Picking up radio frequencies on my guitar amp!

I don't know if this belongs in this section, but I have a Crate GFX-30. I asked the Crate tech online and he wasn't much help.

 

Try changing the polarity of the a/c plug - there might be a polarity switch on the amp to do this.

Otherwise, I've gotten excellent AM reception through my guitar pick-up when I was using a faulty cable.

 

Faulty cable, hm? I am at work, but I'll look for the switch. If that's not the prob, what kind of cable would you recommend? Or are you talking about the cable to the outlet?

Thanx

 

Probably your guitar cable(s). Although I had a friend with an early 70's Fender tube amp that picked up an AM radio signal all on its own!

 

When I had a similar problem, I would get AM radio when I plugged my Gretsch bass in to my amp. It didn't happen with any other guitars.

It turned out to be a faulty ground problem with the guitar.

There's a small chance that it could be a short in the guitar cable.

Can you try a different cable and/or guitar and see if it still happens?

John

 

I only have one guitar. A Strat. I have tried different cables. Do you recommend any cables? How would find the grounding problem in the guitar or solve it?

Thanks for everyone's advice, BTW.

 

If the ground cable inside the guitar isn't soldered correctly, or came loose, this would cause the coils in the pickup to act like an AM antenna.

It could be a matter of unscrewing the nut holding the jack, and gently pulling the jack out of the guitar - you may see the problem right there in a loose wire which should be soldered to the ground - which would be the outer terminal.

The problem might be on the pickup end of the wire, so it might be better to have a guitar shop take a look at it.

It's not an involved repair, and any competent tech should be able to diagnose it in a few seconds.

As far a quality cables go, I haven't found them yet!

 

I use Pro Co music mover 1205x excalibur cables. Not cheap, but I didn't have to pay for them. These are by far the quietest cables I have ever used.

 

Thanks guys. I will take the guitar to the shop and have 'em take a look-see.

 

Check out George L cables.

You make them yourself, takes less than two minutes. They have special jacks for Strats & 90 degree ones for SG, etc.

There are two types, go for the thicker one for the guitar, thinner for your pedal board connections.

The beauty of these are you can make them as long or short as you want.

If the end gets pulled out, take a one-sided razor blade, slice off a little, put the jack back on, screw it down and your back in business.

I've tried many cords over the years, I would not buy anything else.

You will also hear a much clearer tone with these.

Guitar Center (Doh!) has them. Buy 20 feet and two jacks and I'll bet you go back and get more!

Joe

 

I've had this problem with phono amps an easy solution is to wire a 10pf cap across the input to ground. What this does is to run all radio frequencies to ground at the input.

 

Hey, at least you're in good company. A recent CD release of a live recording, "Jimi Hendrix Plays Berkley", clearly has Jimi's guitar picking up some kind of walkie talkie in Hey, Joe!