The Solid Signal Blog

If you’re a bar owner, you probably have a whole rack of satellite TV receivers. After all, everyone knows that showing sports in your bar is a great way to keep customers in their seats. You probably also have a receiver in your office, just for you. Imagine you come in one day, and find that one of the receivers in the rack is broken. It happens. Can you just take the one from your office and put it in there? Yeah, but They probably won’t catch you at first but… this is one of the worst things you can do in DIRECTV’s opinion, short of committing out-and-out fraud. It’s essentially like bringing in a receiver from home. They take this very seriously and if you are caught you should expect to hear some harsh words coming from your...

A couple of weeks ago, the DIRECTV support world erupted into chaos. OK, that’s a bit extreme. Let me say it a different way. I was perusing the many DIRECTV peer support forums and I found that there was one person asking one question, and that question raised a lot of other questions. One of them was particularly interesting to me, and it became the subject of this article. The Wireless Video Bridge This is DIRECTV’s Wireless Video Bridge. It’s been around a while, but you can probably tell that from the old-school DIRECTV logo. You can also read the review of it that I did back when it was new. It launched to consumers almost ten years ago now, and it’s been quietly doing the hard work since. The purpose of this Wireless Video...

This podcast has so much content it should be illegal! Listen, then shop at Solid Signal or call us at 888-233-7563. 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: Download the podcast in MP3 format. Option 4: Paste the following link into your favorite podcast...

Summer’s here! For millions of us that means vacation time, and more of us than ever are taking vacations in our RVs. There may not have been a lot of good things to come from our days in quarantine back in the early ’20s, but there was at least one. A lot of folks learned how much fun an RV can be. RV sales took off like a shot when people didn’t want to stay in unfamiliar hotels, and they’ve kept going. You can find very decent deals on older RVs in great shape. If life has been good to you, you’ve probably looked at brand new RVs with every possible gadget and upgrade. No matter what, you’re still probably looking for a way to get even more value out of that RV investment. Here’s one fact you’ve already figured out RVs are big...

Today we celebrate our Independence Day, as we have for 247 years. Well, actually it’s likely that no one actually celebrated on July 4, 1776. I mean given the state of communications back then no one actually knew that the Declaration of Independence had been signed other than a few people in a small room. But that’s not the point of this article. Our offices are closed today Yes, all of our operations are closed today. You can still shop at SolidSignal.com, or find us on Amazon, eBay, or any of the other marketplaces we serve. But our phone reps are off for the day. So are our warehouse staff. Our vendors like DIRECTV and DISH aren’t available for new account activations. In other words, it’s a holiday. Like so many others...

Offshore rig safety training is one of the most important things you can offer on your oil rig. As you know, there are a lot of injury risks associated with these types of oil and gas jobs. Oil rig workers use heavy mechanical equipment each day. This places a lot of physical demands on them, especially if they’ve been working long hours. These factors raise their chances of getting injured on the job. To help keep you and your laborers safe, we offer these five oil rig safety training tips. 1. Partner with the Local Emergency Response Agencies Do you know the names and numbers of the emergency response agencies near your rig? You should. These organizations provide valuable emergency response tips for you and your rig hands...

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Life on the water is super fun. So fun, in fact, that you tend to forgive that it’s also super-expensive. Even if you’re not thinking about the day-to-day costs like fuel and supplies, you’ve got to be aware of the cost of putting that boat away for the winter or keeping the electronics modern. If you’ve had your vessel for more than just a few years, you’ve already looked at upgrades to radar and GPS equipment, because that technology is evolving so fast that it’s worth it to upgrade. On the other hand, that satellite system you’re using is probably the same one you put up before the last financial crisis hit. It’s time to think about upgrading, especially if you have DIRECTV equipment. DIRECTV has committed to ending...

