that works pretty much anywhere there’s a view of the southern sky. It’s custom designed to work perfectly with a DISH Wally. Just hook up one cable and go. The Tailgater does all the hard work, aiming itself to receive DISH’s Western Arc satellites perfectly. But how long does it take? Of course, when you get started, you’ll want to start watching TV instantly. But, I want to set fair expectations. This device has a lot of hard work to do before it starts showing live TV. And that takes time. In general, if you’re taking it out of the box for the first time and you don’t have an activated receiver, you...
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STREAMING SATURDAY: The dog days are over, but where’s the programming?

Historically, the “dog days” of summer start in early July and go into mid-August. I was always taught that they’re called that because it’s the period when Sirius, known as “the dog star” for some reason, is visible during the early morning rather than the evening. That’s the classical explanation, although most folks would also say it’s the time of the year that it’s so hot you pant like a dog. For streamers, there’s a third definition. It’s the time of year that goes by dog-slow because there’s nothing to stream. That’s certainly been true this summer. Major studios looked at the summer of ’23 as their opportunity to pivot back to theaters. I don’t blame them, as supposedly that’s where the money comes from. (I say supposedly...
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Can you use an external antenna with a gotW3 SIMTELL?

There are a lot of reasons why someone would want a cellular router like a SIMTELL. It’s just like other routers, except it doesn’t connect to fiber or coax. It doesn’t connect to anything other than plain air. SIMTELL uses the same technology as a cell phone, but it creates a wired and Wi-Fi network that any device can use. That means you can use a streaming box, a laptop, or pretty much any modern device. You can even connect your phone to it and use Wi-Fi calling, although I’m not sure if you’d gain anything from that. The SIMTELL’s one requirement The SIMTELL does need one thing in order to work: good cell service. And that can be an issue, because everything from houses to RVs to boats is designed to block cell signals very...
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FUN FRIDAY: Pac-Man for Atari 2600

Let’s start with something really sobering. Pac-Man came out 42 years ago. This would be the equivalent of talking about technology from World War II when I was in high school. We have to admit that tech has come a long, long way, but it’s amazing that there’s still anything technological to talk about from 1982. Pac-Man for arcade was certainly addictive, but for most folks there was a limit to how much you could play. Play cost a quarter, equal to about a dollar today. Unless you were really good at the game, it was rare for one quarter to last more than five minutes. So, you were paying $12 an hour in today’s money just to play Pac-Man. Plus you had to be standing the whole time and the whole thing wasn’t very ergonomic. You...
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