Looking for surge protector for coaxial cable

[usually_quiet]

I’m looking at surge protectors for my two aging TV’s and VCR’s and my one inexpensive DVD recorder.

It appears that for my purposes, any number of power-strip-type devices, priced at around $20 (US) will provide enough protection against power line surges. However, these don’t include protection for coaxial cable. The ones I’ve seen that do include protection for a coaxial cable are way too expensive, especially given the age and value of what I’m protecting. Is there something available to protect just the coaxial cable before it comes into the splitter? I’m having trouble finding such an item. Do any of you use one, and where did you find it?

[lordsmurf]

There is really no chance your coax will suffer from a surge. If it did, it would take something like a direct lightning strike to the outside pole, and a surge protector or UPS won't save you from that anyway.

[fishywishy]

got one of these with my dell: http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatSectionView.process?Section_Id=73

[ROF]

I have been recommending this one without complaint so far. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16812120404

[lordsmurf]

Yeah, neither of those are going to protect you from anything, not from the coaxial connection. I don't even know why they sell them. It's silly, not much different than telephone line surge protectors. The only real way to get harmed through those wires, would require a large enough jolt that it would fry the protector and keep traveling the lines anyway.

It's one of those devices that's sold, but serves no real purpose.

[kschang]

It's mental insurance. It makes the buyer feel better.

[ROF]

Yeah, neither of those are going to protect you from anything, not from the coaxial connection. I don't even know why they sell them. It's silly, not much different than telephone line surge protectors. The only real way to get harmed through those wires, would require a large enough jolt that it would fry the protector and keep traveling the lines anyway.

It's one of those devices that's sold, but serves no real purpose.

What? You must be joking.

The device I link to offers $100,000 Insurance and up to 2200 Joules of protection. It protects phone lines, modems, cable coax, and 8 outlets.

Ever live in a home or apartment that has periodic electrical spikes? These will save your precious equipment from baring the brunt of these damaging surges. If you think lightning is the only way to get your plugged equipment zapped you have not considered the 10's of 1000's of other ways that are much less then billions of joules and yet can do just as much damage to fragile precision silicon wafers.

[lordsmurf]

The device I link to offers $100,000 Insurance and up to 2200 Joules of protection. It protects phone lines, modems, cable coax, and 8 outlets.

Ever live in a home or apartment that has periodic electrical spikes? These will save your precious equipment from baring the brunt of these damaging surges. If you think lightning is the only way to get your plugged equipment zapped you have not considered the 10's of 1000's of other ways that are much less then billions of joules and yet can do just as much damage to fragile precision silicon wafers.

No. You're talking about electricity. But both the original poster and myself are referring to coaxial cabling (and by relation, telephone wires).

Protecting phone and cable wires is pointless. It would pretty much take a direct lightning strike to do anything to a cable or phone wire, and if that happened, the surge protector, should the current actually beats the odds and travel the wire instead of finding the nearest ground, is toast anyway.

These devices remind me of something I saw a The Simpsons re-run not long ago. Homer and Lisa are standing in the front yard, and you see trucks and mobs and helicopters all over Springfield, the Bear Patrol, in response to a recent bear that wandered into the city. Homer says something like, "See Lisa, the patrol is working already, I don't see any bears." And Lisa reponds that the logic is ridiculous. She says something like, "Well, what if I told you this rock kept away tigers?" Homer replies in disbelief, to which Lisa says "But you don't see any tigers around, do you?" Homer gets this dumb look on his face and asks Lisa how much she wants for the rock.

That rock is a surge protector, when talking about cable and phone surges. Should a tiger actually get near Homer, it won't provide any protection. If a real surge goes down the phone or cable, you won't be protected either. If you're really concerned about cable or phone surges, you'd better grab yourself a satellite grounding kit and splice the wires to it outside the house.

Again, they sell them, but it doesn't mean they actually do anything. All they have to do is be smart enough to find somebody stupid enough to buy it.

For electrical protection, skips the surge protectors. Grab yourself a UPS with power conditioning (AVR).

