Here's a good one. About two weeks ago, I started to get the hum bars on my HDTV. Following all the good advice on this forum (everything in same power strip, etc.), I determined that it was the CATV cable that was causing the hum bars. So as the next step, I found the cable ground, and it was correctly hooked to the house ground. Nevertheless, I cleaned and re-tightened the connections. When I went back inside, much to my surprise, this made no difference. As a test, I disconnected the CATV ground completely, and the hum bars looked exactly the same. I also noticed that the intensity of the hum bars varied throughout the day, going from barely visible to very annoying. Next, I purchased the Jensen isolater which fixed the problem, but caused macro blocking on several channels because it dropped the signal strength too low. So I have given up trying to fix it myself, and have a cable tech coming out next weekend. I have two questions.

(1) Should I convince the tech that this is a problem at the pole or are there other potential problems I have missed?
(2) Would it be better to get him to boost the signal strength so I can use the isolater?

Here's a good one. About two weeks ago, I started to get the hum bars on my HDTV. Following all the good advice on this forum (everything in same power strip, etc.), I determined that it was the CATV cable that was causing the hum bars. So as the next step, I found the cable ground, and it was correctly hooked to the house ground. Nevertheless, I cleaned and re-tightened the connections. When I went back inside, much to my surprise, this made no difference. As a test, I disconnected the CATV ground completely, and the hum bars looked exactly the same. I also noticed that the intensity of the hum bars varied throughout the day, going from barely visible to very annoying. Next, I purchased the Jensen isolater which fixed the problem, but caused macro blocking on several channels because it dropped the signal strength too low. So I have given up trying to fix it myself, and have a cable tech coming out next weekend. I have two questions.

(1) Should I convince the tech that this is a problem at the pole or are there other potential problems I have missed?
(2) Would it be better to get him to boost the signal strength so I can use the isolater?
Should have bought one of these (http://www.cencom94.com/gpage10.html). I haven't heard of any problems with it on here.

You may have to get a cable technician out to make sure your signal level is adequate, although the isolator itself shouldn't have enough insertion loss to cause grief.

I've had good luck with the Jensen. Unless you are already very low on signal, I'd be surprised if the insertion loss is enough to make a difference. Not knowing what else you have there in terms of splitters, etc, it's smart to bring in a tech who can check the signal strength across the frequency spectrum.