Amps picking up radio waves - any way to stop it?
 

Alright so I'm an amateur guitarist and I do a bit of recording and stuff in my house, but I live on a new street where a lot of new houses are being built. I've noticed that when I record, my amp picks up the short wave radios that contractors use (at least, I'm guessing that's where it's coming from). I get a ton of static, and a few occaisional voices. It happens with every cord I use, every guitar (even with the guitar not plugged in). It only happens with my Roland VGA-7 amplifier, only when I'm recording onto my computer (although I've had other amps pick up radio signals in the past).

Does anyone know someway to stop an amp from picking up radio waves, short of telling everyone in the nieghbourhood to turn off their radio? Any suggestions are welcome.

Quite a lot of THIS applies here.

http://www.musicbanter.com/talk-inst...tml#post821760

Obviously thats all about pedals, but electronically, most of what I said about shielding applies here too. Also, make sure your amp is well grounded.

aluminum foil around your input jacks. it looks like hell but it works. super simple too. just take a sheet and ball it up around the end of your cable and force that mess into the jack.

Thanks for the feedback guys. I managed to get rid of the noise by unplugging my laptop from the powerbar while recording into it. But I'll def look into those other suggestions is it happens again

I don't know why you'd want to stop it. I used to be able to listen into next doors phone conversations at one point...OK it's a little creepy...I have no plausible or justified excuse I can put here =(

picking up radio on guitar amp
 

As caretaker in a school I was asked to set up microphones for an event in our school hall.It involved extending the microphones which plugged into sockets on the stage down to the centre of the hall.I used a length of coaxial TV cable to extend the microphone cable to where it was needed.I had used this cable previously at another venue to extend the microphone points successfully.This time however I picked up a radio station loud and clear.I checked the microphone plugged into it's original point and it worked perfectly.Plugged it back into extension cable radio worked loud and clear.After about an hour I found that by using a different length cable to connect into original plug socket point the system worked without any radio station breakin.Plug back in first cable radio loud and clear.Conclusion I had matched the radio frequency length perfectly with the total length of the microphone cable used so that when I altered the length of the cable it did not match any radio frequency and so the amp setup worked perfectly.Remember a radio reciever is an amp which has a tuner which changes the length of the ariel to match the station being recieved.The old valve radios long ago (Ireland 40ft of wire ) used an exact length of wire set between two insulators to pick up the radio station. There was only a fine tune adjustment to improve the reception.So anyone picking up radio reception on any form of amp needs only to change the length of wire between mics or guitars to stop the radio signal length being matched.This worked for me when using a microphone.If signal length is 103.4 all you need to pick up this signal is a length of wire 10.34meters or 103.4 meters or 1.034meters.hope this helps

Yeah, it's more than a little creepy, i can't honestly say i wouldn't though haha.

This actually works? I'll have to give it a try.