[ROF]

The device I link to offers $100,000 Insurance and up to 2200 Joules of protection. It protects phone lines, modems, cable coax, and 8 outlets.

Ever live in a home or apartment that has periodic electrical spikes? These will save your precious equipment from baring the brunt of these damaging surges. If you think lightning is the only way to get your plugged equipment zapped you have not considered the 10's of 1000's of other ways that are much less then billions of joules and yet can do just as much damage to fragile precision silicon wafers.

No. You're talking about electricity. But both the original poster and myself are referring to coaxial cabling (and by relation, telephone wires).

No I am talking about energy. You do not think a spike can be sent through the copper wires of a phone line or the copper conducting wire of your coaxial cable? I ask you to remove your coaxial cable from your capture card and run it along the backplate of that device. What do you see? You should see a nice bit of light. Us common folk call them sparks but the technical term is joules of electricity. Your phone line is the same way. At any given point in the line there could be surge of these joules. These devices will protect you from those surges.

[redwudz]

Cable TV where it comes into your home goes through a grounding block, which is tied to a copper plated stake driven six feet or more into the ground. Before you worry about internal protections, you might want to make sure all the connections there are secure.

It saved my TV when the 12KV AC high voltage line up the street fell on the cable TV distribution line. That vaporized about 6 inches of coax below the ground block. We had about 2 or 3 neighbors who weren't so lucky as their ground connections were loose. I always check the grounding block when I look at a cable TV installation.

If you do get a surge protector, make sure it has an indicator light that shows it's still functioning. I've blown several out on surges, but with no damage to my equipment, just the protector.

If you get a direct lightning strike, (Extremely rare) all bets are off anyway.

[olyteddy]

As a former CATV / Broadband construction and Sweep tech, I'd have to agree with redwudz and lordsmurf. Overhead CATV lines are bonded (to the Power Utilities bond) at every active device on the line, every end of line pole and at most every tenth pole in between. At the house, the shield is no longer allowed to have its own ground rod and must be tied to power's ground. Telephone is bonded to power also. They go the extra bit of having surge protectors from each leg of the phone pair to, you guessed it, Power's ground. So barring a really catastrophic failure (and I doubt adding a $.50 varistor into the circuit would help) you should be golden.

[SingSing]

That's right. Look at your CATV block, the screw terminal is the ground lug. Make sure that is connected to the electrical ground. The external of any coax cable is the ground sleeve/shield, that will conduct any external electrical signal to ground.

I am talking about energy. You do not think a spike can be sent through the copper wires of a phone line or the copper conducting wire of your coaxial cable? These devices will protect you from those surges.

Energy = Voltage x Current x Time. A spike does not contain enough current or time duration to introduce energy into a close system like coax cable.

If your agng TV/VCR die. It is most likely due to old CRT tubes, VCR head or gears or capacitors.

Note : You can add transorb, or varistor to your equipment input terminals, only when you are operating in an industry zone.

[KBeee]

To see a good review of cheap surge protectors visit Dan's Data
http://www.dansdata.com/gz039.htm

[usually_quiet]

Thanks for the input everyone.

Unfortunately, I went to the local Office Max and purchased something (w/o protection for coax) before the remnants of the hurricane blew through, so all the wonderful advice that came today and yesterday did me no good.

I liked ROF’s suggestion (it’s better and no more expensive than what I purchased), and may buy one as a gift for my sister, or get one for myself when the time comes to replace the surge protector on my PC. (It’s 3 years old now.) I’ll also look to see how the coaxial cable is grounded.

[Denvers Dawgs]

I have been recommending this one without complaint so far. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16812120404

Well where was this info about 3 months ago when I bought a Monster® HT 800 Home Theatre PowerCenter surge protector for $80 which only has a surge energy rating of 1850 joules compared to the CyberPower 880 which has 2200 Joules.

That's what I get fo rmot asking here or even checking newegg. I forget sometimes that newegg sells almost everything, and not just computer parts.