Video Hum Bars


Hi,

I understand there is a device that can either be bought or made to prevent hum bars from appearing becuase of a ground loop problem with the cable input. Mondial sells this device for around 100.00 (overpriced, I think)-which is a female to female jack that plugs in line with the cable cable- and then I remember someone in Audiogon had disribed taking to transformers and making your own device.

Any thoughts on how to make this unit?

Thanks
Rich
rich3549
You need a ground break where the coax attaches to your TV. You can get them a Rat Shack for a few dollars.
The device (Ground Isolation Transformer) is a band-aid and should be treated as such. If you can use the device with no side effects - great... If you have long cable runs, or connections to multiple devices - keep in mind the shielding on all of the cable past the device is floating and thus an antenna. Problems are usually worse in urban / suburban settings.. Best choice is to figure out whats wrong with your cabling / grounding - may not be the easiest route, but the side effects fixing the problem are usually blacker AV presentation.
Thank Rwwear and J k I will follow both of your advise. I will spend a couple of bucks and see what the Shack as to offer..and I will check my cable runs....I do live in the 'burbs.
The reason this happens is that you have too many paths to ground usually. It doesn't always cause problems but it sometimes does. In most cases, and I've seen many, breaking the ground on the TV cable input fixes the problem with no side effects.