"The reason that they switched was that the NEC required them to. Some
fools couldn't tell the difference between a water and a gas pipe. "

Um, dude, that is like a really old joke. I mean, it's not like back when you sold your daughters and ****, the telephone was invented at least, but it wasn't yesterday.

Actually all kinds of grounding requirements changed over the last few decades. I know of a few because of the house wiring I've done. And then in the audio/video business. I ran across this guy who had a barter deal with the shop. We sold him a projector for some other work or whatever, and he was having a problem after he had the cable put in.

Whenever he had the cable hooked up the picture had a hum bar, no matter the source. Like on the DVD he played it, had a hum bar unless he disconnected the cable.

Turns out he had two ground rods driven in and for whatever reason there was a ground gradient. A slight ground gradient at power line is not necessarily proof of a fault, depends where they are. And really, we are only talking about interfereing with video which is what, a volt P-P ?

It was enough. Well now in my position I of course advised him but really could not say he was in grave danger or anything so I had him made an antenna isolator.

So basically, the projector we gave him had the third prong and got ground there. All the **** from there as well as the stereo system was on that ground but the cable box (coax ground) was on another, IIRC he said they were like forty feet away.

Another alternative would be to just tell him to cut the ****ing ground prong off of all his stuff, but that wouldn't quite be right now would it.

Plus get this, I **** you not, this guy is an electrician ! So if he ever did that in his own house, and something happened, damn.

But the simple antenna isolator was perfectly legal since the box was still grounded by everything else now.

What else would anyone do about that **** ? (and who the hell else gets things this wierd and has to figure the out remotely ?)

Yup, I am happier doing vintage audio. Need a side job though.