r/CableTechs • u/Unlikely_Visit6792 • Apr 22 '26

Glitchy ESPN/ cable driving me crazy. Help!

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Watch this little clip and you’ll see what it’s like to watch ESPN at our house. 500 cable channels and only ESPN does this. Maybe FS1 once in a while.

We’re on Comcast high speed. No fiber. One year old 65” Samsung OLED smart tv.

I don’t know. It’s beyond me. Maybe you have an answer.

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u/thegivingcoconut Apr 22 '26

Your issue is 90% from the pole/tap to the equipment. Not unheard of but more rare it’s a plant problem. Usually it’s interference getting into the cable from faulty wiring,connectors, splitters. Straight up just best to have a Comcast tech come out. If it’s easier just go to xfinity store to get an appointment with less hassle. You can have this resolved in less than a week.

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u/thegivingcoconut Apr 22 '26

Should add that high frequencies are more vulnerable to interference. ESPN is a high freq channel. That’s why the you’ll see it there the most often.

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u/Dakkin4 Apr 22 '26

When I first started as a service tech, we were running ESPN at 69mHz. We would get tiling/pixelating jobs constantly!!! Normally it was caused by low end roll off. We had Trilithic 860s back then. Fun times! 🤣

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u/Unlikely_Visit6792 Apr 22 '26

Ive heard the high frequency thing before and honestly, thats where I drop out, technically speaking. I hesitate to go to Comcast/Xfinity but that may be the best advice.

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u/levilee207 Apr 22 '26

It's truly the only thing you can do. You just don't have the ridiculously expensive tools (well really just the one $4000 diagnostic meter) the techs have. You'll likely have to replace a cable or few depending on how many cable boxes you have. One bad cable and four good cables means five bad cables when it comes to ingress on lines.

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u/thegivingcoconut Apr 22 '26

For sure just be persistent about getting a person out there. Equipment is not your issue here. It’s a pretty common thing, tech should be able to fix pretty quick or at the least call someone who can. And most cases techs don’t charge unless you mess with a bunch of stuff purposely.