Cable TV and digital ballasts

[Jackalope]

Here is a little more info for those people that still live in states where growing is illegal. I have mentioned before that Digital ballasts put out a noise that can be heard over UHF waves on a radio.

Well it seems that radio waves are not the only place where the noise shows up. Digital ballasts effect cable signals also. I have seen or heard of it twice. The first time was personal experience. The cable company showed up and wanted to rewire my cable line. They said they had interference in the line and had identified my house as the place where the problem was. I had a grow going at the time. They went a head a rewired the house and left. I never heard anything back about it. I thought they were nuts or it was the old wires from the original installation.

It seems they were not nuts. A friend gets his internet from the cable company. No cable TV. They disconnected his house because they said it was causing noise in the line. He is only running one digital ballast. He switched everything because of the radio thing. Down to only digital ballasts he had to use 1. Something about the way info is transferred for cable TV and internet it is picking up noise now. Fiber optic lines probably.

That is 2 times that ballasts have caused problems that brought the cable company to the house. Way to many times for a outlaw grow. If you grow in a illegal state you should take type of lights into consideration. Some one is going to have to figure out if there is a way to shield the ballast. Pretty sure my friend is looking at those options now.

I hope this can help someone.

 

[Sgtsativa]

Faraday cage.
ingress can happen anywhere a loose connector or break in the cable shield . Arc welders really mess with cable lines too.Internet and ppv uplink freq is 50-1000mhz. Tv is allocated above 500 MHz. anyone with a sniffer can find your ballast like a pissed off ham operator

 

[Jackalope]

Lots of ways to find them now days. From what I hear the grid can tell exactly what is being run in a house. I just though it might help someone out.

I am curious about it though. Most older people will remember back in the day when a vacuum would screw up TV reception. From what you are saying it is pretty much the same thing. My question. Why didn't I see any difference with my TV ect on the same line?

Also do the smaller ballasts on COB LED's put out similar noise?

 

[BubbleBucketz]

So this is for just digital ballasts? I have heard of the interference with the older lights but not on LED....just trying to learn something new today.

 

[Jackalope]

Digital HID ballasts mostly I think. My mentor had a lot of the older ballasts that didn't do it. It is probably more of a problem with cheap ballasts then it is others. Could just be a shielding issue. Something always goes to crap when you try and make a product cheaper.

 

[Emilya Green]

I smell a rat. First of all, a good digital ballast barely puts out any signal at all. Mine doesn't, and I have checked all over the spectrum. My ballast puts out some very tiny spikes at 24mhz, 48mhz, and 96mhz and above that I can not detect it. The signal is very very weak and it takes a good RF probe to detect it, in the immediate vicinity of the ballast and it would be almost impossible to detect from 30' away. My HID lights themselves put out more radio noise than the ballast did.

But even if you have an older and noisy ballast or lights, lets look at the cable company. They use shielded coax to bring that signal into your box. I could fire up a 1000w of RF power from my ham radios, and this coax should shield their signals from mine. Unless there is a break or an unshielded junction (and there should not be) somewhere in their lines coming to you, there should be no way of getting that signal into their box. Secondly, they are pumping quite a signal through those lines, and for your ballast to be able to get into that and override their signal... well the numbers would have to be way up there, and frankly, this is never going to happen in a properly installed closed cable tv system. If my present cable provider did not provide enough shielding to protect their signals from those that I pump out of my antenna systems, and if my neighbors were complaining about me, I would have a different opinion on this, but if 1500w of RF power on 14.025 mhz doesn't get in, then the puny signal from my ballasts could not either.

These guys are up to something, IMHO. They appear to be targeting your grow op somehow and I suspect they are trying to confirm what you are doing there for nefarious reasons.

 

[Sgtsativa]

If you have installed cable tv or know someone that does this is very common. Fm interference is not tolerated.thanks for the info, haters gonna hate and ratters gonna rat

 

[Jackalope]

I am not sure here Emilya. The 2 situations came up and transpired in different ways. Let alone in 2 different states and 2 different cable companies.

I just remembered my brother inlaw knows about every involved in Cable TV. He was instrumental in some of the companies that formed Comcast. He is a grower also so he will know or be able to find out everything along these lines.

 

[SmokingWings]

I am not sure here Emilya. The 2 situations came up and transpired in different ways. Let alone in 2 different states and 2 different cable companies.

I just remembered my brother inlaw knows about every involved in Cable TV. He was instrumental in some of the companies that formed Comcast. He is a grower also so he will know or be able to find out everything along these lines.

Sounds like typical troubleshooting. If the line guys came across a noise problem they look for the closest and most likely suspect. If replacing the line that makes the problem go away they can finish up and go take a break. Otherwise they have to keep looking until they find what causes the problem. Kinda the way some car owners will fix a problem in their driveway just to avoid having to pay the dealer to troubleshoot.

 

[KCCO 77]

Here is a little more info for those people that still live in states where growing is illegal. I have mentioned before that Digital ballasts put out a noise that can be heard over UHF waves on a radio.

Well it seems that radio waves are not the only place where the noise shows up. Digital ballasts effect cable signals also. I have seen or heard of it twice. The first time was personal experience. The cable company showed up and wanted to rewire my cable line. They said they had interference in the line and had identified my house as the place where the problem was. I had a grow going at the time. They went a head a rewired the house and left. I never heard anything back about it. I thought they were nuts or it was the old wires from the original installation.