Everyone’s talking about Starlink. And why shouldn’t they? It’s a real change to the way people get internet. It may be the first move toward a future where people don’t need fiber coming to their homes at all. Starlink is… …satellite internet, but not what you think of as satellite internet. Traditional satellite internet uses a few large, expensive satellites in orbit high above the earth. By “high” I mean about 22,000 miles. By having the satellite so far away (and using some fancy math) you can have it occupy a fixed place in the sky. That’s great because you don’t have to re-aim your dish all the time. Starlink uses A LOT of relatively cheap, small satellites that are all fairly close to the ground. By “fairly close” I mean...

Let’s get all this right out in the open. Yes, the cell service in your building stinks. You’re probably reading this article on your computer because if you tried to load it up on your phone it would take FOREVER, even though you have the latest and greatest hardware and you probably pay over $100 a month for cell service. How could that be? Commercial buildings are actually designed that way For starters, commercial buildings aren’t designed for good cell service. Even brand new ones aren’t. Every part of your building is working against good service. Got bricks on the outside? Iron oxide in the clay blocks signals. Got energy efficient windows? They block all forms of radiation, not just heat, so cell signals can’t get through...

You hear us saying it over and over again: If you’re hooking up cable or satellite, stay away from cables with molded ends. If an installer comes and sees you using them, he’ll replace them on the spot. When people come to our live chat or call us on the phone with problems, that’s one of the first things we’ll suggest replacing. If someone sends us a picture of a cable and it looks like the one you see above, we always tell them it’s no good. Why all the hatred? So why all the hatred for these cables? Could molded plastic really make that much of a difference? Yes and no… when you see cables with molded ends, you know they’re not designed to be used for high-bandwidth applications like cable and satellite. They may work for a little...

The Solid Signal Blog is your resource for thousands of articles and reviews, with new content coming every day. 2023 marks our seventeeth year since our humble beginnings, and today over 250,000 people read the blog every month. Every month, the staff gets together and gathers articles that really seem like they have long-term appeal. Here’s the list for January, 2023: Is your DIRECTV box connected to the internet? Here’s the easy way to find out REVEALED: The LEGAL way to have DIRECTV service in two homes and pay one bill Is your DIRECTV box connected to the internet? Here’s the easy way to find out What is “spectrum?” NEW VIDEO: Unboxing and assembling the Solid Signal Rover Duo OTR Do you “really” need a satellite meter? Can you...

The other day I was watching a movie on Max, my new favorite channel to complain about. (Let’s say they still have a bit of work to do on their app and leave it at that.) I have a fairly decent and modern home theater system with enough power to meet my needs. It’s pretty rare that I need to turn it up higher than -30 (I’ll explain that number in a minute) even if I really want to rock out. On this particular film I ended up turning the volume up to -5. This is one of those home theater receivers that will actually go up to +10 if you’re willing to put up with some distortion. Still, it’s pretty rare that I ever have to turn it up even close to that high. So what gives? Probably an Atmos thing Dolby Atmos is the latest and greatest...

You wouldn’t think such a simple question would require a whole article. It’s a yes or no question, right? Well, there’s a little more to it than that. Buckle up, and let’s have a look at the reason the answer is both “Yes” and “No,” with a little bit of “what year is this” thrown in. Welcome to 2007 If you set the clock back to the days of emo kids and chunky highlights, the world was a different place. The smartphone as we know it today didn’t exist. Neither did the streaming box. YouTube as a platform was a mere two years old and most people couldn’t upload videos longer than 5 minutes. That was ok, because with 3mbps DSL it took a very long time to upload 5 minutes of video. Back then, the management at DIRECTV hoped that you’d...

The chart is just a start, but if you’re feeling like a little bit of a kick with your food, you’ll get an idea of just how hot some common sauces are, thanks to Sriracha2Go. Sriracha, in case you’ve missed out, is a spicy sauce that’s been known to folks out west for decades but only started becoming a national frenzy about five years ago. It’s sometimes called “Rooster Sauce” because of the rooster on the bottle of the most popular brand, Huy Fong Sriracha. The Scoville scale is an objective measure of hotness that measures the amount of capsaicin in something. Capsaicin, apparently, is the thing that gives peppers its, well, pepperiness. Most regular folks can take some level of hot sauce up to about 5,000 Scoville units, but the...