MASSIVE RADIO INTERFERENCE !!!!!!

[Cookie]

Hi guys my name is Matthew Seed from the UK.

I have just bought a Mesa Boogie Mini Rectifier and 2 X12 vertical slant cab. First of all i just want to say what an awesome amp this really is, the best sounding amp i have ever owned…….and i have had a few !!!

I am really desperate for some help however and i wondered if you could help. I live near four 400 foot tall radio masts that transmit signals apparently off shore to submarines. These masts are basically about 3 or 4 houses away in distance and for years now they have interfered with the different amps i have owned, some more than others.

After setting up my new Mini Rec i powered her up and the interference is massive, its like a constant white noise kinda sound with the faint sound of somebody giving out some kind of co ordinates etc…….all very fascinating but its driving me insane !!!!!

I appreciate its not a fault of the amp but after going on a lot of different forums for this problem i am left not knowing what if anything i can do, a lot of guys spoke of attaching some kind of electronic component to certain parts of the amp etc but i know nothing about all this and i don't want to tamper with it. I even had one company tell me you can buy paint that stops low frequency RF but you have to seal the entire room and paint ever part, then earth it etc.

I have tried everything to do with the guitar i.e a different one etc and swapped out all my leads and also tried just going straight in……and all different lengths of lead too. All these things do make differences in the amount of interference but never anywhere near stopping it. The thing i have noticed is that different lengths of cable in the effects loop doesn't make much difference but anything to do with leads in the front end really does.

The single biggest difference i made was i used to have (guitar into tuner out to the input), so i was using 2 cables. I then got rid of the tuner and just used one cable (cutting the cable length in half) in the front end and that made a massive difference. So now i can't use a tuner up front and certainly not a way pedal !

If you could help in any way i would really appreciate it. I have been playing for over 20 years and this along with my new PRS was meant to be my dream rig and it now sounds like the 'Gorilla' amp i got when i was 16………except that didn't give me a weather forecast as i was playing !!!!!

Any help would be deeply appreciated
If it helps at all here are the Ariels: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNAS_Inskip_(HMS_Nightjar)

Matthew Seed

http://www.instar.uk.com

 

[Chester]

Hi Matt

Sounds like you need short cables with the highest shielding spec possible. I had similar radio interference on my rig, albiet not from a radio mast as powerful as the one in your area, and changed both guitar AND speaker cables to studio specs

Cost significant money, but worth every penny for a quiet life. Strings Direct do a good range, if you have trouble locating the right quality

Hope this helps

 

[Cookie]

Hi Chester

Thanks for the response, much appreciated. Do you know i have swapped cable again and again the length issue I have looked into i now have a 5ft cable......which makes it very hard as it means i have to sit right next to the amp but it seems to work best. I use all planet waves cables. Are you talking about a quality above this.....if so then any particular brand ?

I have seen these premium cable that sell for a lot of money but read mixed reviews of there RF repelling propities.

Matthew

 

[Chester]

Morning Matt

I was also sceptical about the snake oil claims of the more expensive cables, but found that Monster Studio Pro 1000 3ft speaker connection, with Monster / Planet Waves Custom pro or American Stage instrument cables work for me. Trial and error means I have a kit bag full of spare leads which I cannot use in the studio without noise, but all I can say is that this set up works for me

RF will attack the weakest link in any chain, so I connect 2 pedals out front with short Monster patch cables - but that's it in my rig. I don't use the FX loop, and try to keep things simple. Look also at your pedal power source - I use a Fuel Tank Chameleon to keep pedals quiet

Great website BTW - album sales doing well?

 

[Cookie]

Thanks so much for that. I keep reading about the Monster cables and reading good things, i guess at the end of the day if i buy one and it doesn't stop the problem ive still got a great cable.

However last night i had dome amazing happen !!!!!!

I pulled out every cable i own, like you that is a fair old pile. They are mainly all planet waves really but also there is a few non marked ones, cheapies from the old days. I thought, "what the hell i may as well try everything......ya never know"

I found something that has completely baffled me. I unplugged everything from the amp, just my guitar and amp and one cable going in.......i then worked my way through all my cables, i have done this before but not with my old ones. Sure enough all the new plant waves cables had all the same results (big crackle/fizz/RF etc) then i reached for a braided DiMarzio cable and plugged that in.......Silence !!!!! No RF or crackle or Fizz ! I was gob smacked and confused in equal measures, if anything this was a cheaper cable. The only thing i could think that was different about it was that it had a chrome metal collar around the cable jack end. So then i reached for a quite long patch cable that i know to be very cheap but that has the same chrome metal ends and the same thing.....silence !!!!

So now i am thinking that it must be the metal ends somehow, i'm guessing its maybe something to do with grounding me to the amp or something like that.......i don't know much about all this but i really need to know why its doing it so i can sort it.

The other really interesting thing is that i have four pedals in the loop too all with planet waves and they are adding some crackle/fizz/RF too. So just as an experiment i swapped to 'to' and 'from' cables for these two metal ended ones and......silence, even though the tiny patch cables connecting each pedal were still with planet waves.

So, now i am confused and really happy at the same time. If you might know Chester (or anyone) why this would be doing this i would appreciate it like you can't imagine.

Matthew
p.s Chester thanks for the word on my website. The album is going OK thanks we have it on Bandcamp now which works pretty cool but hasn't really sold us any albums on there yet.......feel free !