Media – K2IE

When Customer Service is Not Optimum

My cable internet provider is Altice USA a/k/a Optimum Online a/k/a Cablevision. Over the years they have generally been reliable, at least in my experience. However, I recently had a terrible customer experience with this company. The matter was ultimately remedied, but only after I escalated matters to the fullest extent possible.

In addition to internet services, I get a Broadcast Basic package of mostly over the air channels. I don’t actually need the package because I have excellent free over the air (OTA) reception of all of the NYC based stations. Much of the regular programming that we watch is via streaming services and I can always get CNN or MSNBC audio via TuneIn or Sirius XM. But, the Broadcast Basic service also provides the essential public service broadcaster, CSPAN.

The main reason that I take the package is that at some point it turned out to cost the same for a TV/Internet bundle as the Internet alone. So why not? The package also provides some decent music channels provided through a service from Stingray.

On or around May 22nd, in the midst of COVID-19 isolation here in New Jersey, a large number of the channels in my TV package disappeared. And so began 21 days of dealing with mostly outsourced, ignorant and even obnoxiously overly-gracious call center representatives (CCR). They wasted about 20 hours of my time and did not solve my problem.

This is a good time to mention that I don’t have or need a cable box. I own a TiVo DVR with lifetime service plan. The Tivo box has a CableCard slot. It is a nice compact package.

On day one of the outage, almost all of my channels disappeared for a time. Within hours, the broadcast HD channels had mostly returned. Then I began to notice that some channels were still missing. When I phoned customer service, I was told that they were aware of an outage and that I would be called when it was cleared. No one called.

This was followed by call after call. I was told that my problem had been resvoled, when it had not. I was told to reboot my cable box which I do not have. I was told to uplug and replug my TiVo box. I took many passes through an interactive voice response (IVR) system that does not understand CableCards.

At various points, I figured out how to bypass the IVR’s automated troubleshooting process and get to a human rep. The reps repeatedly paired and unpaired my CableCard without acheiving the desired result. Something must have changed on the Cablevision network.

I started talking to others in my area and learned that my problem was not unique. As I researched the problem, I suspected that the missing channels had been changed over to a switched digital video (SDV) protocol. SDV allows the providers to save bandwidth by sending less frequently used video out on demand only. Unfortunately, CSPAN does not seem to be viewed as often as it probably should be.

It seems that a CableCard cannot received SDV channels. An external box termed a tuning adapter is needed to receive the SDV channels. The only call center represtative that might have understood the issue was so obnoxiously and facetiously gracious that it was painful to speak with him. Oh Mr. Dan, speaking to you is the high point of my day…that sort of thing. Repeatedly. I would characterize this as a culture clash with the subcontinent call center.

He offered a tuning adapter as a solution but quickly retracted that offer, saying instead that he wanted to send me new cablecard or to dispatch a technician to my home to troubleshoot my cable. Nope, no way, not in the middle of a worldwide pandemic. No thank you.

Around day 17 or so of the outage, my daily call to the less than Optimum customer service revealed that I could obtain a tuning adapter to see if it solved my issue. I was told to go to the Parlin store to pick it up. I asked the CCR to call the store first to make certain that they had one in stock and that I was not wasting a trip. I have not been out on many shopping expeditions since the 21st of March and I would have preferred that they ship the tuning adapter to me. I was told that they can’t, which would have been more accurate had they said they won’t.

The CCR assured me that a tuning adapter would await me in Parlin. After a 20 minutes drive, I arrived outside the Parlin store. Customers were not being admitted but there was a gentleman at the door answering inquiries. He politely informed me that the had not seen a tuning adapter in that store since November.

At that point, my only option was to go vertical. I filed an FCC complaint, a NJ BPU complaint, and found email addesses for a number of corporate executives. The next day I received a phone call from Tom, a nice fellow who works for Corporate Customer Relations.

He was very apologetic about the company’s poor response to that point. He acknowledged that the outage was indeed caused by a conversion of certain channels to SDV. He arranged for a tuning adapter to be delivered to my house and asked me to call him personally when it arrived to have it provisioned. That happened yesterday, on schedule, and after a 21 day outage I now have all channels to which I am entitled.

This was a major customer service failure that could have been prevented had Optimum provided clear scripts and training to their CCRs that would have immediately pointed them to a solution for missing channels when using a cablecard. Engineering should also be providing the CCRs with a clear change calendar that shows when regions are being converted to SDV or any other major changes are being made so that related incidents are immediately associcated.

And there is a lesson here about outsourcing. It may be cheap, but you get what you pay for. And in the end, it took a technically knowledgable guy from Long Island to solve my issue, not a contractor in Bangalore.

Only a virtual monopoly can get away with providing such poor service and still survive.

Siriusly, My Radio Listening Just Improved

I’ve been a Sirius subscriber since before it was Sirius XM and before Howard Stern first fled from teresstrial radio to the birds. I stopped being a regular commuter in 2013 and so my listening time shifted from the car to home.

