Surge Protector
In most cases, all damage caused by surges and spikes occur from those surges and spikes travelling through data lines that are not surge protected. It doesn’t matter what causes the surge, if your data lines are not protected by a coax surge protector, you could receive an electrical transient that will wipe out your network cards, AV equipment, cable modems, and any other network components that may exist.
Even several networks running on different coax lines can be affected if a single static charge buildup causes a surge to jump lines to another network. Without coax surge protection you will risk incalculable loss. Surge can and do travel far along a coaxial cable. In your home, the same can be said of all equipment installed near a cable connection. This includes laptops, modems, routers, printers, home theater equipment, HDTVs, everything that has a coax connection or runs along side an appliance that does.
While a coax cable surge protector is important in your home and office there are some problems you may encounter from installation. One is that coax surge protection can introduce a bit of interference that can upset things like digital signals. What you will experience is packet loss or macroblocking, which is visually disrupting and makes the picture seem to break apart. Sometimes you won’t receive a signal at all.
Why does this happen? All connected equipment receives its input through the circuit of the coax cable. There is connectivity existing before a signal arrives and that connectivity is slightly compromised when the signal comes through. This is called Insertion Loss. It’s the difference in the amount of power already existing and its compromised position with the signal entering the line.
Coax surge protectors possess a filtration technology that creates its own Insertion Loss. It’s often heard as a low hum on the line. This can oftentimes conflict with the signal coming through and cause it to be weakened or to not get through at all.
One thing you can do if you experience this is to check for a ground loop. What this means is that when the coax line comes down from the power lines at the pole, it’s supposed to be grounded at the time of installation to your home.
When the cable’s junction box is grounded to your electrical service like it should be then any surges will stop at the point of demarcation. If the junction box isn’t grounded to your home’s earth ground it can create a loop where free floating electrons can create an open entryway for surges to bounce between and enter your home through the coax lines.
This will damage the lines and create disrupted signals or signal loss. You can use a volt-ohm meter to see if things have been grounded properly. If you are not sure how to check for this it is highly recommended that you call a professional to do it for you instead. Your cable provider should be able to schedule something.
Because a coax surge protector is known for creating problems with digital signals, your cable company may ask you to remove the surge protector from the line anyway. There are strict guidelines for grounding cable based upon NESC rules, so chances are your lines are properly grounded. An alternative to the coaxial surge protector is to use something like an HDTV coaxial surge protector that has coax line connectors built in to the device. You may still have trouble with picture quality but APC has fairly good products that seem to eliminate the most EMI/RFI problems.
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