The cable guy says my grow is messing with the internet?

All that was in there were my wife's tomatoes and basil. I've postponed growing until she gets her medcard.

I Guess is different here in cali cause i call the cable guy over here all the time i want him here to fix my problems F that i pay so much to cable i want hands on attention from those greedy buggers... not really worried if he finds out cause my grow is legal anyways....I also rutinely call my apartment office to have them send a maintaince person here to fix all the stuff that is broke....ive had them here over 4 times now somtimes to go in attic sometimes to fix bathroom or leaky roof but they have never tryed to go into anything or look anywhere that didnt directly relate to why there where there........Half the time they dont even speak english barely.......I keep my grow in the spare bed room and have had all these peolpe over no ones ever known or even asked me what the second bedroom is for.........If you act like you have nothing to hide when maintance or cable people come over most likley they wont suspect anything..... But then again my grow is legal so i guess im bias........Oh and iver NEVER heard of a 5,000 dollar reward for turning someone in. that just dosent sound like it even makes sense i mean i cant see the city or govrnment just handing out 5 grand to anyone if that was the case everyone would rattin on each other. and the city would be broke shit they charge me money just to park at the court house and go pay a ticket i doubht they goin give out thousands of dollars....

Also Ive smoked with the cable guy before ...........Most of these guys are just regular dudes there to make a pay check like the rest of us there not out to fuck with people like that man its CALI BABY we aint like that man......You guys in those Fcked up states need to get out of there and move to someplace where you can relaxe and not have to worry about the damn cable guy......cable guy should be the least of your worry's............

how close was your ballast to your modem?

erockaholic said:

Yeah, but fuck me cause I'm healthy.

Click to expand...

LMFAO!! everyone is "sick" enough for a med card ....at least in cali

After testing, the distance between my ballast and modem were irrelevent but at first they were about a foot apart, then opposite sides of the house at the end. The two main outlets catching the noise were in the next room over from the ballast, and then downstairs behind our TV (the later mostly due to a frayed wire end).

erockaholic said:

Okay, so here is what i found out:

I had my light running to see if he cable company would come back since I moved my modem/cords. They did. The guy was awesome though and figured out that the light was generating RFI on a large scale through my house. This is not a problem usually, but I had several cords in a couple outlets throughout my home which were not connected to anything. He found out that the RFI was jumping onto these semi-antennas and showing up in their system. I now have my lights on and the guy showed me the signal, NO NOISE!

Prevention?
If this is a problem for you, make sure all your cables are away from your grow, and MAKE SURE ALL CABLE CORDS ARE CONNECTED TO SOMETHING. Also, frayed ends sticking out from the caps of the cords can catch the RFI and cause the noise.

Click to expand...

Fuck dude, this just happened to me............dude came to my door and said I was fucking up Internet for the whole neighborhood and asked if I wanted him to check it now or set up an appointment.........I just stood there for a minute and he walked back to his truck, and then I walked to the garage and locked the door to my 3K+ grow.........long story short, there was a cable line running into my garage from the previous owners which was unused and must've been picking up the interference from my five digital ballasts - I told him to just cut it off (he didn't know where the line went, and I just played dumb and said "since all the TVs, Internet, and phone are working it's clearly not needed")...............fixed it, no problems.

Was definitely stressing for a hot minute there, though.

erockaholic said:

So this cable guy was outside my house and said there was a lot of "noise" in the system and its coming from my house. He wanted to come in and look at our modems. I said no at first, but then went inside and moved my plants to a safe area where he wont see them and turned off the 6" inline and 400 watt grow light. I let him in and he finds nothing wrong. He radios his buddy and the buddy says the "noise" is gone.

He leaves and I plug everything back in. A few minutes later he knocks again saying the "noise" in the area is back. I told him to hold on and I go unplug it all again. He says its gone again. At this point I'm worried and he says whatever I am turning off and on is whats messing with internet.

So being my paranoid self, after he leaves I send all 5 of my babies down the garbage disposal. I'm sure he know "something" was going on by how I would not let him into one area and refused to elaborate on what it was I was turning off and on; and you know his buddy will hear the story, his supervisor will hear his story, and it will be documented in my account.

SO, do you think I made the right call by bailing? I'm not losing my kids and doing 6 months minimum for a plant.