At one point I mounted a small antenna to the side of the house and listened directly to the satellites. This was soon replaced by my Logitech Squeezebox internet “radio”. At some point, Sirius made some protocol change for the internet streaming that broke the Squeezebox app and there was to be no fix. So I switched to a Grace internet “radio”. Then came another change and the Grace could no longer be used.

I’ve been a Google Home smart speaker user for a couple of years and it always seemed odd that Google and Sirius had not partnered on a solution. Well, Happy Radiomas to me! In November, Sirius XM rolled out Google Home device integration. After setting up the credentials in the Google Home app, Sirius radio fun is now as close as saying “Hey Google, Play Spectrum on Siriux XM”.

Thanks Sirius and Google for making it easy to listen to Sirius in the same way that I listen to many other audio sources. If you are not using your smart speaker to listen to the radio, you’re missing out.

Former shortwave listeners, especially, can find a wealth of programming from around the world. For example, you can get the lastest news from the BBC or updates on the fire situation in Australia from Radio Australia. Make a resolution to explore this capability in the new year and you won’t be disappointed. You can even request, “Hey Google, play the latest Glenn Hauser’s World of Radio podcast.”

73 de K2IE

Google’s Fake Weather

Where there is “Fake News”, is “Fake Weather” likely to follow? Google doesn’t seem to know where I am. At least the Google News homepage no longer knows. Allow me to explain.

I use Google News as my web browser homepage. For many years, near the upper right hand side of the page there has been a box that presents my local weather forecast. Some weeks ago, the box started presenting the weather for another part of my state. I provided Google with web feedback and some days later noticed that the caption changed to “Your Local Weather”.

A number of days passed and we were experiencing the umpteenth heatwave of Summer 2018. However, the outside temperature reported by Google appeared to be way too mild for our local reality. I clicked the link below, which took me to weather.com, and learned that Google News thinks I am in Dearing, KS. Interestingly, this is near the geographic center of the continental United States and is often used to represent a geographical location for the USA when no other details are known.

On the other hand, my Google Home devices all seem to know my location and report the correct weather (well, their understanding of the correct weather) for my location. Chromecast, however, is as confused as the Google website.

I’ve reported this issue via the Google web feedback mechanism and hopefully I will again be able to get my real weather instead of Google’s “Fake Weather”.

In the meantime, I am living the dream. Google is doing a bad job of tracking me and I can always claim I was in Dearing, KS should the need arise!

Art Bell and the Alien Pirates

You’ve probably heard by now that Art Bell, known to radio amateurs as W6OBB, is now a silent key. That’s what us ham ops call a dead guy. Well Art may be physically dead, but I think he is alive somewhere (or many wheres) in time.

Art Bell, amateur radio operator and talk show host extraordinaire.

My favorite memory of Art goes back to a show he probably did about 20 years ago. I don’t remember the exact date, but he announced one night that if aliens were really trying to contact us we should agree upon a common radio frequency. He threw a frequency out on the air and said that people should listen in case the aliens call. So I listened.

Sure enough, after some time listening to static, someone turned on a transmitter and started playing the sounds from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I don’t know if it was transmitted by Art himself, but what a prankster.

73 Art, you will be missed.

Facebook Fails the Third Party Risk Test

Information security professionals often examine “third-party risk”. Simply put, associations with business partners and contractors can present outside risks to the data, financial, and/or physical security of an organization. The risk may be contractors with access to secure areas or sensitive business processes. The risk can be shared data in the temporary custody of a partner. The risk can be virtual access to a network or a facility without adequate audit.

Today I was informed by Facebook that my privacy could have been compromised because “friends” of mine used an application platform profiling app called “This is Your Digital Life”. I wish I could tell you more or show you the notification, but in typical arrogant Facebook fashion, the notification was a fly-by. It was presented on the screen of my smart mobile device. I put the phone in my pocket and headed to my office to compose this piece, but once the Facebook feed refreshed I can no longer find it. It is not on my notification list. So much for transparency. So much for ease of use. Now you see it, now you don’t.

So what does this mean? Well, in this case Facebook allowed a third party that I did not authorize to access my profile data. They allowed the third party because a second party (my Facebook friends) accessed an application that pulled the data. They allowed this even though I opted out of the Facebook application platform and therefore had a reasonable expectation of data privacy. Facebook fails. And my mom was right. You are impacted by the actions of your friends.

What is the answer? Take ’em down. Let’s see a class action lawsuit financially impact Facebook. There are enough of us in this potential class that have, by Facebook’s own admission, suffered harm. Congress is not likely to impose a satisfactory regulatory solution any time soon. So let’s take it to the courts and show companies that a willful direct and careless violation of our data privacy will be the most expensive mistake that their companies can make.

2018 SWL Fest Talk Links

Here are the links mentioned in my 2018 SWL Fest presentation, “RTL-SDR: more SDR on the cheap!”

