[Jeffhs]

The antenna connectors aren't the only things charged with line voltage in hot chassis TVs, especially today's solid-state sets. I just posted to another thread regarding the dangers of connecting external speakers to RCA/Thomson TV sets. These TVs are also of hot-chassis design, meaning, among other things, that if the speaker leads short to each other or to ground, extensive and permanent damage to the chassis will result.

BTW, Andy, you were very lucky you were not injured or killed when your coax cable sparked against the 300-ohm terminals of that RCA set you mentioned. As well, it was fortunate that the spark did not cause damage to the input circuits of the tuner, or to the tuner itself.

AC plugs, polarized or not, must never, I repeat never be modified in any way, and whatever you do, don't simply plug the two wires of a line cord into an AC outlet if, for example, you do not have a 2- or 3-prong plug to replace the original, if the latter is broken, damaged or missing. Whomever filed down the wider prong of the plug on that TV, however, was being very foolish, as is anyone who removes the third (ground) pin of a three-wire AC plug to avoid having to replace the outlet or to use an adapter. Also, jury-rigging the antenna connectors on that set so that the 300-ohm terminals were wired directly in shunt across the 75-ohm coax connector (or vice-versa), bypassing the isolation network, as the set's former owner apparently did, is inexcusable because, as you mentioned, it is a fatal accident waiting to happen. The set will now be 1000 percent safer to use, now that you have moved the isolation network to its proper location in the circuit.