Nate Nagel wrote:
badgolferman wrote:

Nate Nagel, 12/27/2008,10:55:54 PM, wrote:

someone 'splain this to me...

sitting here on the couch, TV is ****ing me off, going all pixellated
at odd intervals. Finally got bad enough that I was considering
calling the cable company but before I did I went over to the rack
and started touching all the cables to make sure they were tight.
Got to the coax going into the back of the cable box, it was tight,
but touching the cable would make the signal drop out. Unscrewed it,
bent the center conductor slightly to have it make better contact,
reinstalled. Still pixellates and audio drops out. went over to the
"electrical section" of my basement, grabbed some RG6 quad, whipped
myself up a 6 foot cable. Installed it in place of the old cable
from the surge suppressor to the cable box. Perfect picture. What
gives? I'm sure the old cord was the one that came with the cable
box - 2 yrs. old. How could a piece of solid copper suddenly just
"go bad?" I'm not complaining as it was an easy fix, but still, it's
pretty weird. Old cable meters OK, too... but doesn't work. weird.

nate


Possibly a bad crimp on the connector. It happens.


I metered the shield too, about .3 ohm on my Fluke. That's why I'm
confused. I realize that I've fixed the issue but it bugs me when I
can't figure out what the issue is. There's that little doubt in my
mind that I didn't really find it, that I was just faked out by the
signal happening to weaken just when I messed with the old cable (I
know, I did it several times and it always followed, but still) and that
it's actually somewhere else...

nate



Did you happen to try putting the "bad" cable back in to see what happened?

And, I doubt that you'd miss this, but when ohming out the "bad" cable
did you check for a short between the center conductor and the shield?
(I don't see how there could be a shortwithout the cable having been
crunched VERY badly somewhere along its length, or maybe a real sloppy
job of attaching one of the connectors, with a strand of the shield
sticking through the center hole, but it's worth thinking about.)

Jeff

--
Jeffry Wisnia
(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)
The speed of light is 1.98*10^14 fathoms per fortnight.