[PVRCNC] What! No Voltage?

[Jim Jordan, K4QPL]

Cable repairman down at the coast came to investigate on Saturday why the 
cable modem kept dropping out causing erratic internet access. Having 
nothing better to do I thought I'd learn something about how the bits and 
bytes get to us from the cable.

As he was cleaning up and replacing connectors corroded by the salt air, I 
made the innocent comment: "I can see where corrosion on those connectors 
could cause voltage drop and loss of signal"

To which he set me straight:  "There is NO voltage on a digital cable---only 
decibels".

After replacing some cables, connectors, lightning protector, splitter and 
anything else readily to hand and the system was working again, he then 
pulled up the analysis software on his laptop and said that everything was 
now fine at our end except the "Receiving SNR line".  "Minimum decibels on 
the 'Receiving SNR line'  should be >33 and we were only getting 30db". I 
looked at the screen and while trying to keep a straight face on that 
explanation of the signal to noise ratio analysis being done by the 
software, I asked what was the problem with "the receiving SNR line"? 
Response: "We're having some issues with that in the system". End of 
explanation.

I wanted to ask if they had anyone out looking for those lost decibels that 
should have been on the 'Receiving SNR Line' but thought better of it. As 
there's no voltage involved, I shouldn't be concerned.

Painting by numbers applied to tech service     ;-)

73,

Jim, K4QPL