Can you hear the radio??? (A request for advice...)

[craigb]

Well, I can, but I don't want to!

I'm currently playing my custom guitar through a Marshall 20 (Model: AVT20X - An "Advanced Valvestate Technology" solid-state amp).  Right now, I'm often hearing a radio station playing when I'm plugged in (especially with a Bad Horsey Wah pedal in the loop!).  I'm also hearing what sounds like a shorting issue on some settings of the custom electronics.  No, I haven't had time to do enough trouble-shooting (like the obvious step of trying the guitar through another amp).  The amp belongs to my roommate; I still haven't bought any replacement amps after I lost my studio.

So, I'm just curious if others have had this situation and what was the resolution (I can't remember ever having to deal with it in over 40 years!).

Tanks! 🙂

[paulo]

Have you tried turning the radio off?

[craigb]

Yeah, but the police caught me approaching the towers with the explosives...  I'll have to try another approach, after my trial... 

[57Gregy]

I have heard of others having this problem and the answer I've read is, call the FCC.

[PhonoBrainer]

These things may or may not work.

Buy better, more shielded cords? With pure silver cores?

Or

https://www.amazon.com/Ferrite-Core-Cord-Noise-Suppressor/dp/B01JMTCC5

Or

Move those noisy pickups around the room a little, there's probably a spot where the rf is cancelled. Hit record and then move over into the bookcase by the ficus

Or

Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Barbecued Iguana

 

Edited March 9, 2020 by emeraldsoul

[Christian Jones]

If you're using pedals, like that wah pedal, see about isolating them from each other if they're not already, or if that wah pedal is the only pedal try something like a $20 1 Spot to isolate it from all outside interference. 

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/1Spot9v--truetone-1-spot-slim-9v-dc-adapter

I've got 11 pedals in my studio so I use a much bigger version of the 1 Spot https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/1SpotProCS12--truetone-1-spot-pro-cs12-12-output-isolated-guitar-pedal-power-supply

Two of my pedals are an EHX Small Clone and a Keely Compressor, and I often use them together so if you thought a chorus pedal like a Small Clone is gonna pick up noise try amplifying that further w/ a compressor. Actually the Keely is relatively quiet for a compressor. In my studio my pedals are all hooked up to a patchbay and sit on the table top for easy adjustment and so I can easily connect whatever pedals in whatever order I want at any given time rather than having them all in the chain all the time. When I got the Keely, just merely plugging it into the patchbay--not even putting it in the chain but just hooking it to the back of the patchbay caused a buzz and some RF interference in my guitar signal, and it wasn't even in the dang chain. Then I bought that CS12 and was able to isolate all 11 pedals and my signal cleaned up quite and all non-inherent noise from *the pedals* was gone. But my guitar pickups still pick s#!t up when sitting in front of the PC of I've got distortion going.. I have to swivel my chair to the left 90 degrees and it goes away, and actually it's different every day.. sometimes I have to swivel my chair a full 180 degrees or somewhere in between. 

I would start by throwing $20 at a 1Spot for that wah as it should be isolated regardless. Or get a full on pedal power supply and I recommend Truetone. 

[craigb]

I get some with just a high-end cable between the guitar and amp (yes, I've tried multiple cables).  However, the wah pedal REALLY "amps" up the radio sound (my roommate has the same one and both do this).

I know, I really still need to try my guitar into another amp to make sure it's not only the amp, but I kind of think it's a bit of both.

BTW - I used to have a Keely compressor - VERY cool pedal!

[Grem]

Is it a Mexican or foreign language station your picking up ? IOW, a very high powered radio that the FCC can't control. Rebel radio maybe?

If it is local, then I would think your equipment doesn't have enough shielding.   

[craigb]

There does seem to be a lot of static around...  Maybe a Faraday Cage would help?

[Christian Jones]

On 3/9/2020 at 10:07 AM, craigb said:

still haven't bought any replacement amps after I lost my studio.