It seems they were not nuts. A friend gets his internet from the cable company. No cable TV. They disconnected his house because they said it was causing noise in the line. He is only running one digital ballast. He switched everything because of the radio thing. Down to only digital ballasts he had to use 1. Something about the way info is transferred for cable TV and internet it is picking up noise now. Fiber optic lines probably.

That is 2 times that ballasts have caused problems that brought the cable company to the house. Way to many times for a outlaw grow. If you grow in a illegal state you should take type of lights into consideration. Some one is going to have to figure out if there is a way to shield the ballast. Pretty sure my friend is looking at those options now.

I hope this can help someone.

Hey jack I hope all is well. This is a very real problem and before I switched to LED I bought a Sun System for this reason. They test and certify each ballast against this. As well as send you the report from your ballast and the person’s signature that tested it.

14833D93-9E8E-440E-9321-90F0E2327ADA.jpeg

• KCCO 77
• May 10, 2020

467B82A9-5FA9-4C01-BDCB-095144D22876.jpeg

• KCCO 77
• May 10, 2020

Great product for anyone worrying about this situation.

Play safe and enjoy everyone

 

[Jackalope]

Thanks for the info NCCO 77. Finding the right ballast has a lot to do with it. I also did some checking with my brother in law. It seems their cable was shut of because of noise in Pennsylvania. So he obviously didn't know about it before hand.

From what he says. It is not just the ballasts involved. Old cracked coaxial cable can do it. Old or cheaply made splitters can cause it too. In some cases the cable companies cause their own problems by buying cheap equipment. Plus it doesn't always have to be Ballasts that do it. As Sgtsativa mentioned welders can cause it. It may not be the problem I thought is was before. It is still something to keep in consideration.

 

[Emilya Green]

I remember the day I turned on my first magnetic ballast.... it didnt last long... ham radio was wiped out at my house.

That is when I got a good ballast... and I got three of them. Lumatek. Good stuff. Electrically very quiet and very efficient.

 

[Mark Gordan Smith]

And what should I, with these, do?
Dumpster...Craigs, ebay, buy lights to match up?
I have 6 of them.

 

[Jackalope]

Not sure. I solved my problems before I knew there was a problem. I got Dish when I moved because it was the only thing available. Probably cheaper to switch to satellite TV then it is to swap out all your ballasts.

Not sure about the do nothing theory either. A noisy florescent ballast will do it. Welders can do it. Ballasts are not the only thing that can cause noise. As of now it doesn't look like they are putting 2 and 2 together yet.

 

[Jackalope]

It seems that the noise shows up when the cable company does sweeps of their system. I was told that is normally done 4 times a year. Some smaller companies will do it less or very seldom because of costs.

No real rhyme or reason to it. It is not like you could shut things off to avoid detection.

 

[bobrown14]

Thanks for the info NCCO 77. Finding the right ballast has a lot to do with it. I also did some checking with my brother in law. It seems their cable was shut of because of noise in Pennsylvania. So he obviously didn't know about it before hand.

From what he says. It is not just the ballasts involved. Old cracked coaxial cable can do it. Old or cheaply made splitters can cause it too. In some cases the cable companies cause their own problems by buying cheap equipment. Plus it doesn't always have to be Ballasts that do it. As Sgtsativa mentioned welders can cause it. It may not be the problem I thought is was before. It is still something to keep in consideration.

Probably a grounding issue in the cable somewhere. The digital cable signal is very sensitive to grounding. They use the shield in the cable as part of the signal..

 

[barb6781]

Lots of ways to find them now days. From what I hear the grid can tell exactly what is being run in a house. I just though it might help someone out.

I am curious about it though. Most older people will remember back in the day when a vacuum would screw up TV reception. From what you are saying it is pretty much the same thing. My question. Why didn't I see any difference with my TV ect on the same line?

Also do the smaller ballasts on COB LED's put out similar noise?

That is what I was wondering. I am new to all this and growing rogue outlaw. I just purchased a light system from a business sponsor here, Budget LED, it is 500w with a dimmer. I am ignorant on ballasts.

 

[Jackalope]

You should be fine. They really don't use the noise to track people down. The way the weed world is going they never will. This was mentioned more for people that run 1 or multiple 1000 watt lights. Also so people don't freak out if the cable company shows up at their door. As mentioned lots of things put out noise.

 

[bluter]

Also do the smaller ballasts on COB LED's put out similar noise?

there are ICES (interference causing equipment standards) protocols in place for LED digital drivers. they are required as many devices together cause a much greater disruption - think of a concert or any venue using digital lighting.

the protocols were put in place as early equipment could disrupt air traffic communication. there is speculation but no proof it led to a few airline disasters.

euprope adheres to a higher ices protocol than north america.

 

[barb6781]

You should be fine. They really don't use the noise to track people down. The way the weed world is going they never will. This was mentioned more for people that run 1 or multiple 1000 watt lights. Also so people don't freak out if the cable company shows up at their door. As mentioned lots of things put out noise.

Thanks for the info. I was told (not here) that drug detectives use info from utility companies to find growers. Under the premises that anyone having sudden heavier use of electricity is a sure sign of an indoor grow.
I am not currently living in the house I'm growing in. I am a healthcare provider and spend most of my time at my clients home.