Shaw Internet & TV Channels 14 & 15

[microware]

Hi all, a few years ago when I lived in Winnipeg, I subscribed to Shaw High Speed Internet and bundled it with basic analog Shaw Cable TV. As I lived in an apartment with only one coaxial outlet, the Shaw installer put in a Lindsay 2-Way Digital Splitter. One cable to the cable modem, the other cable to the TV.

After a few months, I decided to drop the subscription to analog TV, but wanted to keep the high speed internet. So Shaw did their thing (I assume sent a person out to install filters/traps on my specfic line from the distribution point in the apartment building someplace)...they never had to enter my apartment, and they got rid to the cable tv signals as I requested....

But, I noticed that I still was able to receive Channel 14 Discovery, as well as Channel 15 CNN on my TV. I called Shaw and informed them of this as I did not want to get billed in the future for any channels I received which I did not request...they told me not to worry, I would not get charged.....they said they are not able to block out 14 + 15 due to the cable internet bandwidth being "close" to those two channels or something like that.

Since then, I have moved twice, and at both places have had only Shaw High Speed Internet (not subscribed to cable tv) and at both places, again I was able to pull in channels 14 + 15 on my tv (using the digital splitter).

Can anybody describe in more technical terms why this is? What exact frequency does the Shaw cable internet bandwidth get broadcast on?

Can Shaw not get/install more advanced filters/traps to stop the signals from channel 14 + 15 from leaking through for free without affecting the cable Internet bandwidth/speed?

[epoch555]

In simple terms, no. Shaw internet works on channels 4 and 14. Eventually, once all-digital comes into full operation, there will be no analog channels and we wont need those filters.

[bigoranget]

I'm going to assume that Shaw's upstream and/or downstream is between channels 95-99 as these blocks of channels are the closest to channel 14.

The order that stations go in are as follows

2
3
4
1
5
6
95-99
14-22
7-13
23-94
100-->

Do channels 2 - 6 also work for you? On my cable system (not Shaw), I can get chanenls 2-6 and 14 without issue. Channel 15 is snowy but watchable then no other channels work after channel 15.

[microware]

The only Shaw analog channels I can pull in are:
14 - Discovery Channel (perfect audio, fairly excellent video quality)
15 - CNN (perfect audio, video quality pretty good, but not as good as 14)

2 - CBWT (CBC Winnipeg English) audio is just static, video is just extremely grainy/static, black and white, pretty much unwatchable in this manner.

All the other channels are just dark video and audio static. But I do notice that on channels 95 to 99 (on my 125 channel capable Radio Shack NTSC set top VHF/UHF/Cable box), that on those 5 channels the video static is a much lighter gray video static then on all the other channels.

[thecableguy84]

well i can remember for sure that the internet signal (downstream) is just above channel 14 in the frequency range, and the upsteam (if i remember correctly) is below channel 2
The digital phone signal is somewhere in the mid 80's i think it was 84... or was it mid 50's... i cant remember off the top of my head... but the digital phone was 50's or 80's

[Mixar69]

then how do you explain ch's 101, 108 and 120 at least here in Winnipeg because I’m not sure exactly?

[microware]

Hiya Mixar69. Well, out here in Steinbach, our Shaw TV/Internet gets fed to us via a terresrtrial wireless microwave link to Winnipeg, or so I'm told by a Shaw employee.
I checked out analog ch's 101, 108, 120, but thus far, everytime I've checked, I just get the standard static/snow, nothing special, nothing to see.

I do remember, back in the Fall of 2003 or sometime in very early 2004, when I lived in the St. Vital area of Winnipeg, I would occasionally get some kind of weird sine wave type looking channel somewhere in the analog channel 80 or 90 block....I recall it moved to a different channel once or twice. For some reason channel 87 and/or channel 93 seem to ring a bell in my head, but it's been a few years so my recollection of the exact channel(s) may be a bit off.
Plus the sine wave channel would be around for a few days or a few hours, and then gone for a few days or weeks. I always wondered what that thing was about.

In addition, as I have been told by a Shaw employee, we currently cannot get Xtreme High Speed Internet, nor the Nitro Speed or whatever it's called, nor can we get Shaw Digital Phone services out here in Steinbach. Something to do with the limited bandwidth of the microwave link between Winnipeg & Steinbach or something like that.

We can only get Lite High Speed and Regular High Speed, analog cable TV, and digital cable TV through Shaw out here.

[AnotherOne]

That channel bothered me too, and by 'that channel' I mean that strange twitchy line-graph around channel 80-something, however I found out a few months ago.

That channel actively measures the signal to your home. I'm not sure how it's read exactly, but that graph is supposed to indicate signal strength, noise, etc..

[thecableguy84]

Yes that channel was used for seeing your signal coming in, i never learned how to read it for the obvious reason as its not really seen anymore, all all techs now have a meter they can check your signal with.

[EPRock]

Yes that channel was used for seeing your signal coming in, i never learned how to read it for the obvious reason as its not really seen anymore, all all techs now have a meter they can check your signal with.

In 99.9% of houses there is no hardware which is capable of generating a picture to display on a channel.