What happened to your studio

[craigb]

Ah, "the story" (since it's been told too many times)...  While I was going to college to try and finish a PhD (and not working), the 2008-9 so-called "Credit Crunch" hit and, due to a lot of bizarre and illegal banking events, I ended up losing two houses, a vehicle and over $820k.  Although laws were passed to stop foreclosures and relief programs were created eventually, these were aimed only at those that had actually caused the problem: I.e., Those that had bought real estate for 0-5% down and were not making their payments...  I (and several of my friends actually) come from the other end of the spectrum.  Even while not working and owning two houses, I had an 811 FICO score and had never had a late payment plus I had put a lot down of each house (35% on mine and 25% on the one I bought for my Mom).  While doing some minor remodeling on mine, I a lot of code violations were discovered (the previous owners were crooks).  Add that to some expensive fencing I had to do when an 80 foot top of a tree fell and wiped out a section (there were some legal issues discovered here too), and these totaled well over $100k using up a lot of my cash reserves. 

If you aren't familiar with the Credit Crunch time period, basically the Central Banks did a ploy where they told all commercial banks that they were not allowed to lend money to anyone for any reason.  For me, this meant I had several hundred thousands in equity I couldn't get to, so I had to use lines of credit to pay things off until I could get to more of my money (checks I had that could be used for 2.9% fixed for the life of the loan).  After this, there were a string of illegal bank maneuvers (better explained over a beer) which forced me to stop going to college and try to get work ASAP to keep things. 

That's when I found out about the next effect:  Employers weren't hiring.  I was told that, regardless of how qualified I was, they were only allowed to hire someone with two years of current experience.  I was able to find some IT consulting work with a friend, but the client to the company that hired us lost their funding (due to the Credit Crunch) which caused the company that hired us to cut projects and staff to survive.  That included us. 

As a last ditch effort, I tried selling first one house and then the other at HUGE discounts.  In each case, the financial institutions put up whatever barriers were required to make the sales fail (like taking 10 days to provide a payoff amount!).  On my Mom's house, we had it sold but, during the closing, we found out that they had illegally gone in, changed the locks and sold it at auction for $30k less before the foreclosure date!  We had to literally track down the guy hired to take out whatever was in the house to get back some of my Mom's furniture (I already had moved her into my house).  On my house, I sold it six times (the last for just $239k after it had just been appraised for $541k right before the s*** hit the fan).  In all cases, the sale fell through because the banks still weren't lending.

Sure, I tried selling things, including parts of my studio (I had about $134k invested into it), but nobody could get to their cash or they were also facing foreclosure.  By the end of this fiasco, banks owned 1/3(!!!!) of all residential property in the U.S. (they're not supposed to own any!).

Fortunately, I've always helped my friends and one gave me a tiny 9' x 11' room to sleep in (prior to his having to go through similar crap).  I was also lucky to get my Mom into a Government subsidized senior apartment complex (she's 90 now).  It took me a year and a half to earn enough to go bankrupt and, part of the requirements, were to only have up to $300 worth of musical gear.  Sure, I know now that, due to the overwhelming number of people who went under, I could have lied and kept a lot of things, but I was always the one trying to do things legally - silly me.  The only reason I have the guitar in the avatar (which is worth three times everything else I own) is that it had been paid for, but was not finished being built.  It didn't get finished until nine years later!  My luthier did buy one of my other customs just to hold it for me until I was back on my feet.  I pay him $100 here or $200 there when I can and I've almost paid it off.

Although I wouldn't wish the scenario on my worst enemy (if I had any), I definitely learned a lot about what's important in life and who my friends really are!  I was never even close to the lowest point even when I was young, and certainly never almost homeless.  Starting over when you're approaching 50 is not for the faint of heart either, but I intend to be even more well off in the fairly near future!

(Damn Craig!  He only typed FIVE words!  Sorry... 🙄  tl;dr  "I got screwed by the Fed and went bankrupt!")

