# Cable Card / Activation



## garberfc (Feb 10, 2003)

I have my new Roamio up and running and need to activate the calling card. I've already wasted several hours on the phone w/ Comcast. My local Comcast says the card is already activated, the 800-Comcast clowns say they're unable to "Register" or "Add" the card to my account.

Now I'm wondering if maybe I'm not getting a video signal over the coax. Should I be seeing the standard non-encrypted channels without the cable card?

Please help me retain the small bit of sanity I have left....

Thanks in advance,
F


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## DeltaOne (Sep 29, 2013)

Don't call the regular Comcast support number. Always call 877-405-2298 for CableCard issues.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

garberfc said:


> I have my new Roamio up and running and need to activate the calling card. I've already wasted several hours on the phone w/ Comcast. My local Comcast says the card is already activated, the 800-Comcast clowns say they're unable to "Register" or "Add" the card to my account.
> 
> Now I'm wondering if maybe I'm not getting a video signal over the coax. Should I be seeing the standard non-encrypted channels without the cable card?
> 
> ...


IF you have clear QAM, and you repeat the guided setup, and do a channel scan, the channels should be there but you may have to manually select the main channel number. I would assume your TV has the raw channel numbers for cable channels or you can cross reference the frequency to a cable channel. I can do that if needed (using wiki). Some cable feeds let the PSIP through, some don't. The frequency doesn't change - only the displayed channel number.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

garberfc said:


> I have my new Roamio up and running and need to activate the calling card. I've already wasted several hours on the phone w/ Comcast. My local Comcast says the card is already activated, the 800-Comcast clowns say they're unable to "Register" or "Add" the card to my account.
> 
> Now I'm wondering if maybe I'm not getting a video signal over the coax. Should I be seeing the standard non-encrypted channels without the cable card?


As the above posts say, NEVER EVER call the regular Comcast numbers for anything related to CableCards. Always call the dedicated CableCard support line. The regular Comcast numbers will get you absolutely nowhere.

As far as unencrypted channels, you might not have any of those. But that isn't really the issue. On Comcast, you should be able to get everything except premium channels with an unpaired CableCard as long as it is properly provisioned on your account. The pairing process is only required for premium channels and Xfinity on demand.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

Good point. When I got my Roamio all I did was move the cable card from my Premiere to the Roamio. No call needed and no premium channels to worry about.


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## Bars & Tone (Aug 28, 2004)

DeltaOne said:


> Don't call the regular Comcast support number. Always call 877-405-2298 for CableCard issues.


I agree with not calling regular Comcast support, but frankly, don't even call the so-called CableCard Hotline either.

These offshore folks just work from a script and if _anything_ at all is messed up during the pairing process their only responses are either, one: tell you to wait for anything between 1 and 48 hours for the channels to "magically" appear, or two: they'll be happy to roll a truck to your house. They simply will not/can not do any troubleshooting.

Try calling the U.S. Comcast people at 877-761-5015

I've had pairing problems with two CableCards in the last month that were solved by the folks at the number above. It took most of a day for the first one and a couple of days for the second one but the people I dealt with actually called me back several times to keep me updated on what was happening. I was so shocked that I had a hard time believing that I was dealing with Comcast!!


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## DeltaOne (Sep 29, 2013)

Bars & Tone said:


> Try calling the U.S. Comcast people at 877-761-5015


I had that number in my notes but it wasn't labeled as being U.S. centric. Good to know.


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## garberfc (Feb 10, 2003)

Bars & Tone said:


> Try calling the U.S. Comcast people at 877-761-5015


Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!!! I'll be calling this number today!!!


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## garberfc (Feb 10, 2003)

I'm new to the whole cable card / digital cable setup. I've been a DTV subscriber for the past 10 years or so. 

Is there an other special hardware that I need? Right now the coax enters the house, goes into a cheap splitter, 1 output goes straight to my cable modem, and I've routed the 2nd straight to the TiVo Roamio.

Am I missing anything?


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

garberfc said:


> I'm new to the whole cable card / digital cable setup. I've been a DTV subscriber for the past 10 years or so.
> 
> Is there an other special hardware that I need? Right now the coax enters the house, goes into a cheap splitter, 1 output goes straight to my cable modem, and I've routed the 2nd straight to the TiVo Roamio.
> 
> Am I missing anything?


Both your cable modem and the Roamio have diagnostics that will display the signal level and SNR from your feed. Good numbers are 90% for signal and 36db for SNR. These are not absolutes, close counts. My cable company ran a new line for my cable modem when it was added. Every cable company is different. Probably the most important number is the RS corrected/uncorrected count shown in the Roamio per tuner. Zero is good. Non-zero is not so good.


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## Bars & Tone (Aug 28, 2004)

DeltaOne said:


> I had that number in my notes but it wasn't labeled as being U.S. centric. Good to know.


I guess that I should point out that I'm assuming that it's U.S. Comcast because everyone I've talked to at that number spoke unaccented English and not because I know for certain that the call center is located in a particular place in the U.S.

For the record, I should perhaps state that a CableCard I had paired about a year ago by calling the 877-405-2298 number was an absolutely painless process. So I guess we could say that the CableCard Hotline people are batting .333. And while that may be good enough to get you into Cooperstown, it's not particularly good in this situation.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

garberfc said:


> Is there an other special hardware that I need? Right now the coax enters the house, goes into a cheap splitter, 1 output goes straight to my cable modem, and I've routed the 2nd straight to the TiVo Roamio.


That should work fine, though it would be nice if the splitter weren't "cheap". As the above post says, check your signal levels on the cable modem and the TiVo. You can log into your cable modem's web user interface. Optimal downstream power level is 0 dBmV, but a modem should work fine from -8 to +8. Even more out of that range will probably still work, but you can start to have problems.

For the TiVo, check the signal level in the TiVo settings. Rather than showing dBmV, TiVos show you a number up to 100. Being exactly at 100 I think translates to 0 dBmV, though since the number won't go above 100 no matter how hot the signal is, it's good to have it a little below that number, somewhere in the 90s. TiVos don't seem to like it if the signal gets too strong, so if yours is too strong you can attenuate the signal by adding more splitters.


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