preston@fortune.UUCP (Carol Preston) (08/10/84)
I have recently moved into a new apartment. Whenever I turn on my
stereo there is a radio station in the background. Admittedly my
stereo isn't the best (It's one of those with a receiver, cassette
player and turntable built all together), but it suits me fine, and
it is driving me crazy!
It's a foreign station, sounds possibly russian, but I don't know russian.
There is alot of talking, and once in a while they play music for about
15 seconds.
It doesn't matter if I have the cassette player, radio or record player on,
nor does it matter what I have the volume set at. It's always the same!
I tried to see if there was any AM, FM or TV station that was playing this,
and there wasn't. I tried plugging it into a number of different plugs
around the apartment, and it didn't go away until I used a couple of
extensions cords and plugged it on the other side of the apartment.
Of course this isn't a practical solution.
Does anybody know what could be causing this? If so, what practical solutions
are there? Thanks for any help.
--
Carol Preston
UUCP: {sri-unix, amd, hpda, harpo, ihnp4, allegra}!fortune!preston
DDD: (415) 594-2691
USPS: Fortune Systems Corp, 101 Twin Dolphin Pkwy, Redwood Shores, CA 94065newton2@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (08/13/84)
My first thought is that you're being victimized by conducted RFI via the power line or line cord of your stereo. This is suggested by the persistence of symptoms regardless of which source is selected, and appears virtually confirmed by your own discovery of the solution- re-orient (not necessarily in an Eastern direction :->) the power cord, bunch it up, stretch it out or the like. Wrap it in aluminum foil; ground the foil; unground the foil. Judging from your net address, you probably are not a namby-pamby risk-aversive sort, so pluck up your entrepreneurial courage and try grounding some prominet metal part of your system to the AC power ground. Your AC isn't grounded in any obvious way? Your entry-level stereo doesn't have any metal parts? Oh. Well, you might make a tape of the Russky-babble and take it to your local NSA office- maybe they'd like to rid the either of the interference. ;
briand@tekig1.UUCP (Brian Diehm) (08/15/84)
{}
Actually, if you are in the North/Central Calif area, there *IS* an AM
radio station that broadcasts in Russian - cultural stuff. This probably is
what you are getting. I have heard the station on my AM tuner in Lake Oswego,
just south of Portland, OR, albeit faintly with noise. Curious, I listened
long enough to ascertain that the station DOES broadcast call letters in English
and that the content of the programming seems to be White Russian/immigrant
cultural - I caught many religious references. I also don't speak Russian, so
they could be fooling me! :-) Their call letter announcement also identified
their locale; though I don't remember precisely I believe it was in Marin Co.
I don't *THINK* it's a Communist Plot! There is a small Russian immigrant
community in the region that dates WAY back - 1700s or so.
As for how to fix it, this knowledge won't help. But at least you'll
know to follow the same general procedures as others who are near AM sources -
I believe one person in this newsgroup, discussing house wiring for speakers,
mentioned he once lived 2 blocks from an AM station. Perhaps this individual
would be able to give us all pointers on fighting interference - CB and AM in
particular?
-Brian Diehm
Tektronix, Inc.