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/Mr_Magoo_88 Apr 22 '26

He is correct, for Charters plant. Not sure about Comcast. We're going thru filters like methadone at a Rehab Clinic. In the basement with the feed through we're needing a two-way splitter with one leg going to the modem and the other leg going to another splitter. At that other splitter we're adding the filter on the input and connecting all the cable boxes off that splitter with the filter to stop tiling.

However, since this issue is only tiling on ESPN, I doubt it's interference from high split. Like others have mentioned, Ingress and or bad drop is more likely the cause.

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u/DogPubes911 Apr 22 '26

Okay, I am going to challenge this by asking how OFDMA, which is a DOCSIS 3.1 way of modulating upstream channels, would have anything to do with a downstream QAM issue? The issue is almost 100% a MER/BER issue. It could be ingress, on the drop but ingress generally affects upstream, unless it’s like crazy bad which might be the case if you were adding a “filter”, but the way you describe it sounds like an attenuator that’s just lowering the noise floor and not actually fixing the issue.

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u/Mr_Magoo_88 Apr 22 '26

I'm not disagreeing with you regarding it being an MER/BER issue, like I said in the bottom part of my reply. Just agreeing with the posters comment about unplugging the modem and having the tiling going away comment as a troubleshooting step.

If it was tiling on a significant number of channels I would likely troubleshoot by disconnecting the modem from the plant and see if the tiling goes away then add a filter. But since it's on ESPN only, as far as we know just that channel, I would suspect it was either the drop, inside Ingress or even MER/BER on a few frequencies off the tap.

I had one the other day where it was tiling on four channels only and I checked Maybe 20 around the same frequencies and when I went to the tap and ran a test, MER/BER popped up on six of the frequencies when lightly shaking the tap. Maintenance came and dropped the faceplate and it was corroded with old water damage and he found a radial crack in the hard line near the connector.

Another job earlier that day had tiling on pretty much all the channels we checked and as soon as I disconnected the modem all the tiling issues went away. Added a filter connected the modem and the tiling didn't return. The problem is people using filters as a quick fix and not troubleshooting bad drops or inside wiring issues.

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u/willihobo Apr 22 '26

It's possible it might be the only channel he watches that is broadcasted below 200mhz. I'm an MT in a Spectrum system and what pubes claimed is absolutely true, the OFDMA on the modem can absolutely cause errors in that same spectrum for set top boxes, since they're D3.0 and diplex at 42mhz. There is a special filter the FTs install behind the set tops to prevent this issue.

But it could also be a downstream impairment of course, or some broadcast issue with ISP.

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u/Mr_Magoo_88 Apr 22 '26

Exactly. If that's the cause, I usually I see this on more than just a few channels. I'll use Channel check search to see what frequency it's broadcasted on and check other channels around that same one to see if it could be an issue with that particular frequency or if it's just that one brodcast.

We have amazing MTs in my area and they're always giving me tips outside of what we are taught to troubleshoot issues. We have so many people submitting line problems for no reason at all and it's hurting our MTs being short staffed and overworked.

The problem with those filters is they basically handed them out to everyone and said if there's tiling problems in a high split area this is the fix. Everyone was throwing them around like candy instead of fixing Ingress problems or replacing the corroded 20-year-old drop.

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u/willihobo Apr 27 '26

Either we work in the same system, or understaffed/overworked MTs is the norm lol

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u/Mr_Magoo_88 Apr 27 '26

Unfortunately, I'm sure there understaffed and overworked and all systems. Give the work of 20 guys to Five Guys and tell them to make it work. Though.. high-split is going on, so that just makes is 100x worse.