I now have two Armstrong cable boxes sitting in my house. I was perfectly satisfied with the old TV Guide Channel that was dropped on Jan 1.

Before that, I could get the TV listings on every set in my house. Now I have to walk to the TV with the box to see what’s on.

The Butler Eagle doesn’t carry all the channel listings, and the print TV Guide doesn’t carry the full day’s listings, either.

I’m not inclined to fire up the computer just to check out the listings. I find that tedious.

I would guess that Armstrong might have dropped the TV Guide Channel to make more money. I think it will take the company a while to make any profit on me.

First, they sent a repairman to install a box upstairs and a box downstairs, but he determined that my 1980s cable from the pole needed to be replaced, so a new appointment was scheduled. Three days later, two repairmen spent more than four hours running new wire from across the street, installing some new wires in my house, all new connectors, and the two boxes. Then a few hours later a supervisor came to inspect their work.

That was a lot of service hours just at my house, plus all the wire and the connectors.

So is it better? I was satisfied before.

The new signal really is not much different to me. The other day I couldn’t get the signal back to the box TV after watching a DVD.

I finally called Armstrong for help to reset the signal input. That was more Armstrong expense on my behalf.

Now I have to walk to a different room to check the listings, since we watch the kitchen TV the most, but there was no place to put the box there. Also, there is now a really annoying delay if I have on two TVs in adjoining rooms while I am working.

One is on the box, and the other isn’t. One TV sound is a second ahead of the other, and it makes an annoying echo.

I’ve looked at the Video on Demand but I never heard of most of the listings, so that is no big bonus for me, either.

I was happy before. Now I have annoyances without much benefit.