Help ...I know only a Temporary Fix for Analog Cable Interference

[Kristi Larson]

I have four tv's in the house all hooked up the same way. The one upstairs is a Samsung that is less than 5 years old. It gets audio and video interference once in a while. If I unplug the RG-6 coax cable for analog cable tv service in the back of the tv for a few seconds, it goes away, sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes for days. This situation has been happening for over a year and is now starting to drive me crazy. Any ideas what is causing the problem? What about a permanent fix?

[olyteddy]

Find and replace the defective connector?

[Alan69]

Check to see if you really need to unplug the coax. Instead, leave it connected, and grab the connector and push around on it and see if you can get it working again.

I have a set that does similar, on the middle band of cable channels.

If so, the problem is not 'interference', it is a poor connection. The coax connector is a relatively large piece of metal that goes inside, bends, and is soldered into the tv's circuit board. Often it doesn't solder well since it's metal and takes a lot of heat, and it gets mechanical strain. Solder ages, over time the center wire separates from the solder, and an oxide layer forms between them. When I grab the cable and connector and wiggle it a bit, it breaks through the oxide layer and touches the solder enough to work ok for a week or month. Eventually it relaxes and oxides again, the connection goes bad and needs wiggling again.

On a secondary tv, so haven't bothered to fix it. A few minutes to resolder the connection, but a lot of things in the way so it's a PITA to take everything apart enough to fix it.

Similarly, it can be the center pin of the connector on the TV has widened, oxidized, etc. IOW the center wire from your cable isn't making a good connection with the center pin on the connector. Reconnecting just rearranges things a bit and gets it to work for a while. PITA to fix the $2 connector, for same reasons.

Third option would be a bad piece of cable. Broken center wire, or bad shield to connector from flexing, age, etc. Swap and make sure it's not the cable from TV to wall first, is the only one that's easy to check and fix..

Can be other things, and could even really be interference or something but that's remote. If you messing with the cable or connector fixes it for a while then it's probably one of the above.

For sure can drive you nuts if it goes out when something good is on..

[Kristi Larson]

I have tried moving the cable around in the connection to the TV, but it is not productive. I've thought it might be something in my TV, but didn't know what's going on in there. I'll try your suggestions and see what happens. Thanks for the info!