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goatee
02-07-2008, 12:09 AM
i am picking up 102.7 fm through my speakers.
i do not have an fm tuner in my pc
all wires are secure and not loose at all.
no programs running.... i also re-booted. still playing.

it is playing very low, but enough to hear it. (and drive me nuts)
:doh:
when i open volume control, it has no effect on it, up or down.
i can even hit "mute" everything on pc is muted, but the crappy music plays on!! :hangum:
only those from metro det. will understand that one.

so,,anyone have any ideas?????:confused:

Carl C
02-07-2008, 07:17 AM
I guess you're lucky 102.7 isn't Z-Rock anymore:smash:.That's a weird problem though.:eek!:

WingWing
02-07-2008, 09:14 AM
keep moving them around and see if you can get the playboy channel:wink:

goatee
02-07-2008, 10:12 AM
niiiiice

zelatore
02-07-2008, 10:35 AM
The problem isn't in the PC, that's why the mute or volume controls aren't doing anything.

You were on the right track checking for bad connections. Somewhere the wiring running to the speakers is just able to act as a reciever. You'd be surprised how little it can require to make a basic reciever in some situations. Basically a piece of wire to act as an antenna and a bad connection to act as a diode hooked up in just the right way and it happens. It's usually AM channels, but it can happen with FM too (AM is a simpler format to recieve).

If worst comes to worst, try some tin-foil wrapped around the wires to act as a sheild.

Right after collage, a friend of mine worked at a small radio staion in Indiana. They had the transmitter on-site, and in the building EVERYTHING acted like a reciever. They became very creative at shielding stuff, but never got rid of it entierly.

Me, I just thought it would be cool to climb the tower. Never got the balls to go more than about 75 feet though...Don't know what I though I was going to see up there anyway. One corn field pretty much looks like another...

goatee
02-07-2008, 11:08 AM
you know,, i was getting ready this morning and i started to break this down. "what is a radio?"
receiver more specifically.

two metals in contact with one another,,,(pretty much all i know for certain) thanks to hogans heros!!

so it would HAVE to be the wiring.

harbormaster
02-07-2008, 11:22 AM
This phenomenon is known as "radio frequency breakthrough interference". It occurs because the speaker leads are acting as an antenna and picking up the radio wave, converting it to an electrical signal.

There is then some kind of nonlinearity which modulates the radio wave, producing the audio component. This could be, for example, a corroded joint acting like the crystal in a traditional crystal set and rectifying the radio frequency signal, producing an audio frequency signal that makes a sound when it passes through the speaker.

The following short article may prove useful to you:

Solving Radio Interference RFI Breakthrough on Computer Speakers
http://www.stevelarkins.freeuk.com/computer_interference.htm (http://www.stevelarkins.freeuk.com/computer_interference.htm)

goatee
02-07-2008, 09:39 PM
excellent.. thank you

MOP
02-08-2008, 08:05 AM
Not 100% sure this will work in your case but I had a similar problem with some radio gear years back, what I did was to wind some thin strand telephone around the the speaker wire and then grounded the end to the radios chassis.

Phil

Formula Jr
02-18-2008, 06:12 PM
I had some very high-end 4 ohm speakers while attending college and off campus. I thought the freaken apartment was hunted or something, cause in the middle of the night I'd hear this quiet "Breaker 10, Breaker 10." It had me freaked for a while till I figured out it was coming from the speakers even with the stereo powered off. It was all the truckers going along the nearby freeway with outlaw CB signal amplifiers. The EM energy was being picked up by the spider coils in the speakers. It was enough to make the cones move and make sound. Kind of an interesting concept in a way, to be able to pull energy right out of the air to make mechanical work.

zelatore
02-18-2008, 07:02 PM
And to complete the loop, this ties in perfectly with Poodle's 'how does my cordless toothbrush charge?' question over on the off-topic thread...somewhere around page 15.