Amp Interference/Noise in Studio....Help!!!!

[shady656]

I am finding that all of my guitar amps are picking up a repeating. almost fast-tremelo like interference. If you have your car radio set to am, it picks up the same patterned "whu-whu-whu-whu-whu-whu-whu"(about 3/sec) as soon as you pull into the driveway (about 100 feet from studio). It's not a 60hz ground-loop thing, it's not the alarm, the dog fence, there are no major power lines, etc. Anyone ever have this???? Any suggestions would be appreciated

[snaggle]

Cell phones?

[maxserg]

Does the guitar have hum-bucking pick ups?

[Lee Blaske]

Do you have CRT computer monitors? They could be causing the problem. Try turning them off, and see if the noise vanishes.

Another common interference problem (although it usually doesn't make the kind of noise you're describing) can be caused by various transformers throughout the house. These could be wall warts for anything you own (cell phone chargers, answering machines, etc., etc., etc.), or they could be transformers hard wired into your house wiring (like a doorbell transformer, transformer to control heating and AC, etc.).

If it's not the computer monitors, the next step would be to kill all the power in the house at the main fuse box, and see if that makes the interference you hear on your car's AM radio go away. If it does, turn the house power back on, and switch off individual circuits one by one until the noise vanishes. When you isolate things to a particular circuit, it should be relatively easy to track down.

If you have a portable AM radio, you could also roam through the house with the radio and see where the signal/interference is strongest.

Lee Blaske