franco@bbn.com (Frank A. Lonigro) (05/13/91)
Well it is definitely here... It happened to my brother in-law just last week. He had his, (gulp!!!), "illegal" descrambler box rendered useless by the cable company sending done the cable some sort of spike. I was thinking about getting the same sort of box he has but at the time I wasn't willing to spend the almost 200 bucks for the stuff. But now, I'm even more unwilling because of this spike thing. So, has this happened to anyone else out there? Does anyone know of a way to defeat this spike yet? How can his box be fixed at a reasonable cost so he can use it again, despite the fact that it can get fried again? If there is a way to defeat or eliminate the chance of getting spiked again, is it inexpensive and where can such a thing be found? I'm assuming that his separate descrambler box is the thing that is broken and not the GEMINI converter box one can buy at Kmart that he has. How can I be sure which box is broken? Can or does this spike reck store bought converter boxes such as the GEMINI? And how come it doesn't fry cable ready TVs and VCRs? I heard that there is a chip(little black box) inside these "illegal" cable boxes that gets fried in some way to render the box useless. If this is true, which chip is it? I guess I need serial numbers or part numbers or some such to identify the correct chip. And last but not least, where can I buy this chip if replacing it will fix my brother in-laws box, even though it would be subject to another spike and rendered useless again??? Thanks in advance, -franco Frank A. Lonigro (franco@bbn.com, ...!harvard!bbn!franco) Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc., 10 Moulton St., Cambridge, Mass. 02138 "e, s, s, s, n, e, e, nw, get chest, se, n, d" - Sound familiar??????