My letter and faxes to Starband, All Wireless Communication, and Alliance Satellite seem to have gotten the attention I wanted.

Marc Bass called to tell me that Starband ought to work as well as satellite TV. If your television loses the signal, then the weather is bad enough to drop internet. Internet should NOT however get dropped by passing clouds, heavy clouds, drizzle, or rain. He told me that we was surprised I've allowed this to go on for this long, and apologized profusely.

Rob Maclaren, who did my original installation, was not so amused or apologetic. He tells me Starband is misdirecting us on the cause of our problems, but it's moot at this point. We're to get new equipment, new cabling, and the roof mount replaced by a ground-level pole mount.

I plan on running the signal meters myself before he leaves. We ought to be getting a signal quality of 7 to 13 (or higher), and it should never drop to the levels it's at now (3.7 to 5.3).

So, *hopefully*, the end to my internet troubles is in sight? SigSampler ([url]http://www.starbandusers.com/sigsampler.htm[/url]) will be the new constant companion to my system tray.