Quote:
Originally Posted by
westom /t/1166930/surge-protection-and-signal-loss-question#post_16912821
Cable companies recommend no plug-in protectors for that same reason. Nothing stops surges. Will that silly little 2 cm component inside a Monster Cable stop what three miles of sky could not? Monster has a long history of identifying scams - then selling grossly overpriced products to those scams.
For example, Monster sold speaker wire 'with polarity' for about $60.
Take a $3 power strip, add some fancy paint and 10 cent protector parts. Sell it for how much? Because it costs more, some will recommend it.
Nothing stops surges. Protection was never about stopping or blocking surges as that Monster Cable would do. All appliances - even TV - contains significant internal protection. Anything that Monster Cable would do is already inside the appliance.
However the rare (maybe once every seven years) and destructive surge can overwhelm appliance protection. So you do what is recommended by every responsible engineering organization. From the NIST (a US government research agency):
> You cannot really suppress a surge altogether, nor
> "arrest" it. What these protective devices do is
> neither suppress nor arrest a surge, but simply
> divert it to ground, where it can do no harm.
Not stop. Not absorb. Divert (connect, shunt) a surge to earth ground where energy is harmlessly absorbed. Critical to protection is a short (ie 'less than 10 foot') connection to earth, no sharp wire bends, no splices, not inside conduit, separated from other non-grounding wires, etc. What does a responsible cable installation do? First that wire drops down to make a short connection to earth. Energy connected to earth before entering the building does not threaten appliances.
Did you cable company properly install (earth) their wire? No protector required. A less than 10 foot connection from its ground block to earth. To the same earth also used by the breaker box and a telco 'installed for free' protector.
You have this choice. Either earth every incoming wire in every cable so that surge energy stays outside the house. Or let the energy inside to hunt for destructive paths to earth via appliances.
Monster Cable does not even claim protection in its numeric specs. How to identify an ineffective protector: 1) It has no dedicated earthing wire. 2) Manufacturer avoids all discussion about earthing. Doing these things means that Monster can sell for $100 the same protector circuit selling for $7 in a grocery store protector.
For cable, earthing is accomplished with a hardwire; no protector required. For AC electric and telephone, wires cannot connect to earth ground directly. So we make that 'less than 10 foot' connection via a 'whole house' protector. Protection is only as effective as its earth ground.
Further information was posted at:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...php?p=16806779
Also noted - above is secondary protection. You should also inspect your primary surge protection:
http://www.tvtower.com/fpl.html