Quote:
Originally Posted by GroundUrMast
My apologies, I should have offered a bit of definition or explanation. Balun is synonymous with matching transformer.
<SNIP>
Oh, my dad is a retired tool & die maker... lot's of respect and admiration for the skills and knowledge...
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You nailed it, Ground! The problem is that something is cycling on and off here, it is causing the buzz on my AM radio, and it directly corresponds to the bad TV signal. There is no way I would have ever thought of this without your suggestion.
This morning I turned the radio to an "off" AM frequency and waited until the (very loud) static started. It didn't take long and sure enough, the TV crapped out at the same instant when the radio started buzzing.
After unplugging various things like AA battery chargers, toothbrush, etc. nothing changed so I went to my service panel and started flipping breakers. I'm self-employed, and my shop is in another building and is a sub-feed from the house. I flipped that breaker and bingo, the radio went silent. I flipped it back and forth a few times to verify.
The only thing cycling in my shop are two battery chargers and a thermostatically-controlled heater for the oil tank in my electrical discharge machine (ask your dad to explain to you what that is.
I'm actually a moldmaker, BTW). I don't heat that part of the shop unless I need it, and the dielectric oil in the EDM tank gels at around 40, so this heater keeps it liquid so I can use the machine whenever I need it.
The only question so far, is that the problem with the TV just started about 3 weeks ago. I've had the oil heater for I think 3 winters now, and the battery chargers have been on since last fall. One for motorcycle, one for boat.
So something has changed. Could there be a grounding problem with either of these three things somehow that is feeding back to my main panel in the house?