Receiving NRSC-5 by Theori
NRSC-5 Proof of Concept Code
NRSC-5-D Standard
Other NRSC-5 Related Standards
NRSC-5 Metadata GUI by K2DLS
dump1090 blog post
Dire Wolf source code
Xastir wiki
Xastir source code
Raspberry Pi Foundation

A New Kelement

I’ve been a fan of internet radio appliances ever since the AE1 hit the market in 2006. I still find them to be more convenient than using a smartphone paired with a bluetooth speaker. However, my Grace models, a few years old now, stopped working with Sirius a couple of years ago. It was the same with a Logitech Squeezebox. Google Home provides a decent way to access Pandora and TuneIn, but not Sirius.

Our kitchen counter has added a new Kelement WiFi Internet Radio and I like it. It is an appliance based upon an Android screen and familiar apps, along with two speakers and a subwoofer. No, the sound won’t blast you away, but it is fine for the $80 I paid during Black Friday/Cyber Monday. The price on Amazon is now $90, but I would still recommend it at that price.

It is nice to be able to again listen to Sirius while downstairs and the Android touch screen interface makes sense.

Google Home Goes Multiuser

Google Home has rolled out multiuser functionality. Despite an initial glitch, it seems to work well.

Each member of your household records their voice saying “Hey Google” and “OK Google” by kicking off a dialog on their Android mobile device. They then get access to their personal calendar, music content, and other personalized services to follow. Once enabled, each user can voice query, “Hey Google, what is my name?” and Google Home knows!

I was the initial owner of Google Home when we set up our two devices. After Tina enabled her profile, we found a glitch where Home did not know who I was any longer. It kept referring me to my Google Home app to enable multiuser functionality. But, it took a few days for Home to offer me that option within the app.

Yesterday, when I tried to listen to some content, Google Home complained that it didn’t recognize me and again asked that I enable multiuser. This time, the option was present and I was able to complete the setup.

Tracking North Korean Numbers

My Aussie mate, Mark Fahey, has spent a number of years studying the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. He passes on the following information about North Korean “spy numbers” stations:

“The Pyongyang numbers (designated V15) have either become less regular or changed their schedule since March. Its been a few months since I have personally received them – but I also haven’t been specifically tuning in for them lately so maybe I have simply missed noticing a timing change.

“If you want to find the North Korean numbers, they are read out in a block between songs within the regular programing of the Pyongyang Pangsong radio station. The choice of music immediately before the number block seems to indicate which recipient agent the transmission is directed to. For Agent 27 “We Will Go Together with a Song Of Joy” is played, whereas Agent 21’s song is “Spring of my Hometown.”

“The announcements typically take between 5 to 10 minutes to read dependent on the number of digits passed. The transmission schedule is variable; in early 2017 the broadcast alternated with a cycle of one week on Thursday night at 12:45AM Pyongyang Time (1615 UTC) and the following week on Saturday night at 11:45PM Pyongyang Time (1515 UTC).

“Pyongyang Pangsong can be heard on these shortwave band frequencies (it is also on MF & FM on the Korean peninsular):

3250 kHz Pyongyang 100KW Transmitter
3320 kHz, Pyongyang 50KW Transmitter
6400 kHa Kanggye 50KW Transmitter”

If you’re interested in learning about what life is like “Behind the Curtain“, Mark has compiled a detailed multimedia publication based upon his actual observations inside North Korea. It is available at no cost via iTunes.

RetroPie, A Tasty Gaming Platform

Retrogaming, the enjoyment of older computer based games and platforms, has been growing in popularity. I was intrigued a couple of years ago when, at a Vintage Computer Fest, I saw a multigame platform with hundreds of game ROMs copied onto a single emulation device. I had been wondering what the old games would look like connected via an HDMI input as opposed to the old low resolution RF transmitter method.

Then I came across the RetroPie project. RetroPie is a framework, delivered as an image, that allows you to run a number of game and computer system emulators on a Raspberry Pi. RPi models 2 and 3 are much better than older versions for this application. It is very simple to install and I was even able to use an old Colecovision controller to play Donkey Kong, Ladybug, and Carnival.

To connect the old controller, I came across a device called the Vision-daptor. One side sports a DB9 male connector, the other a USB B jack. It arrived just a couple of days after my order. The RPi recognized the device as a joystick controller without adding any additional drivers.

The Coleco emulation is handled by an optional component called CoolCV. CoolCV will also run under Linux, Mac and Windows. If you use a controller, rather than a keyboard, you may need to make some changes to key mappings in a configuration file.

There are plenty of sources for games online, but remember that games may still be covered by copyright. Some folks copy the contents of ROMs that they have purchased allowing them to play games for which they no longer have a gaming device. This requires some specialized hardware.

If you do download games via the internet, keep in mind that some sites may be vectors for the transmission of viruses and other malware. Exercise caution while you kill off those space invaders. And the games do look great on an HDMI monitor!