Mark Daria

Major buzz problem coming from Cable TV cable! What can I do?

Ive always been having a problem with buzzing on my setup, and I decided to finally figure out what was going on.

Whenever I connected the cable box to my receiver using the coaxial digital out, I got a major buzz. The kind of buzz that makes it impossible to enjoy what youre watching. And the buzz is the same volume no matter what volume your speakers are set to. And not only that, but it doesnt matter whether youre actually using the digital audio, once the cable touches the socket, it begins to buzz. The cable box doesnt even need to be plugged in! At first I had thought it was the cable box, since using the standard composite cables seemed to have killed the buzz.

But then I realized that the buzz was still there, only lower. And the buzz only finally went away when I unplugged the cable wire from the cable box. Once I did that, I could even connect the digital audio just fine...so apparently, all the buzzing is due to the damn cable wire...

I did a little research, and it seems as if its a ground loop problem? Im no electrician, and to be honest, I have barely any conception of what that means. All I want to know is what I can do about to stop it. Is it a problem with the cable company's install, or is it bad wiring in my building perhaps? If its the cable company, Ill give them a call in a second, but if its the building, I dont want to bother my landlord about it. In that case, is there anything I can do to alleviate the buzz?

JohnEF

I had the very same problem and after doing an internet search to a site suggested by the Outlaw techs (I just purchased the 950/770 combo) I was able to solve the problem.

The best solution is for the cable company to ground their wiring to the house electrical ground but a quick and dirty solution is to buy two small transfers that convert 75 ohms to 300 ohms and then 300 ohms to 75 ohms and place this between the point where the cable comes from the wall to your cable box(these transformers are commonly used to attach a tv that has 2 screws for attachment to flat antenna wire to coaxial cable instead-usually a male end while the converter back to to 75 ohm from 300 ohm has a female end-one converter attaches to the other via the flat antenna cable. I did this and the hum went away. My understanding is that this is not an ideal solution is bandwith is limited (a problem if you get HDTV through your cable company).

Listed below is the website that I consulted:

http://www.epanorama.net/documents/g..._building.html

I hope this solves your problem.

John