ALSO, has anyone heard of anything like this? The guy said maybe the outlet was wired wrong in the wall and the electricity im using is causing "noise" in surrounding neighborhood.

Click to expand...

It's called Egress and it means that there is a nick or cut in your line or a broken end connection that is picking up the cycles of your light set up. It's broadcasting back through the line. Yes your grow is involved but it's not at fault. The cable dumbass needs to come back and replace your drop (the line that feeds the cable from the street to your house. it is strictly the cable company's fault.

Here's the problem. With egress it can broadcast through the air and interfere with airplane communications. The FCC does a fly over with equipment that detects egress broadcasts and then the cable company is cited and fined if there is a problem. Every now and then you will see cable trucks parading through the neighborhood looking for egress to avoid being fined. You're lucky you were home. Normally, if the resident isn't home they will deactivate the outlet causing the issue or just cut the service. Then you have to call in to find out what the fuck happened and they set up an appt. (could take up to a week) to repair and reactivate the line. Sometimes there's a charge. Assholes.

Now you're grow isn't strong enough to actually interfere with air traffic but it is enough to be detected by the egress equipment they are using to search for it.

Unluckily you had to be the one with egress. They need to come back and fix that shit. The cable technician should have known this. A cable line is insulated and wrapped in several different materials to prevent egress. Once the egress is fixed your grow lights won't interfere with the cable reception anymore. He just sounds like a lazy asshole.

Addition: I forgot to add that I have my grow less than two feet from my cable outlet and my modem. I don't have a single issue. My cable installation is fairly new and we have some great techs in our town. They actually give a shit. No egress here.

damn thats some scary crap I would be spooked

Hahaha!!! Now i know what that interference was! I noticed my neighbor was doing some construction on one of his backrooms, and once he was done, my wireless internet stopped working.

I dont think you will have a problem, but its always better safe than sorry.

SO... IS THE THREAD LIKE, TOO OLD TO BE COMMENTING ON?... CAUSE IT'S LIKE 2012.. i KNOW THAT YOU WOULD NEED ATLEAST 5,000 WATTS FOR INTERFERENCE TO COVER A 100 FT. RADIUS.. i ALSO KNOW THAT A TINY ASS 150 HPS WOULD NOT COVER NO MORE THEN A 6FT RADIUS. DIGITAL BALLASTS ARE WAAAAY MORE POWERFUL AS OPPOSED TO rfi THEN MAGNETIC. ANYONE WITH DIGITAL THERMO'S OR WHATEVER SHOULD KNOW THAT 4,000 WATTS OF LIGHT WOULD BLOW THESE CONTRAPTIONS ALL THE TIME! i HAVE HEARD A STORY OF A GUY USING LIKE A 1,000 WATTER AND HE WIRED UP HIS OWN HOUSE AND DIDNT PROPERLY GROUND HIS BALLAST. WHEN IT STARTED MESSING UP AMBULANCE SIGNALS THAT WERE BEING RELAYED TO THE HOSPITAL THEY DISCOVERED HIM, AS WELL AS HIM STEALING CABLE.. SO THIS RFI AND BALLAST THING IS VERY SERIOUS. THERE IS A PREVIOUS COMMENT ABOUT GROUNDING THEM PROPERLY. BUT IF YOU HAVE JUST A REGULAR OL' PLUG AND PLAY TYPE THING YOU SHOULD BE GROUNDED(3PRONG) FINE. ALSO IF YOU USE A SUNSYSTEM TYPE FIXTURE.. THERE IS A NUMBER TO CALL EAST, WEST, AND, POMPANO BEACH FL IN THE BOOK.. THEY WILL BE MORE THEN HAPPY TO HELP WITH QUESTIONS!

T5's..... problem solved!!!!

I'd have geeked out too. My state will probably be one of the last to legalize. But this is my home. Thank god I live 11 miles out of town. 250 yards from the closest neighbor. I am even going so far as to match or stay under the watt usage of a 300 gallon reef aquarium running 4 400w MH's, 3 water pumps, 1 protien skimmer and a reverse lit 150 refugium. I'll get the stealth cab up and tested, dismantle the aquarium and fire up the cab. No drastic increase in electricity consumption. I have a friend who works for one of the power companies and they are required to report drastic increases in consumption to the authorities. Also made sure to place the cab in a place where nobody will ever need to go to for regular service calls.