[AutoEng]

Hi all, I've been having some problems with power interference. When lights are turned on and off, the picture/sound on my tv will go out for a split second. In addition, I have comcast digital cable in the Detroit area and for some reason the digital local network channels (NBC, ABC, etc) seem to be more susceptible to this interference. For example if I'm watching NBC-Digital and my girlfriend turns on her hair dryer, the picture goes all blocky and the sound cuts in and out. But I can change to the analog NBC and everything is fine. I can also go to other digital channels like Discovery HD or ESPN HD and the hairdryer does not create this kind of interference.


So I think I have two problems.....one is a "dirty" power problem that shows itself when the picture/sound cut out as other electrical appliances are turned on/off. The other is the increased susceptibility of the digital networks to interference (that I may just have to take up with comcast).


What type of device should I look for to eliminate one or both of these problems? A UPS? A Power Conditioner? Do all UPSs have power conditioning? I already purchased an APC PF11VT3 "Surge Protector" which claims to have "noise filtering" but this did not help at all. So now I'm wondering what I should look to next, and don't want to buy something else that won't help. Do I need something that has coax filtering in it as well? Is this interference coming up through the power line or is it traveling from the power line into the coax line and into the tv? (my wall power outlet is just 5-6" away from my coax outlet).


This was not a problem until I bought a new Samsung 5668 HDTV and got digital cable.


I'd rather not entertain re-wiring my house to isolate the home theater gear on it's own circuit, but if that's the only thing that will help, it would be nice to know.


Thanks for your help!!

Greg.

 

[Pwidd]

You're probably right about the interference - you should take it up with Comcast. They may have to redo your cable. They should have used RG6 quad shield all the way. Check your connections to your cable box and to your tv, there may be a loose shield connection.

The power interference can be lots of things. If you have fluorescent tubes, they can cause problems; especially faulty ballasts or starters.


PW

 

[AutoEng]

Thanks Pwidd. When Comcast first brought the digital cable box, there was some issue with reception quality. The tech pretty much replaced every wire and connector in my house and even the aerial wire coming from the pole in my backyard to my house, and that improved things enough during regular watching, but I was still left with the appliance interference (didn't know this at the time). I'm pretty sure he used RG6 cable, but I don't know if all RG6 is quad shielded or not.


I got lucky and had a great tech come out to "install" the box and was able to get him to do the above work for free. But I've also had some lousy techs come out and haven't had much luck dealing with tech support on the phone. So I'd rather try to fix the power problem myself if I can.


Hopefully someone out there has had the same type of problem (intermittant interference traced directly to certain things being turned on) and can tell me how they solved it.


Thanks again.

 

[video321]

One thing you may want to try is to put whatever it is causing interference on the opposite phase of the circuit your A/V equipment is on. Keep in mind that you do want to keep a balance between the loads on each phase though.