• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

My speakers are talking to me!

R

Russ

Lifer
The satellites on my ACS-48's are talking! Sounds like somebody on a CB radio. Scared the crap out of me when I heard it coming from the office. This ever happen to anyone else?

Russ, NCNE
 
The wires are acting like radio antennae due to incomplete shielding. Quite common. Try folding them to a minimal length or change the orientation. That should minimise the problem (or simply change the frequency you're getting LOL).

BTW, there might be someone in your neighbourhood with an illegally powerful CB. There's a limit to the allowed wattage.

Jamming (Bob Marley & The Wailers)

 
If you have an RF adaptor nearby and a radio set to a low frquency, you can hear what the RF adaptor is transmitting on the radio. Could that be the case?
 
Denis,

The wires are very well shielded and I've had the set in the same location for over two years. This has never happened before.

AMD,

Nope, no radios around. Besides, I could hear the guy say "break". Only got one side of the conversation, though.

Russ, NCNE
 
Like I said, you probably have a new neighbour with a CB that is too powerful. Those things can even permeate the magnetic cartridge and arm wiring in a turntable if the wattage is enough, giving you some funky sound.

Sick the cops on him! 😉

My Hometown (Bruce Springsteen)

 
It could be many things causing it but the cure is to shield the speaker cables. Your coaxle cable from cable tv could be leaking off rf interfernce now or could be traveling through the power or phone lines. Using rf high and lowpass filters and torrid coils will fix the problem.

Rain
 
My speakers do that all the time... yeah, it freaked me out at first, but you kinda get used to it. It seems particularly bad at that corner of my house too... the problem doesn't seem to be as pronounced in other areas.
 
That happened to my old roommate about 2 years ago. We moved into a new house, and he had just set up his stereo. The whole thing was powered off (and not even plugged into an outlet) and we heard an entire conversation. We thought it was a CB, but no one knew for sure. Never happened again.

You want scary? When I first moved into my current apartment, I used to be freaked out when the TV would turn itself on and off w/o reason. Imagine waking up at 4:00 AM to the television blaring when no one else is home. Finally realized that it must be a signal coming from the helicoptors that are always landing on the hospital up the street; only happens when the blinds are up.
 
It is a CB. I live about a mile from an Interstate that is a favorite route of truckers and my system lights up like a christmas tree when one of them transmits.

Some of those boys are running linear amps on their CBs so they can talk to the astronauts 😛

Seriously, the linear amps will cause your speakers to pickup the CB signal.

-t
 
There was a guy across the Street from me once who installed a large cb antenna...he was also running equipment out of spec of regulations of the governing body (FCC?)...his voice came over every piece of electronic equipment in the street...lets just say the antenna wasn't up for long 🙂
 
It's called common mode RFI, radio frequency interference. Dennis had it right, somebody in the neighborhood is blasting out with the CB. Your speaker wires are acting as antenna's and feeding the picked up signal into the system amp. The cure is to shorten up the speaker leads, wind as much as you can up into a coil and tie the coil together with twist ties or cable ties. The speaker leads are probably cut at the factory to a length that is resonant at 27-28 Mhz. Do this to the power cord as well. When you shorten them up, away should go the problem.

If that doesn't work the next step is to run down to the local Radio Shack and purchase a pair of toroidal cores. Wrap the wire around the cores as above.

If that doesn't work we're talking about fundamental overload, which means somebody real close is running a CB way out of spec and the signal is being picked up directly by the amp.

I have the same problem with my Ham Radio transmitter. On one particular band my speakers go nuts. I shut them off when I'm operating on that band.

 
The speakers that came with my Aptiva (an old one) did that. You could hear a radio station thru it. Often I would hear opera or church music thru it. But it was at a low volume.

My Cambridge PCWorks and the Microsoft DSS80 don't exhibit that behaviour though.
 
Speaking of electronic interference . . .

While watching TV (via antenna), I get weird waves on screen if the dvd player is on. They aren't there when I'm watching a dvd. What could be causing this?
 
<muffled raspy voice emitting from your speakers>: &quot;I'm going to kill you....&quot;

Is that what it sounded like? 😉

BTW, once I got the police CB channel on my TV on accident...weird stuff! They were talkin about a dunkin donuts on fire and to send the whole squad over to rescue it...😉 hehe jk but i did hear the police channel on my tv!
 
I live about 2 blocks from one of the larger radio stations in central MN and used to get that station over my Cambridge PCWorks set. It was barely audible, and after moving my office to the basement don't get that anymore.
 
I'm with Red Dawn or Ratkil on this one. Either you guys are smoking some good stuff, or you are overlooking something.

Speakers and wires alone CANNOT pick up and playback CB radio noise.

If you think they can, you need to learn a little bit about how radio comminications works.

When transferring signals accross radio waves, you have what is known as the carrier wave and then of course the signal. The carrier wave is a fixed freqency waveform that acts like a transferring wave for your signal wave.

The signal wave rides piggyback on the carrier wave. The carrier wave cannot adjust it's freqency, but it can adjust it's amplitude. By adjusting it's amplitude, it can superimpose a signal wave on top of itself...

Without extra signal decoding hardware, speakers and their wires themselves CANNOT &quot;decode&quot; the signal frequency off of the carrier wave.

The only way your speakers/wires could pick up stray EMI and make voices out of it would be if the waveform being picked up by the wires was the actual signal waveform NOT superimposed on a carrier wave. However, this would require the signal to be varying frequency in the audible range (but in the radio part of the EM spectrum). I'm certain CB radios don't work that way. They use a set band of carrier frequencies... What they are I'm not too certain, but I'm sure any ameature radio enthusiast could tell you.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top