Video Hum Bars

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.

My extreme case was with a big screen and CATV, VCR, HD Receiver. With all of the cable running to everywhere (20 Meters inside the house and about 300M outside) there were issues. I was able to get rid of the hum using an isolation device at the CATV, but then I had noise bars, ghosting and every possible kind of video issue one could imagine. Finally fixed when I cleaned all of my grounds in the electrical panel, the building ground on the house, ran 6 guage copper from the house ground point to the HT grounding rod and it all cleared up.

On the advise of a Ham Radio operator and audiophile friend - we totally disconnected the house ground from the AV sustem and only used the ground rod for the antennas - The noise floor of the system dropped significantly. Be aware - this grounding technique is against National Electric Code practices and should be used at your own risk.