Ok let’s be honest, we all have done it. We get ambitious and decide that we want to add cable to a room, on a porch, or even in a garage. We think, “Hey it’s a no brainer right? I’ll just mosey on down to the local Wal-Mart, Radio Shack, or local grocery store and buy a splitter and some cable and VOILA! cable service! “After all, those cable guys do it all day long so it can’t be that hard. Heck, half of them look like they just got into a war with a dust monster and anyone that looks like that isn’t likely doing anything that requires much thought.” Okay, maybe those are not entirely accurate thoughts, but I had to get your attention and maybe even a smile or a little chuckle.
The fact is, splitting cable is more than just splitting cable. The first thing to consider is signal strength. The clarity of a picture on a television screen is directly related to signal strength and quality. Therefore, the more times you “split” a signal, the more you lessen the signal strength which will diminish the quality of the picture on your television. That tech that just walked in your door, with those pristine white boot covers and warm smile, has a super smart tool called a signal meter that will help to determine the amount of times, or if at all, that cable line can be split. Unless you have one of these meters and are trained on how to use it, you are playing Russian Roulette with the signal levels in your cable.
The other thing to consider is signal quality. The Radio Shack or Wal-Mart splitter is not going to have the same signal insulation that WOW! splitters have. Simply put, our engineers have determined what type of vendor can supply a splitter that meets our unique criteria and that’ s the only splitter we will use. As our needs in the industry change, so does our equipment, and that includes splitters. The “universal splitter” purchased at a local hardware store is only specified to split the signal and not necessarily to insulate it properly. Every tech I know has seen improperly insulated signals from these store-bought splitters and …yep….it rears it’s ugly head in many forms. There’s the classic “snowy picture” or the revered “double image.” Now, in the digital age, often times the picture will simply disappear.
The last thing that I want to mention is phone and internet service. You may not realize that the cable line feeding the modem needs to be dedicated (not split) to only that piece of equipment or it could mean trouble. Slow Internet ser vice or intermittent phone service is often the result of bad splitter decisions.
In conclusion, your WOW technician is probably going to be a bit grungy because he or she just came out of an attic or crawl space at the previous customer’s home, replacing the five or six store-bought splitters that needed to be changed to get the service to work properly again. That’s what we are trained to do…seek out and fix any issues, with a smile, no matter where they takes us so your experience will be a WOW! one.
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