Help!...my Mark V is picking up a French radio station!...

[screamingdaisy]

Does it pick up the radio station with your instrument lead unplugged?

 

[discordance_axis]

Have you tried moving the MKV to another location? Is there anything placed near the amp that could be acting as some kind of radio transmitter?

Does it do it with the guitar plugged in but the volume rolled off? If so then it's probably the cables / guitars.

Maybe try a different speaker cable too?

 

[screamingdaisy]

The the cable is acting as an antenna. I've had it happen with various amps and there's not much you can do about it besides trying a cable with better shielding or moving to a different spot. Radio signals are weird and sometimes moving as little as a couple feet will solve the issue.

 

[screamingdaisy]

You're pointing your finger in the wrong direction.

The amp isn't picking up radio signals... it's simply amplifying what's being fed into it. All amps will do it, however more gain will make it louder.

 

[DWAKO]

Mine does the same thing in certain locations, there was one show I had to turn the stand by on in between songs because the radio signal was so loud. It happens every now and then, but I havent had that problem in a while.

 

[bcdon]

I'm not picking a fight with you over this btw :wink: ... its just that having spent nearly two grand on what is supposed to be the ultimate amp, the last thing I expected was this to be happening. I think we guitarists put up with a lot of crap and issues with our gear that would be simply unacceptable in other industries... can you imagine buying a two grand top of the line audiophile hi-fi tube amp only to find it picks up crappy long wave radio while you are trying to listen to your fave music!?

It's the nature of the beast. Do you have a cell phone? GSM perhaps? Ever leave it near a microphone and heard noise ('dah..dah...dah.'). The microphone is picking up your phone communicating with the tower. Move your amplifier around a bit, you might be able to find a null spot.

 

[nomad100hd]

Sounds to me like there is a cold solder joint in the amp, cold joints work as radio tuners . Could possibly be a bad tube.

 

[Mrjason]

I would first reseat your preamp tubes. A dirty tube pin or loose connection between the pin and socket could act as a source of RF inerference. Google search RF interference and tube amps and you'll find all sorts of weird causes.

 

[dbone]

While miced up recording in a studio one day my Tremoverb all of a sudden erupted with a loud radio conversation which we assumed was a local Ham radio operator "who knows".
We recorded it and used it as sound effects in the song. Crazy but I love when stuff like that happens in the studio just total random. We were never able to isolate it and it only happened once. We just turned it around and used it in the music.

 

[guitarp77]

lol the same happened to me...

It is picking up radio stations in all the 3 channels, but if I move the amp it gets better.

Guess is too much "high fi" amp for this room since the other amp I had (Laney) never had this issue.

But still, nothing to be worried about :mrgreen:

 

[Deanriffs]

Hey there, everybody. My first post...

Ha - my Mark IIB picks up a Polish station, probably from the north side of Chicago. My Mark V also started picking up radio as well sometimes. It seems like it happens with my Strat more than guitars with humbuckers.

I'll have to try moving my phone or turning it off to see if that affects this. Same with cables.