[Christian Jones]

That's f'd up dude. So you're litteraly starting over right now? What b@lls. Did you ever get that PhD? What's your plans now? 

16 hours ago, craigb said:

After this, there were a string of illegal bank maneuvers (better explained over a beer) 

Where do you live? I'll take the red eye tonight and we'll get wasted over the rest of that story

[craigb]

I'm of the opinion that, if I made it once, I can do it again and even better this time!  I've been in several start-up companies because I'm too old to start a new career from scratch. I did try to find "normal" work just to survive, but you would not believe how much age discrimination goes on now either!  Almost everyone uses an online job application, but they're sneaky and require you to enter the year you graduated high school which allows the software to weed you out.  I tried for 13 months to find a job, ANY job (I happen to like eating and having a roof over my head).  At one point, I applied for over 130 positions over 13 months.  I was over-qualified for all of them (all your basic minimum-wage type jobs like stocking shelves during a graveyard shift were included).  I only heard back from THREE (out of the 130).  Of the three potential jobs, I had two successful interviews with one (joining the electronics department at Target) where they really wanted me however, before the final interview, I got a generic email that the process wouldn't be going any further (no reason given).  During my interview at Home Depot, they guy said I really should be applying for his boss' job.  I jokingly asked "Is it available?" to which he laughed and said no...  He subtly made it known though that they would highly prefer cheap Mexican labor with no aspirations of moving up (gee, I thought that was illegal...).  The third interview was at a UPS Store where I was literally told that they were afraid that, if they hired me, that I would probably leave in two weeks as soon as I got a better job (the fact that I'd been looking for months without any luck didn't seem to sink in with them).

I ended up doing my own IT consulting mostly with friends who owned businesses.  Then I had a nice turn of events.  I had been taking my Mom to see the same hair stylists for ten years.  Needless to say, I got to know most of the main stylists.  When I was talking with one she said "Hey, your Mom says you're looking for a new job.  What do you do?"  When I said IT consulting she immediately said I needed to talk with her son.  He'd been having trouble finding anyone he could rely on (I found out later this was a poke at his brother and a cousin that he had tried to help by hiring them).  After a 20 minute phone interview where we hardly touched on any of the usual questions, I was hired.  I later found out that his Mom had said "He takes great care of his Mother!  Hire him!"  LOL!

That was almost four years ago now and, although he's still my boss for his IT consulting firm, he's occasionally my employee when we do things for my prior clients and, together, we're business partners in two side-business start-ups (soon to have a third).  We'd love to get away from the annoying IT world and have an internet-only business.

So, my life is something like 40 hours per week with the normal job (pays the bills) and 50 hours per week getting the startups going (or winding them down if they don't work out).  I'm busy, but surviving and making progress.  Ironically, 90% of my entire social life is this forum!  Just not a lot of time (or money) yet to go out a lot.  Soon! 🙂

Man Christian, you'd make a good psychiatrist! 😆

[John K]

Hey, grounding issue...

Did you know you can make one of the best macho guitar cords by using the coax cable designed for TV.   Cheap 50 foot Walmart TV cable, the DIY material for many pro level connectors.

The braided ground is usually over an uninterrupted aluminum core for ground. Nothing gets through this stuff compared to the best guitar cords. Have silenced studios using this approach.

Bummer often in my experience is that the braid is made out of some alloy that is very very hard to solder. Had luck with acid core (instead of rosin core solder) and at times wrapping copper wire around the ground braid to secure a good physical contact if not merged.

As advised earlier, if you are getting radio interference, attack grounding weak points to see if this helps.  Don't have cable TV here. Painful at first attempt to filter out the garbage our short life wants to dump on us through accepted and required hypnotics.  Does not need a chemical to result in addiction. Took a couple months to get over the TV withdrawal symptoms, but free now and way better off for it.  Forces me to make better usage of life when not vegetating over the next episode of "Days of our Foot".  Can't argue however with the materials they use to suck you in.

John