You are right, that is why I left the business. I now know more guys than I can count who are trying to stay in that business, who have not done one "DTV approved install" in years. Unless it was already installed before hand. They no longer ground anything, they run the cheapest wire they can buy (or most of them buy the good stuff for $5-$10/1000 ft. from the HSP employees), they have to charge the customer for everything they can think they can get away with, and on top of that they reuse everything they can. I was in my friends garage just 3 days ago and he had at least (no exageration) 200 pieces of wire with one f-connector on one end. He says they will make good-cheap jumpers oneday soon.
Is this what they have pushed their techs to, recycling old customers scrap wire. Some of the fittings were so old, that I could barely remember seeing them (and I started with the old C-bands in 1986).
I asked one friend if he considered buy cable from HSP employees for lunch money to be stealing. He said it did bother him at first, but he now just tells himself that if anybody is stealing it is the HSP tech and he says he is only buying stolen wire. We both laughed, but this is what it takes. He is still making less than we did in 2003 as employees.
