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Originally Posted by Robert_J
Surge protectors are just simple power strips without proper grounding.
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That isn't quite right - most of the cheapy surge protectors have the ground wired correctly, and use varistors to dump over-voltage to ground or neutral.
Better surge protectors use inductor-capacitor filtering as well.
I would not count on the coax to provide a safety ground. Most of the AV equipment will work just fine with no ground, but this is not usually recommended. You could run a separate piece of 12 guage wire to provide a ground to a cold water pipe, or a ground rod, or straight back to the power panel.
Dirty little secret: the ground connection is electrically tied to the neutral inside your power panel. That third wire is just a safety device, and really isn't for signal ground. Many two-prong outlets from the 60s have a ground wire for the electrical box, but it is smaller than the conductor wires. If you have that ground, you can use it. Not per spec, of course, but it does work.
